I am battling a ferocious, ugly, and horrific monster. The creature lurks in every area of my life, always waiting for the right moment to pounce. It has deep piercing eyes in which it can look into my soul and know just the right time to strike when I am least expecting it or when I am at my weakest point. It has a forked tongue in which it whispers just what I want to hear. It leads me down a path with promises that I so desperately want to hear, only to leave me drained, overwhelmed and discouraged. It has a long tail that wraps itself around every aspect of my life. I find the evidence of its presence everywhere I look, at home, at work, in my car, and most especially on vacation. This evil creature has long talons that reach deep into everything that I eat, corrupting me from within and finding a way to each around my fragile heart and squeeze just enough to get me all stressed out.
This is the last monster. It has one sole purpose and that is to be the destroyer of habits, the crusher of dreams and the one that one that stands between me and my goals. It is the last formidable foe. I have defeated many strong opponents and now here I am standing weak, overwhelmed and barely standing looking at the super villain, the giant boss that I have to defeat to progress. He is not moving, nor is it going to give up. It has defeated me many, many times and now I am standing here the day after Thanksgiving with only one life left.
Luckily for me, I know this foe pretty well. I know where it hides. I know what forms it takes. I know when it likes to strike and what pattern of attack it takes. I have defeated many foes on the way to this final battle. The last one was brutal, it took me several years to finally defeat it. However, I finally got the best of him. That ugly dragon was viscous indeed. His name was Caffeine. This final monster is named Refined Sugar.
Refined Sugar may seem sweet, nice, and beautiful on the outside. You see that is part of his game. A chameleon of many colors hiding out in every food substance you can find. He is subtle taking on many different names, shapes and disguises. He provides you with a lot of energy quickly, adding volume to what you eat, but replacing all the important nutrients, fibers and valuable minerals. He appeals to everything we want as humans. Something quick and easy, something fast with little effort. Quick satisfaction without having to work on it much. Your body gets more then enough quick burning carbohydrates, in fact it gets way too much. However, it is quick and easy.
The damage is insidious. You end up eating way too much, way more calories then you need because the sugar has been refined, condensed, everything else removed until all you have is the pure sugar molecules that your body can burn easily. This causes your blood sugar to spike and stay spiked causing all sorts of problems. You end up eating way too many empty calories causing you to gain excess weight, get inflamed and cause your internal systems to work too hard. The refined sugar replaces all the valuable nutrients that natural sugars come with. Vital minerals, fiber, proteins, and fats. Things your body actually needs. You even get more dehydrated lacking essential fluids that come from natural foods and are definitely missing important electrolytes needed for proper cellular function. Refined sugar is created by breaking down a high sugar content food substance like corn, beets, sugar cane or something similar. It is melted down, and all the non-sugar parts are removed and all you are left with is a syrup that is then added to your foods or dried out into a crystallized form. When you eat a high refined sugar diet you are eating hundreds of sugar beets a day, but without any of the fiber or anything else that goes along with it.
Just put this on for perspective. The average American eats approximately 48 grams of refined sugar a day. That is the equivalent of taking a teaspoon, putting it in to a bag of sugar and eating it. Repeat that 12 times. That is just the average. Many are far higher than this. An small apple has 19 grams of sugar a day. A little under 5 teaspoons of sugar in an apple if you were to do the comparison. So you can eat 3 Apples or 48 grams of sugar. Eating the Apples is a far better idea because of what they also include! An apple includes not only the natural sugar but also includes sodium, potassium, dietary fiber, vitamin a, calcium, vitamin C, vitamin B-6, magnesium, a small amount of fat and water! If you eat 3 Apples, you will probably stop eating after 3 because you will feel full. Or you can drink a can of soda. It has very little nutritional content (some sodium perhaps) and about 40g of purely refined sugar. One can of soda would take you from your average dietary intake of refined sugars and double it in one can.
All these diet plans out there that are famous now, low carb, keto, carnivore, etc are all successful for many reasons, but the primary reason is the complete reduction of refined sugar from your diet. I can save you a bunch of money right now. Just stop eating refined sugar. Watch what happens. Suddenly your health will improve, you will have more energy, you will get more value from the food you eat. You will sleep better, your gastrointestinal issues will go away, inflammation will reduce and you mood will improve. Amazing how the technology to extract sugar from foods and feed it to us intravenously almost has caused so many health problems.
So, I have yet to defeat this monster. It is the last one that I need to overcome. I have had months where I have been successful for a while, but the monster was not dead. He was lurking, waiting for a moment to pounce. I fell victim to his surprise attack and I am back trying to buy my way through a quick and easy food source. Sorry to break it to myself, but good food requires preparation. Get over it. Refined Sugar is killing me. Time to defeat the monster once and for all!
Guy Reams
