Sugar

The other night I watched a documentary That Sugar Film (2014) by the Australian Damon Gameau. Years before he filmed the movie, he embarked on a healthy lifestyle: quit smoking, stopped eating sugar and junk food, started exercising, etc.

After he had been living a healthy life for a few years, he decided to see what would happen to his body if he ate the same amount of sugar a typical American eats in a day, which is about 40 teaspoons. Most of this sugar is hidden in savory or non-dessert foods like crackers, salad dressing, pasta sauce and low fat yogurt.

Long story short, he gained a lot of weight in his gut and face, and all of his health indicators (blood sugar, blood pressure, etc.) all tanked. He was tired all of the time and looked like it.

So you would think this would make me want to swear off sugar for the rest of my life, right?

Bizarrely, watching this movie made me crave cookies and carbs, I don't know why. Maybe it made me think about sugar, that it would be safe to eat it in moderation. In the past year or two, I've been really good about avoiding carbs and sugar, and my blood tests and energy levels reflect that. After I watched the movie, the next night I ate a chocolate chip cookie. Then I had some ice cream. I met a friend for coffee and she brought homemade apple spice cake with frosting. I've eaten two scones in the past two days, which are more scones than I've eaten in the past year. I had pasta for dinner tonight.

What is getting into me? Was this movie funded by Big Sugar to act as reverse psychology?

I need to get back on the sugar and carb free wagon. Help!

I am enlisting my friends to help. I recently pawned off two bags of "Hello Robin!" frozen cookies to my friend Katelyn. I had bought the cookies for a holiday cookie exchange because I was too busy/lazy to find a recipe, shop for all of the ingredients and then bake. The frozen cookies were perfect, plus any extra I could keep in my freezer for a rainy day. I can bake one cookie at a time in my toaster oven when I need a little pick-me-up, as my father says. Just-in-time fresh, hot cookies.

I am getting hungry writing about them.

So I gave (most) of my surplus frozen cookie stash to Katelyn. She has two teenagers, who will eat them without a problem.