Diary of A Sugar Addict

January 25th, 2025

Today was a great day!  I finally received my EB-A7 pills in the mail, which were delayed by the snow as well.  As a reminder, this is the medical food that my podiatrist suggested to reduce inflammation.  It is vegan, allergen free, and dye free.  Most importantly is loaded with turmeric curcumin and other ingredients to help stiffness and pain.  Perhaps it was the placebo effect, but I had my greatest yoga class yet.  I felt looser and, most importantly, pain free.  I am still far from the most flexible person in the room but sometimes I might look like I know what I am doing.

A week ago at yoga, someone was telling me about how magnesium had been helping him sleep but also had the added benefit of keeping his muscles loose.  After doing a bit of research, I landed on getting some Magnesium Gycinate, which is less likely to cause digestive issues than other forms.  Magnesium Citrate can help with bowel movements, but I don’t need support there.   I also am a good sleeper so I just want something to keep the tension out of my muscles.  Apparently, the combination of turmeric (a natural anti-inflammatory) and magnesium (a natural muscle relaxer) is well recommended.

Inspired by my yoga session, I headed to the Vitamin Shoppe to see what I could find!  I purchased a bottle of pills made with sunflower seed oil, sunflower lecithin, and beeswax.  It is supposed to help with energy production as well.  I left and met Ashley for lunch at the Daily Beet, where I had a lovely quinoa based breakfast bowl topped with an egg, avocado, and chipotle flavoring amongst other healthy things.  Surprisingly, I only had half the bowl.  I am noticing the healthier I eat, the less I eat.  My body is no longer overeating because I am getting enough nutrients from the food that I am eating!

Ashley also purchased an all natural black bean brownie.  The sweet ingredient was maple syrup.  I tasted a bit and it was quite good.  However, I have not explicitly stated a rule about maple syrup. Being all natural and coming straight from a tree, it does have minerals, antioxidants, and vitamins.  While it has a lower glycemic index than table sugar, it can still raise blood sugar.  So I guess it can be allowed, but I want to be careful with it.  I could easily see myself developing a sweet tooth all over again which would defeat the purpose of all that I am trying to do.

With the sun breaking out and feeling good about everything, I took a long walk with our dog Duke later in the afternoon.  It’s probably the first time in over a year that I walked the entire neighborhood which takes about an hour to circulate.  I ended the day by heading to St. Pizza – which has the best pizza in town by far!  The restaurant had an hour wait time so we grabbed two slices each to go and enjoyed them with a nice glass of red at the associated wine bar next door.  Perfect ending to the day!

January 24th, 2025

We ended up with three more snow days Wednesday, Thursday, and today as we were waiting for temperatures to rise and snow to melt.  I could have written the same blog from January 21st three days in a row so opted not to write the last two days as there was nothing new to share.  However, I did have a moment where I tasted a little almond butter thinking it was all natural.  I immediately thought this is great and dug in for another spoonful but paused enough to read the label.  There was indeed some added sugar.  It just goes to show how powerful the substance is.  Nearly a month later my brain was lighting up like a Christmas tree at just the hint of it.

Today cleared up enough for me to pick up my annual health screening report from the doctor’s office.  I just needed a signature for my insurance form, but the data was from my pre-surgery visit on November 1, 2024, so I have decided to use that as my baseline data.  I am 100% sure I did not get healthier between then and December 30th when I started going sugar-free.  So here it is.

Height- 6’2  Historically,  have been 6’3 so must have shrunk a bit

Weight- 210 lbs- Highest I have been

Blood Pressure- 117/71- Not awful

Total Cholesterol -181

Tryglycerides- 192

HDL Cholesterol- 46

LDL Cholesterol- 104

Fasting Blood Glucose- 87

The report I can pull online also says, “Overweight with body mass index (BMI) of 27 to 27.9”.  My college rowing weight was 185 and I was all muscle so clearly I had become 20 to 25 lbs overweight.  My height hides it well but the truth is in the numbers.  I am confident that I have shed 5-10 pounds of that since the no sugar diet started but the gut remains.

The bigger problem is the cholesterol.  In 2023, my triglycerides were at a sky high 360 mg when a normal value is less than 150.  The doctor prescribed me Pravastatin to help reduce the cholesterol, which I took for about a month.  I never want to be beholden to that type of pharmaceutical drug. I knew what the issue was.  I was getting pizza from Whole Foods every day for lunch and I am sure it spiked my triglycerides.  It is easier for a doctor to push a pill then tell me to change my lifestyle though so that’s what we get.  Without taking the medicine, I dropped from 360mg to 192mg so on the right track. 

My Non HDL Cholesterol dropped from 150 to 135mg but is supposed to be less than 130 mg and the doctor told me he wanted my LDL Cholesterol to be less than 100 mg.  He also told me he had never seen someone achieve that without medicine but I was free to try. Damn right-  Challenge accepted!!!  Let’s see what I can do this year.  By the way, doctors also told me lipomas don’t go away- mine did.  And for a longer story, I was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis when I was around 30 which is a condition that does not go away.  I was put on 9 pills a day- which I stopped of course and have not seen any signs of it in nearly 20 years.  I know it was stress that caused it- I hadn’t taken a day off of work in a year or so at that time.  So let’s see what a healthy 2025 without big pharma can produce!!

January 21st, 2025

Today, we had snow in New Orleans.  Real snow.  For context, the last time, we had measurable snow was in 2009 which was 1/10th of an inch.  Before that,  the most accurate recorded record was 2.7 inches in 1963.  Today Orleans Parish received nearly nine inches of snow so as someone who grew up in the northeast, today was a true nostalgic treat.  It’s also a gift to so many in New Orleans who have never seen so much snowfall!  It also means that we are home all day for the next few days with no city plows or salt trucks ready to roll in our city.

What I learned today is how much of a food vacuum cleaner I am.  My family likes sweets but they are not addicted like I am.  Ashley will buy something for the taste.  She rarely if ever wants all of it and her sweet tooth is satisfied after just a little bite.  Saja is the same way.  This is where I realize that I have come in.  Having no high standard or discerning taste buds in any real manner, I come behind them and finish off whatever is left behind, especially if it is sweet.  For the last 23 days, I have not been doing my job as the waste repository for excess sugary delights and the problem is now compounding.

There is still that nicely wrapped oatmeal cookie on the counter waiting for someone to eat it.  Saja’s friend brought a beautiful chocolate cake this weekend, which still has slices on the cake platter. There are at least two types of gourmet cookies in the pantry.  There are still those tempting chocolate chips and granola laced with enough sugar that I do not dare eat. I know all of these things because I walk past them all the time and while I might not have eaten sugar, I still open the pantry and look in the same spot by force of habit.  Finally, and most tempting of all, is a bag of chocolate covered almonds.  

Pun intended- I am a nut for chocolate covered nuts.  As a baseline, Peanut M&Ms have been one of my go to snacks for years.  It is the perfect travel companion at the airport.  It is the perfect little boost of energy in the afternoon. I think there is less guilt involved.  Sure I had chocolate but there’s a healthy nut in the middle!   Chocolate and peanut anything may be my favorite sweet combination of all time.  In reality though, it’s just the most accessible combination.  Any nut with any chocolate is a snack that that I find irresistible.  So when there is a bag of artisan chocolate covered pecans from Maggie Lyon chocolatiers, I am in real trouble. In an attempt to help me, Ashley told me that they weren’t that good.  However, that translates in my brain to, “Feel free to finish the bag!” or “You would be helping me by eating them.”  That’s been the cue to indulge!

Given all the temptations, I just kept eating other things.  I did make a nice pot of vegetarian chili to enjoy on the snow day so that helped.  But I have to find a solution to this mounting problem of sugar temptations slowly accumulating all around me! 

January 20th, 2025

I love the dentist.  Often people are surprised when I say this but I truly look forward to going.  I actually find it relaxing.  I can lean back in the chair, I don’t have to say or do anything, and I love the feeling of clean teeth walking out of the office. I even like the scraping part- get rid of all that plaque!  I guess I know I am getting something beneficial for my body and that feels good.  I don’t care that I am 48 either- I still like getting my little bag with a new toothbrush and some toothpaste.  I asked my dentist a few years ago how often they recommend getting teeth cleaned.  The answer was four times a year but insurance only pays for twice a year,  which is why we have normed to that standard.  It is truly sad that insurance companies dictate so much of our health.   However, I try to go every three months.  

Truth be told though, it’s probably necessary with the amount of sugar I was consuming without flossing.  I have always been a formidable brusher.  I will brush twice a day religiously but flossing- that’s a once or twice thing right before I go to the dentist just so my teeth and gums don’t look so ridiculous.   Of course, they know I don’t floss because my gums are always swollen and tender to the point that they bleed when flossing.  My constant hard brushing doesn’t help the situation either.

It’s a miracle that I have never had a cavity given my addiction to sugar.  I credit that to several things.  1. My parents were like clockwork taking me to the dentist and I was lucky enough to have a good dentist who did plenty of fluoride treatments growing up.  2.  I think I am a bit lucky with the DNA on this one.  3.  Aside, from my twenties, I have constantly gone to a dentist for the last 20 years.  4.  I was fortunate enough to have some preventative caps on my molars-  Someone was wise enough to say- you are at high risk for a cavity- let me try to stop it. 5.  I always brush. The real irony is that I will probably lose all my teeth one day because I brushed out my gums.  Apparently, the gumline doesn’t grow back- so I guess I messed that up.

Only being 22 days into 365 sugar free days, I don’t think I impressed the dental hygienist with my clean teeth and healthy gums.  Although not hearing a compliment like, “Your teeth look great!  What have you been doing?”, I mentioned that I had stopped eating sugar.  She kindly indicated that there was no change.  But I am confident.  I found this on Colgate’s website here.

The World Health Organization (WHO) suggests there is a direct relationship between the amount of sugar one consumes and risk of cavity development. They recommend limiting sugars to less than 10% of your total dietary intake and aiming for 5%. Why? Limiting sugar is a positive step in improving overall health and is vitally important when it comes to preventing tooth decay. Sugar is a food source for plaque bacteria in our mouths and contribute to enamel erosion and tooth demineralization; the first stage of tooth decay.

So I have three more months to go back and see what progress I can make.  Every time, I walk out of the dentist, it’s a new opportunity to reset and do better!  And given the paragraph above, I don’t need sugar to ever touch my teeth.

January 19th, 2025

So clearly the goal of writing every single day did not happen!  It’s funny how one little thing can throw off everything.  There’s always a chain reaction with these things and it has now taken me five days to get back into a rhythm–well at least I should be in one by the end of today,  The good news is that I remain sugar free and, quite honestly, each day becomes easier to say no to sugar as a result, although Saja’s homemade brookies were calling my name.  They looked outstanding!

Nonetheless, the last few days were not without their adventure.  Wednesday, the 15th I was able to catch up with two old friends who were in town for a retreat.  We met up close to 8:00 at night and hung out for a few hours.  I decided to do yoga before that so,  needless to say, by the time I got home, I had no energy for writing, push-ups, guitar or any other good routine I had begun.  I ended up getting a lovely portobello sandwich- I wouldn’t mind being vegetarian.  As I fully extract sugar from my body- it seems to nudge me toward other healthy decisions.  The sugar detoxification efforts certainly make a big greasy burger less appetizing.  Furthermore, while I committed to not giving up beer in the name of a sugar free diet, the appeal of that is slowly fading away as well.  I had two social beers but it was the bold flavors of the portobello that continued to resonate in my mouth.  The beer didn’t add anything, maybe it detracted.

I did catch up on my push-ups  Thursday morning and again in the evening to keep that trend going,  but had unrealistic aspirations of carving out enough time to catch up on the missed blog and stay current on Thursday.  I came home after work and cooked a vegan tofu za’atar dish with herb yogurt sauce. It was ok, and sadly I don’t know what I did with the rest of my evening.  So there was no excuse for not writing or being more productive.  I think once that chain of consistency is broken, the effort it takes to get back on track feels more monumental than it probably is.  There’s a good lesson in that though too for me and a nice warning to keep saying no to  the sugar.  There is no guarantee I will get back on track.

Friday, I decided to play tennis and had quite a scary moment.  While my podiatrist has cleared me for all physical activity, I know the full healing from my surgery will take 6-8 months.  I was loose and relaxed and playing decently.  My opponent- LOL, who is my friend, hit a short ball and from the baseline I pushed off hard on my left foot to spring toward the ball.  Immediately, I could feel something tear in my foot as pain spread from the middle out to my toes.  And, of course, with all of my extra effort, I didn’t even return the shot. 

 This was on January 17th, precisely one year after I damaged my tibial nerve in that same foot during a tennis match that led to all sorts of issues culminating in surgery.  For a brief moment, it seemed as though 2025 was going to be a sad repeat of 2025.  With all the negative thoughts spiraling through my brain, I finished the set (we were close to the end) and left the court for others to keep playing.  At home, I took some extra curcumin turmeric, some extra EB-N5 (for nerve damage), and Celecoxib, another anti-inflammatory, and went to bed depressed praying that I had not just blown $3000 on surgery and that I could walk without pain when I woke up in the morning.

My foot felt better in the morning so I decided to test it at yoga where I am sure the heat helped loosen it up and stretch it.  I left confident that 2025 was not going to be a repeat of last year!  Thank God!!!  I am sure that there is some scar tissue on the inside of my foot from where the plantar fascia was cut.  My best guess is that I restretched it and maybe reopened it a bit, which wouldn’t be the worst thing.  I just need keep a good compression wrap on it, especially when I play tennis- and make sure I keep on stretching.

I finished Saturday with a lovely meal with Ashley at a local Ethiopian restaurant called Addis Nola.   We ordered a vegetarian spread on injera which included lots of lentils, greens, cabbage, and beets as well as a beautiful fried whole red snapper.  No dessert was calling my name and for the first time in a long time I left a restaurant not stuffed to the max.  It’s as if that had been my previous goal at every nice meal out to empty the wallet and stuff the belly as full as it can get.  Last night was a different feeling of lightness- At 48 years old, I am learning I can enjoy something without overdoing it.

And that brings me to today, where I am back writing again, still sugar free, keeping my push-ups with not broken yet in 2025. 

January 14th, 2025

Yesterday, I wrote that my desire for sugar had all but disappeared.   I found out today that they lurk right beneath the surface waiting for a weak moment to strike again.  I guess that is the way with temptation- it will always find a way.  Once it knows it can come in the front door, it starts looking for a back door to sneak inside.  The mistake I made was waiting to have lunch until about 2:45.  I had several meetings back to back and decided that I could last around 10:30 until I got back to the office around 2:30.  

As went to get my lunch from the fridge, the two leftover Sprites that my Secret Santa gifted me before winter break were staring right at me and speaking to me. “Drink me.  It is only the polite thing to do.  It was a gift after all and it would be rude not to.  Think of how she would feel after the extra effort and thoughtfulness!”  I turned around and the remnants of the King Cake for the week were right there.  “No one is around.  You haven’t eaten all day.  That lunch won’t satisfy you!”  I thought that the King Cake was right for a moment as I flirted with the idea of descending to Whole Foods to get a more exciting option than my leftover pasta from several days ago.  But I held out!  A little hot sauce can fix a lot of food and thankfully there is always a bottle in our kitchen area at work.  This is Louisiana after all.

The lesson here of course is that I must remain vigilant.  Tomorrow I will have to apologize to my friend and put the Spites out for the community.  I need to find ways to have access to fruit and other healthy options throughout the day.  I must remind myself that I like the way my body is starting to feel and sugar is antithetical to everything I want to accomplish.  It will make me slower, fatter, stiffer, lazier, more prone to every disease on this planet, decay my teeth, and poorer.  Yes, I swear I am spending less money on food these days–unhealthy sugary delights add up!

The last little anecdote here is that I have decided to add one more activity to my routine.  I have never really cared about lifting weights and bulking up, I would like to do a little something for strength in the upper body.  So last night I did five push-ups and today I did five more so I have decided it is a thing. At least five good push-ups each night.  I can do more but no less.  Even if I am bone tired, do five push-ups.  I know you are thinking that is pathetic and you might well be right I have zero aspiration to try to know out 50 or a hundred a day.  It seems like a tedious amount of work for something I care little about.  That being said, they do have to be 5 slow descending, nose literally touching the ground, and slow ascending push-ups.  I can play around with it from there.  I know I will stick with it and and fairly confident that 5 real pushups will do something for me.  So that’s the evolving plan- no sugar, lots of turmeric, and 5 pushups.  Let’s go 2025!

January 13th, 2025

It is truly remarkable how fast the urge to go for a sugary dessert has altogether disappeared from my mind.  I noticed the semi-sweet chocolate chips in the cupboard today and had zero temptation to grab a few.  I am quite sure that I still eat too much but healthy choices lead to healthier choices.  While I can’t blame sugar for the lack of discipline in all areas of my life, there is no doubt that its presence in my system affected all aspects of my life.  Each good decision I make, I know, has a ripple effect on both my body and mind. 

As for my body, my progress in yoga today proved that Saturday was not a fluke.  I was feeling more confident and relaxed, more control over my body but with a greater ease of effort.  Progress in yoga is made in millimeters and each day is different.  The pose that was easier yesterday might be harder today and for another pose, just the opposite.  I can confidently say that I have become a stronger practitioner of yoga than where I was one year ago, despite all the injuries, challenges, and sugar intake of 2024.  So that feels good to have fought through everything and not entirely regress but even make a little bit of progress.

Besides sugar being removed from my life, I credit the curcumin turmeric I take daily as another key to my health, increased flexibility, and less painful life.  There were times in 2023 and in the start of 2024 when I could not straighten my back, particularly after days following a good tennis session.  Tennis, as a high-impact sport, can be really hard on the body.  Sadly, I always embraced the stereotypical male athlete’s mentality to power through it.  I certainly brought that energy to yoga when I first began, as if these poses were things to be conquered rather than experienced.    

The curcumin turmeric that my podiatrist prescribed (Check it out at Further Foods) changed my life overnight as I briefly mentioned in Day 13.  As a brief anecdote, several years ago I noticed a small lump where my left shoulder meets my neck right above the collarbone.  It was visible and noticeable to none but me.  I thought it might have been just a strain or muscle thing but it persisted and gradually was growing bigger to the point where I noticed its presence.  I brought it to the doctor who of course sent me to a specialist who declared a lipoma, a non-cancerous fatty lump right beneath the skin.  I was told they don’t go away on their own-  I am learning doctors always say that.  I researched it and couldn’t find any natural remedies, but I was still too cheap to pay for a simple and common surgical procedure to get it removed.  Within a few months of taking that turmeric, it disappeared.  There is no other explanation because nothing else in my life changed.  A lump that had been in my neck for years gone like that.

 I continue to take it today post-surgery, and I will start to take an even more powerful plant-based version called EB-A7 from a medical food provider called EBM Medical. Right now, I take about 2000 mg of Turmeric daily and this will increase it to about 2250 mg with additional properties to make my body absorb it even faster.  I can’t wait to see what happens. 

January 12th, 2025

Last night we celebrated Saja’s 17th birthday at a wonderful Indian restaurant, LUFU NOLA, which she selected for the occasion.  By all measures, it was one of the finest dining experiences we have had since coming to the city.  All the food was exceptionally prepared and the service was fantastic.  Avoiding sugar on this menu was relatively easy.  I am sure I would be a healthier human just by rotating through their menu on a regular basis.  However, I have not discussed bread on this blog before and LUFU had three types of amazing bread on the menu.

The first was just a classic naan bread, a leavened flatbread cooked in a Tandoor (or clay oven) and served as a staple in every Indian restaurant, the perfect accompaniment to some curry or lentils.  They also had a garlic naan, which we ordered and it did not disappoint.  The other type of traditional bread is Bhatura, which they advertised as a “puffed bread and semolina”.  What they didn’t advertise it as, as Wikipedia describes, is a” fluffy deep fried leavened sourdough bread.” Tit conjured up hints of fried dough from a carnival, just a much lighter version so despite promising myself just to taste it, I found myself going back bite after bite and eventually going for the last bits of the garlic naan as well.  

Today, I certainly felt a bit more sluggish and slow which begs the question of sugar and bread.  Bread contains carbohydrates that break down into simple sugars (glucose)  in your body and can cause a spike in blood sugar, particularly white bread.  Sourdough bread has a lower glycemic index and takes longer to digest to is better than white bread.  Sugar is a much more concentrated source that is rapidly absorbed by the body, thus the sugar “rush” and inevitable subsequent crash.  So while sugar is clearly worse than bread, I think it will be important to recognize how to handle bread while I am on this journey.

In changing any habit, it is nearly impossible just to stop a habit.  Most often, a habit is being replaced by a different habit, and hopefully a better one.   Authors Charles Duhigg and James Clear have written extensively and compellingly about habits so I won’t expound too much here.  The simple idea is that I have developed a pattern, or cue as they would call it, to get something sweet after a meal.  I need to replace that with a different choice.  So far my replacement behaviors have been apple with peanut butter- not bad or chips- not good.  Last night, it was finishing off the Bhatura and Naan bread.  While a step in the right direction, an even better replacement behavior would be a walk with the dog or a cup of tea.

So for now, while my sugar cravings have certainly reduced the number on the scale, as proven today at the gym- even after tennis and the sauna- have only slightly moved.  More work to be done for sure!

January 11th, 2025

I feel like this morning I had a bit of breakthrough!  As a reminder, I started 2024 with similar goals and aspirations.  After a New Year’s yoga session, I joined a local yoga studio and started participating in the 26 and 2  hot yoga series.  26 yoga positions and 2 breathing exercises in a heated room.  I started the year strong but this all changed on January 17th, 2024 when I injured my left foot playing tennis with a painful tarsal tunnel syndrome and eventually chronic plantar fasciitis.  Despite my best attempts, no amount of yoga was going to heal the tibial nerve damage I had encountered.  While I did attend classes throughout the year, it would be hard to say that it became a consistent practice with all the injury breaks I had to take.  No being a master of any of the positions, I am quite sure my poor form had exacerbated pain levels as foot issues led to back problems.

Yet before all of this, I have historically been as stiff and inflexible as they come. With all the tennis I was playing, it seemed to just be getting worse.  My dear wife would kindly suggest that I need to stand up straighter as I was beginning to mimic a hunchback.  But sometimes I just couldn’t straighten my back fully without enduring transitional pain.  While I have always loved athletics and considered myself an athlete, I had begun to move like a decrepit old man at times.  This included putting on my shoes- which I could only do sitting down.  Touching my toes-  I don’t think that has ever been a thing since I was 8 years old.  Even when I was captain of the Crew team in college, this was a challenge, particularly in the groin, hamstrings, and lower back.   In hindsight, I am sure my lack of flexibility held me back in many ways.

So I started yoga in 2024 as a way to offset some of those challenges.  I can’t imagine what these instructors saw when I started trying these poses.  Credit to them for not just laughing out loud.  Today, though, was easily the best yoga class I have ever had.  One of the more challenging positions is the Standing Head-to-Knee pose (Dandayamana Janu Sirsasana).  Courtesy of www.dimensions.com, this is what the pose looks like:

To be fair that is not what I looked like- far from it..  However, for a brief moment, my left leg was perfectly straight AND my extended right leg was perfectly straight as I stood balancing there.  Whoa, I thought- it is happening!

So what does all of this have to do with sugar?  Simply put, sugar is an inflammatory food- although drug would be a better description of what it does, in my humble opinion.  According to Harvard Medical School, (seemingly a reliable source), 

“Consuming too much added sugar can raise blood pressure and increase chronic inflammation, both of which are pathological pathways to heart disease.”

To achieve the looseness and flexibility I desire, I need anti-inflammatory foods.  A great example of this is turmeric.  My podiatrist prescribed me curcumin turmeric last year before we decided to schedule surgery and while it didn’t fix my foot, it sure as hell fixed my back pain overnight.  (Turmeric will get a whole separate post!)  For the first time in my life that I could remember, I could wake up and touch my toes.  It was such a glorious moment that I went around work and home all day showing people that I could touch my toes like a crazy person!  “Look, I can touch my toes!”

However, the real problem is that sugar ultimately offsets and destroys every other positive thing I am doing for my body.  It’s like pouring ranch dressing all over your beautiful salad or having a smoke after taking a run or, specifically for me, putting spoonfuls of brown sugar on top of oatmeal.  So playing tennis, doing yoga, and taking turmeric, were, at best mitigating the damage I was doing to my body with sugar.  And at some point, sugar is going to win.  It’s like going to the casino- the odds are not in your favor.  Eventually, you will lose your money.  Eventually, your health will be destroyed.  It’s just so damn hard for some to get over the “Cha-Ching” they experience at the slots or, in my case, the satisfaction that comes with every bite of a glorious oatmeal raisin cookie.

January 10th, 2025

It gets easier! I think I am getting a bit strong and the sugar cravings are going away!  It doesn’t mean I don’t think about it though!  Today, we had a leadership retreat and I knew there would be lots of good food!  This was today’s menu:

• Chicken and sausage gumbo
• Seafood Etouffee with rice
• Creole okra and tomatoes
• Corn maque choux
• Cornbread muffins
• Bread pudding
• Sweet Tea/Lemonade
• Veggie/Vegan: Roasted Sweet Potato Salad with Green Chilis, Scallions, Celery, Red Peppers, and Fresh Cilantro tossed in spicy Caribbean Jerk Seasoning

On a typical day, I would have dabbled in the sweet potato salad, had a solid helping or two of the etouffee and/or gumbo with the cornbread on the side,  and indulged in at least two full helpings of bread pudding all to be washed down with either or both the sweet tea and lemonade. 

I prepared by bringing my water bottle knowing neither drink option would work and I decided to stay away from the cornbread, just to be safe.  Cornbread can truly range from sweet and moist almost cakelike consistency (my favorite) rather than a dry tasteless texture so I decided in advance to stay away from it, just to be safe.  Odds are in New Orleans, it had some sugar.  I took a bit of the sweet potato salad and opted for the etouffee today in a truly modest-sized bowl.  I did go back for seconds of the etouffee but that was the extent of my greed.  During the last retreat in December, I ended up gorging on some Mexican cookies so much so that the lovely food service staff was trying to send me home with more. Today, I avoided eye contact with the bread pudding. Okay, I glanced but I definitely didn’t stare or walk away in disappointment as if I were being punished by not being able to delight in it. So that’s real progress.

What I also noticed today, and am noticing more and more, is that food is taking on different flavors. The sweet potato salad was a delightful explosion of flavors in my mouth and the ettouffee had a lovely rich texture to be savored.  I have decided that sugar is a taste bud killer.  The more you eat it food eventually falls into two categories.  1. Sugar  2.  Everything else.  Well, I believe my suspicions have been confirmed.  I just did a quick search and found this on the Fitness 1440 Website.

“Over consumption of sugar can change your taste buds and if things no longer taste like how you remember them, sweets may be a reason for that. Your taste buds might be damaged from eating too much sugar when you eat other foods the lack of the sweetness causes them to taste bad. Your tongue will develop a tolerance and you will need more to satisfy your cravings, resulting in other foods tasting bad.”

While not a medical website, I would venture to guess that I am scientific validation enough to prove their theory true.  The other thing the site mentions is our propensity to eat more as we ingest more sugar.  This we know to be true.  Our bodies simply crave the appropriate nutrients to help them function well and properly.  When the foods we eat don’t contain enough of the proper minerals and vitamins, a signal is sent to our brain telling us to consume more in hopes that we might actually ingest something it needs. 

While I certainly have not mastered the art of eating less–  I did buy and consume two small bags of SmartFood popcorn after swinging by the grocery store today for some black beans and salsa- I am hopeful that discipline will come in time and each day I resist the temptation of a glorious bread pudding, I am a step closer to living a fuller and more disciplined life in all areas.  I can’t wait to see where this journey takes me!