Funny you should ask. Day before yesterday I sat down with my laptop in the afternoon, while my toddler napped, to do some work. Accompanying me was a box of Smarties. I told myself I deserved this chocolate bar (for those in the US, candy bar). It was an extra leftover from Easter that hadn’t made it’s way into my son’s Easter basket. And so I ate the whole thing, 2 pieces at a time. When I was done I felt really disgusted at myself and slightly physically ill. So much sugar! Why had I done that? And I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
Now I am far from being the type of person who really watches what they eat, but I do have my limits. Thankfully I love eggs and so I incorporate them into my diet everyday, I’m not a lover of fast food or pop really, I try to watch my portion sizes etc. But something about inhaling that entire box of Smarties got me really thinking about sugar. My life’s obsession with sugar.
I thought back to when I was a kid and could never get enough sugar. Although sweet treats were not plentiful in my home and due to the fact we lived half an hour from town on a farm, we weren’t able to walk to a convenience store or gas station any old time we wanted and get our sugar fix. Although I didn’t really let that stop me. I recall times where I would pour a small amount of white sugar right on the kitchen table, maybe two tablespoons worth, in a little pyramid and just licked it right off the table. Or I would go out to the barn and pop a couple of sugar cubes in my mouth, meant for treats for the horses. Had I no shame?
My parents drank coffee each morning, plus one cup each afternoon and then again another cup of coffee before bed and after each meal, tea. As soon as I got to the age where they would let me, I would partake in this as well except I didn’t take mine black. I added three to four teaspoons of sugar to each cup of coffee and tea. I wasn’t consuming ALL the coffees and teas they were, it was maybe twice in a day at that time. But I think I drank the coffee and tea, just to get the sugar.
I remember when I was seventeen, after graduating from high school, I had a job working with people who had disabilities and often part of that job involved taking them out for coffee in the evening. I don’t know why, but I precisely recall sitting in this one restaurant with this one gentleman and ripping open and pouring in EIGHT packets of sugar to my black coffee.
So now fast forward thirty years. I’m sitting here feeling disgusted because I just inhaled a box of Smarties and so I started googling and reading about the effects of sugar and how to begin a life without it. There are some pretty crazy extremes. And I’m not an extreme person. I’m a middle child who always fancied herself as middle of the road when it comes to anything, although reading about my sugar intake over my life so far might scream otherwise.
What I’ve decided to do is not just read food labels for grams of fat or calories, I mean not that I do that anyway really. But I’m going to hone in on sugar. I’m going to eliminate or at least cut down on some of the sugar I put in my mouth each day. Change up the yogurt I eat. I’ve cut down the sugar I put in my coffee each morning. This morning I went from two teaspoons to just one, yay me. And the concord grape jelly I used to slather on top of two inches of peanut butter on toast each morning, I’ve replaced with “no sugar added” raspberry jam. It ain’t no concord grape jelly but it’ll do. Oh and I way cut down on the amount of peanut butter I spread on my toast this morning.
I will continue to make these small changes going forward. Luckily, I’m pretty vain and so the added pounds as the years tick by, really do spur me to try and keep my weight and my habits in check. I know that my metabolism isn’t what it used to be and that if I don’t make these positive changes I will begin to hate the way I look and not only that, I do not welcome the health problems associated with it.
bloom.planted.north 
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