Quitting Sugar
All my life, I’ve known people who quit sugar – not forever, in most cases, but they were going to try. They wanted to lose weight. They wanted to get rid of pimples. But I didn’t want to lose weight and I didn’t care about my pimples. I thought I had a free pass on sugar. I could have dessert any night I wanted. I could make cookies whenever I wanted.
About 4 years ago, I noticed my knuckles bulging. But they didn’t hurt. They just looked funny. I didn’t think it mattered. About 4 months ago, they started hurting. I bought cat’s claw and drank some every morning. And again during the day if my knuckles stabbed me.
About 1 month ago, I read my AARP email newsletter. In it an article said that most of arthritis pain is from sugar inflammation. The article said it would take 6 weeks of no sugar to notice an effect. I immediately quit sugar, honey, agave, anything except fresh fruit that tasted at all sweet. Within 2 weeks, I was in less pain. At 3 weeks my hands felt almost normal. I was still taking one dose of cat’s claw every morning, but never during the day or evening.
A few days ago, I didn’t read the label. I used an old jar of pad thai sauce. Pad Thai doesn’t taste sweet to me. I didn’t think it could have sugar in it. Within 2 hours, my hands were in pain. I drank a glass of water with 18 drops cat’s claw extract. My hands calmed down. The label said this sauce was 38% sugar. Yipes! I only put a few spoonfuls of the sauce into the pad thai. I had made enough for 4 people. So half a spoonful of a sauce that is 38% sugar is enough to cause pain.
Years ago, I went through all my cookie recipes and removed 1/3 of the sugar. My husband wanted some gingerbread cookies. I cut the sugar in half again, and substituted honey for the sugar. Honey is not sucrose. It’s a combination of glucose and fructose. I used my small cookie cutters. I ate one cookie. The pain was minor. Honey is not sugar. I used to eat two cookies. I used to use the big cookie cutters – the mermaid, the two-headed gingerbread man, the big rabbit. Now one small cookie with 1/3 the original amount of sweetening is pushing my limits. It’s not something I’d eat every day, or even every week.
But I have discovered that fruit smoothies fill my urge for something sweet. I make those every day. I don’t crave cookies or other desserts. They are no longer part of my regular diet. My husband, the alien, has taken to buying extra candy bars for himself. I can look at them in the fridge and not want even a nibble. It’s not the fear of pain – it’s that they truly don’t appeal to me any more.
I thought quitting sugar would be hard. Thanks to fruit smoothies, it feels like I’m eating what I crave. Yay for my blender!
Comment
-
Comment by Geezerchick on March 9, 2013 at 5:26pm -
I only learned about sugar making arthritis hurt from that AARP article. In my case, even a small bit of sugar causes a huge amount of pain. It's nice to be free of it.
-
Comment by Shelley Smith on March 9, 2013 at 4:41pm -
I did not know sugar would make arthritis worse.
-
Comment by Geezerchick on March 8, 2013 at 9:35pm
-
Linda, try it! The fruit smoothies are the trick. I put in a slice of pineapple (peeled but not cored) an orange, maybe an apple or pear or piece of banana, a handful of kale, and enough water to let it all mix. Whirrr with the blender. Seriously -- I was brought up with chocolate as a food group and I don't miss it. Fruit smoothies satisfy the sweet craving. Then again, this is such a change that I needed the motivation of pain to get me to try it. It's great that it works!
-
Comment by Linda Seccaspina on March 8, 2013 at 6:49pm -
I wish I could do it. You are my heroe
-
Comment by Geezerchick on March 8, 2013 at 6:43pm
-
Werner, I love red pepper. I think I've had my last black forest cake. So long as I get my fresh fruit smoothies, I don't want cakes and cookies.
-
Comment by Werner on March 8, 2013 at 6:23pm -
I honestly never understood the sugar craving thing, I can honestly say I never have (I like to pretend that I'm sweet enough and don't need more sugar). My issue is hot food, I love it, my wife cringes when she watches me giving the pepper mill a good work out (I had an electric one, but can't afford the batteries, they just don't last), she can't figure out that I can go through that much Tabasco sauce and in a restaurant, whenever the waiter shows up up with the pepper mill, she has that look, trying to tell him/her "run now, your arms will never be the same", I usually take pity on them when I see beads of sweat forming on their brow.
Back to sugar, my idea of desert (although I love Black Forrest cake, providing it has the proper amount of Kirsch) is to have another steak, slice of roast or whatever roasted or barbecued animal is offered, rather than some sugary concoction that makes me gag, because its just, well, so damn sweet.
ZoomerWire
Groups
Report Abuse
Please post on Zoomers with courtesy and respect; Zoomers has a zero tolerance policy on hate speech; racism, insults, or posts to malign, defame, abuse, threaten, or harass others.
Click here to report Abuse to network administrators.
Click here to read our community guidelines.
Privacy
Zoomers.ca is a public space. Keeping our site public makes it so your content can be found via search engines like google and shared on other social media websites, attracting new viewers and readers to your original content. By default anything you post on zoomers.ca can be seen and searched for by others online.
If you would prefer to keep your content (blogs, photos and videos) and profile private you can change your privacy settings to reflect who you want your content shared with.
© 2013 Created by ZoomerStaff.
You need to be a member of Zoomers to add comments!
Join Zoomers