Being Mindful With the Munchies, and Learning to Say No to Sugar

It has been one week and one day since I began the concerted effort to be better to my body. Using MyFitnessPal, I am tracking my food intake—an exercise that has been a true wake up call. By tracking what I'm eating, I have discovered how much I was over-eating. If one is not careful, it takes no time at all to rack up 2,000 calories in a day much less 1,500 or less, which is my target. I'm measuring now, paying attention to serving size. Instead of bringing the box of Reduced Fat Wheat Thins to the table as I write this, I counted out 16 of them—a serving totaling 130 calories—and snacked. Normally, I probably would have mindlessly munched hand to mouth until half the box was gone. Half the box would be 585 calories. .. as a snack. No. I get a serving.

My usual diet has never been too bad in terms of what I ate. I love fruits and vegetables, rarely drink sodas, and go easy on the meat. I'm not overly keen on fast food, though I'll absolutely admit to loving pizza and falling prey to a few chicken sandwich combos, which can be worse than a traditional burger. But most of all... most of all... I love carbs and sugars. Bread, crackers, chips, pasta, cookies, cakes, pie, candy—I want it all. What I've discovered is that carbs and sugars are like a drug for me, and having them only makes me want more of them. This realization came just as the San Francisco Chronicle featured an article about researchers argument that sugar "should be highly regulated with taxes, laws on where and to whom it can be advertised, and even age-restricted sales." While such an approach may seem extreme, I do agree that more must be done with nutrition labels to increase public awareness of sugar intake. Overall, nutrition labels are too small, too innocuous, and purposefully deceitful. Candy bars and cookies are a wonderful example. Nutrition labels are tucked under packaging flaps, and while calories are listed, they are listed per serving and only upon closer inspection does one realize that a serving is one cookie or half a candy bar. Who eats only one cookie or half a candy bar?

A problem with sugar in particular is that it's sneaky. The 170 calorie breakfast shakes I bought kick in a whopping 17 grams of sugar of the 24 grams that MyFitnessPal has set as my intake limit. The clementines that I love so much and eat two of at a time contribute 13 grams of sugar (at least it's natural) with 80 calories. The fruit and cereal snack bars I bought each have 9 grams of sugar, though only 90 calories. The oatmeal cereal itself has 9 grams and 250 calories with skim milk, but the Raisin Bran, the sneaky sneaky Raisin Bran, has 17 grams of sugar along with its 230 calories with skim milk. Consequently, I have been vastly exceeding my daily limit. The good thing is that by tracking what I'm eating, I'm learning what I'm doing right and where I need to work on improving.

Being Better to My Body: Day 1

I went to the grocery store yesterday. I spent $114.08 (but saved $32.55 thanks to in-store discounts). My list reads as such:

Kellogg's Raisin Bran $1.93
Kellogg's Raisin Bran $1.93
Quaker Oatmeal Squares $3.00
Quaker Oatmeal Squares $2.42
Mount Olive Garlic Dill Pickles $1.44
Mount Olive Polish Dill Pickles $1.44
Arnold Healthful Nutty Grain Bread $2.98
Laura Lynn Splenda Knock Off $2.48
Extra Apple Pie Gum $1.08
Bass Ale $11.97 (for the hubs)
Daisy Light Sour Cream $1.38
Smart Balance Spread $1.88
Smart Balance Spread $1.88
Skim Milk $2.73
Weight Watchers String Cheese $4.18
Yoplait Light $.75
Yoplait Light $.75
Yoplait Light $.75
Yoplait Light $.75
Purina Dog Chow $12.48
Air Freshener $2.88
Air Freshener $2.88
Frozen Chopped Spinach $2.50
Frozen Chopped Spinach $2.50
Morning Star Black Bean Burgers $2.98
Morning Star Garden Veggie Burgers $2.98
Clementines $6.98 (splurge!)
Berry Boost juice $2.50
Green Goodness juice $2.50
Smart Sausage Italian Style $3.00
Smart Sausage Chorizo Style $3.00
Tamari Almonds $3.62
Blueberries $2.50
Blueberries $2.50
Mushrooms $1.98
Edamame Beans $.85
Eggplant $1.55
Organic Baby Carrots $1.98

For good measure, let's take the beer, dog food, and air fresheners out of the equation, which lowers the bill by $30.21 for a total of $83.87.

Am I worth $83.87?


This question gives me pause. My immediate response is, "Depends on how long that $83.87 lasts." The amount represents 10 percent of my bi-weekly take home. Let's assume that I'm a creative cook with a few things already in my cabinet. Let's assume that I will have to make at least one similar trip to the grocery store and one more at half the cost. At an estimated cost of $210 for the month, groceries will have taken up 13 percent of my take home pay. I spend 24 percent of my take home pay on my half of the mortgage (the hubs and I do our banking in a somewhat complicated arrangement that works for us). The great Jimmy Buffet once sang, "You treat your body like a temple; I treat mine like a tent." And it is with that line in mind that I have decided to be at least half as good to my body as I am to the place it inhabits. In other words, as of today, I am spending the money and making the effort to eat right.

My last post was a cathartic wake-up call to what can only be described as my food addiction. Eating right is no matter of rocket science. There is no great veil of secrecy as to its means and its end. Cheetos = bad. Raw veggies = good. Drink more fluids. Avoid the trans-fats. Watch those carbs and sneaky little calorie bombs like sodas, nuts, and juices, but remember that there is room for most things in moderation.

It is the moderation part with which I have the most difficulty. Once upon a time, I went vegetarian for two months as a self-selected research subject for a graduate paper I was writing about the environmental impacts of our dietary choices. For the record, the average American diet requires the production of a ton and a half of carbon dioxide-equivalent—comprised of carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases—compared to a strictly vegetarian diet, say University of Chicago assistant professors of geophysical sciences Gidon Eshel and Pamela Martin. Even as a vegetarian, I struggled with moderation. I've always had a love affair with bread, crackers, chips, potatoes, pasta. And it doesn’t matter if its whole-wheat, fiber-enriched, low-fat, baked whatever if you eat the whole damn bag of it. Calories are calories. My weight swung back and forth: up seven pounds after several bagels and then back down to where I started, down a pound, then back up three. Eating wasn’t so much an exercise in not eating meat as it was in self-control.

As I again focus on what I am putting into my body, my intent is not first and foremost to lose weight. Being good to my body is the only thing that I can control about my vascular disease, as unlike high cholesterol, it cannot be treated with a pill. Yes, I need to lose weight. Yes, that will probably happen as a result of being better to my body. I'm okay with that. However, the most important thing as I take on this task is to maintain perspective. For me, this is not simply a matter of a New Year's resolution that occurs presto-chango. This is a matter of retraining my body and my soul. It is what Stanford's behaviorial design expert, BJ Fogg, would call an exercise in small habits created to establish a path in life. 

What I am asking for you to do is to join me in my effort to retrain myself. Perhaps you too wish to make changes in your life. Fantastic. Perhaps you don't. That's fine too. It is my hope that making my goal public will give me a greater sense of accountability, and that the public will both support me in my efforts and hold me responsible for my course of action. Will you help me? 

We Are What We Eat

I didn't exercise today—or really any of the days before that. Exercise hurts. It makes me tired. I am afraid of doing too much and hurting myself. I made sugar cookies last night. I used real butter and real sugar. There are no more left today. I had a burger and fries for dinner tonight. The burger had cheese on it. I had a side of ranch for the fries.

I have had triple bypass surgery. I have had a stroke.

Do you blame me for my disease?

Yes.

I would not expect you to do otherwise.

You do not understand my disease. My disease has no known cause and no known cure. And despite my having made decisions not to sweat off my calories consumed and not to eat smart, the fact is this—my disease manifested when I was a scant 95 pounds, horseback riding six days a week, and eating next to nothing because the pain I experienced upon eating was too much to bear. My disease, though vascular, does not involve plaque, or heart attack, or obesity. My disease is the result of abnormal cell growth within the artery. There is little I can do about it. The only thing that I can do is take good care of my body. And there's the sticking point.

In 2005, surgeons bypassed my renal, celiac, and mesenteric arteries. My renal artery was more than 90 percent closed off and my kidney was dying. My celiac and mesenteric arteries were completely closed, and the resulting loss of blood flow to my digestive organs caused violent vomiting and diarrhea in addition to burning and stabbing pain so intense that, when not slumped on the bathroom floor, I would pace the floor, my fingernails clawing marks into my palms. The bypass surgery immediately relieved all my suffering. I had spent nearly two decades living with a fear of food and that at any time and in any place, I could become crushingly and seemingly inexplicably ill. The change was so dramatic that I no longer knew my body.

In the wee hours of the morning a few months after surgery, I was parked outside my local hospital's emergency room, crying, debating whether or not to go inside because I had a strange burning sensation in my chest. I had become so used to dealing with pain that I continued to wait, and as I did the antacids I had taken began to work. As the pain subsided, so did my anxiety. Antacids had never made a dent in my old body's symptoms, but my new body, suffering nothing more than heartburn, responded to the chalky pills. I felt stupid. I felt betrayed. Even if my old body caused me misery, at least I was familiar with it, so what was a victory became something new to overcome.

It took me more than a year to become comfortable with my new body, and even then there was the decidedly undesirable side effect of losing control of my bowels while I slept—a raw truth I share because I wish no other patient to feel so embarrassed and alone for as long as I did. Only this year did my relationship with another patient who shares my disease and who had a similar surgery allow me to discover that I was not the only one to experience this effect. It was one that I had been cautioned about upon having my gallbladder removed nine years prior, but it never manifested to the same degree as it did post-bypass. Though physically pain free, my pride was near mortally wounded on more than one occasion.

Within a year's time, I had had surgery, gotten engaged, and subsequently acquired a live-in fiancé. The fiancé and I got married; we got a dog; we bought a house. In 1967, psychiatrists Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe studied more than 5,000 patient medical records to determine if there was a correlation between stress events and illness. They came up with 43 life events and assigned a point value to each. A score of 300 or more points within a year was said to contribute to illness; a score of 150-299 meant a moderate risk; a score under 150 meant little to no risk. I was at 366. (My new husband was not far behind.)

Diagnosed with depression and anxiety as a freshman in college, I was aware of my pitfalls but did not always manage to avoid them, and as my depression and anxiety partnered with so many major life changes, I began to self-medicate. I ate. I ate sadness and despair and shame. I ate fear and envy and blame. I ate inadequacy and nervousness and pity. 

Though still barely within my BMI range, I weighed more than I had ever weighed. In college and pre-bypassm I had shopped in GAP Kids or wore at most a size 2. As an adult, I was around size 4 to 6. I'd crept up to an 8 or even 10. And then, I had a stroke. The stroke a complication of my vascular disease, which as best as the doctors could determine was a blockage or perhaps related to the four cerebral aneurysms they later found. My bypass failed because the diseases' abnormal cell growth had again grown the arteries closed. And so again, I ate. I ate uncertainty and impaired ability and unfairness. I ate guilt and dependency and frustration. 

And I never stopped. 

It would be so much easier if I could force feed a cake directly into my heart and inject gravy directly into my head to fill the voids that are torn into them. Food does not judge. Food does not forsake. Food will never see my vulnerability. Instead I forsake myself, give in to my vulnerability, and consequently judge myself and find myself lacking because I can not, or at least am not, doing the one thing that I can do to help control my disease, which is to treat my body well. It is not a diet that I need. I need a better way to binge, if not for my soul, then upon it.