Cotton Candy and Kids

"Mom?!  Is this cotton candy good for my body?"

"Nope."

"Oh.  I guess I don't want it."  

"You may have it sweetheart, just don't eat it all.  Sweets are okay sometimes."

Teaching your children how to enjoy treats is not easy.

Some parents are much better at this than I.  If there is candy within a 100ft radius, I will sniff it out, and eat every bite.  I do not have a grid for when to stop.  I always want to believe that I will stop tomorrow, but that is a lie.  I love treats and sweets too much, I think that I will always desperately crave them.  And yes, I am eyeing your dessert, please don't ask if I'd like a bite, I will eat it all.

I am a health nut who longs to put only the best things in her body and craves snickers like a crack addict.  Many out there talk about when the desire for sweets subsides, and it does, but for some of us it is really just lurking out of sight.  You never know when, after my day of eggs, avocados, nuts, and countless tons of veggies you'll come home to find me face down in an empty ice cream container.  It's a sneaky bugger.

And I am the person who is supposed to teach her kids about self control.  Me.  It's like a bad joke.  Or tell them not to eat sweets.  When in actuality I want to say, "Yes, cotton candy is hell on your body, but who cares, lets see who can finish their bag first."  I don't do that, I think it, I want to say it, but I just stand there, sharing as much truth as a normal, sane, adult would and let them make their own decisions.

Sometimes they choose to go for the treat and other days they reach for a banana instead.  It's not because I am a great role model.  I'm not, but I do try really, really hard to teach them to make healthy, unemotional choices.  I do my best to do the same.

No, I will not ever be a parent with a candy drawer.  I won't have a candy dish, and if there is ice cream in the freezer, it's only because I haven't found it yet.

I wish that I was wildly controlled.  That I didn't stare too long at the candy next to the check out counter.  That when my son says, "hey mom, we should get ice cream" I wouldn't hesitate before saying no.

I don't always say no.  I just try very hard to say no a few times a week.  I love junk food.  It seems painfully unfair that it should wreak such wretched havoc on my body.  I know it is doing the same to my children and that makes me want to push harder, to be stronger.  

I never want my daughter to think we don't eat certain foods because they will make us fat.  That has never been and will never be the reason.  We are not afraid or concerned with fat.  We are very aware of loving and treating our bodies with value and respect.  We believe that food is medicine and if you want to be healthy, look young, and feel good you need to be careful what you consume.  

While I'd rather be racing you through a banana split, I'm going to sit here, eat my carrots, and try and find as many ways as possible to make vegetables more appealing.  Maybe sneak a hunk of dark chocolate now and then.

Living with sugar. or without.

We all know that I love sugar.  I do, I do, I do.  

I wish my husband shared my addiction.  

I wish I could eat one cupcake.  (not all the cupcakes)

I wish vanilla cream and chocolate did not have a voice.

I wish that snickers were health food.

I wish that donuts grew on trees.  I would be sure to eat only the organic ones. 

I wish that sugar didn't override my 'off' switch.

I wish that sugar could be banned, not sold at stores, not sitting in my pantry, not wafting through the air at the fair.

If only my wishes could be reality.

Unfortunately, I am one of millions of people who live fully addicted to sugar and sweets.

About a year ago I wrote a post, confessions of a sugar addict.  I have to admit I've been shocked at the amount of views that one post gets.  Since so many of us seem to struggle with this, I thought I'd share more about what I am doing to free myself of this addiction.

Last year, I tried ridding my diet of all sugars/sweets.  I managed to do so for about 2-3 weeks, but then fell into a bowl of ice cream and just had to take a bite.

After being off of sugar, reintroducing it to my diet, at first, is met with complete rejection.  I usually can't eat much and it makes me feel pretty sick.  Then, slowly it begins to build -  the need for more.  Until I'm once more groaning on the floor, pulling one more powdered sugar coated eclair into my mouth, barely finding the strength to chew.  Not even tasting it's delicious sweetness.

Have you seen Something About Mary?  No?  Well, I won't recommend it, but there's a sub story about a guy who was off of coke and his friend gets him to take a drink of a beer, telling him of course this won't restart your addiction.  Which it does, because we are all just a moment away from being coke heads - duh!  (Don't do drugs - you will be addicted to heroin if you smoke pot!  yes, I believe this.  It's kept me drug free.)  

Anyway, back to the coke guy - who is also one of my favorite actors - he eventually gets eaten by his python.  

And that, folks, is what sugar will do to you.  It's just one bite between you and python crushing death.

I'd rather live! and be beautiful while doing it.  There is nothing more toxic for my complexion than sweets.  Even knowing this and just imagining what it must be doing on a cellular level, it's been incredibly difficult to keep away from them.

As of today I have been off of refined sugar for 5 days.  Yay for me!!  However, unlike last year I am not doing a complete ban of all sweets.  I will happily indulge in any treat made with honey, grade B maple syrup, molasses, sucanot, rhapadura, or agave.   (I am careful with agave and maple syrup, because both of these tend to cause me to overeat - just not quite to the caramel dripping off my chin - eyes glazed over - state.)

I think we need treats.  They're like medicine to a long day or a special splurge for a job well done.  However, choosing to eat only the best sweets helps hold them in higher regard and keeps us from those very embarrassing moments, such as when you're husband comes downstairs at 2am only to find you in the middle of the kitchen, pie tin in hand with the whole carton of ice cream in the middle.  Oh, that hasn't happened to you?  

Here's to my quest for a healthy body, beautiful skin, organic energy, and invitations to more events - now that everyone knows I won't be writhing ecstatically in the middle of the dessert table.  It's always a little awkward when that happens.

And. . . yesterday at our small group get together - I didn't eat a brownie or lick the pan or sneak one when no one was looking or come home and have a giant bowl of ice cream or take a bite of the whipped cream and chocolate on my husband's frappaccino.  Can you believe my level of self control?!  I am amazing.   If only I knew I were invincible.  But I know I'm really just a sip away from that python's stomach. 

Failure.

Failure seems to be the theme of my week.  Like a red thread through everything I've done, marring and declaring itself in all of my attempts.  We had some wonderful friends over this week and I prepared a labor of love, my mother in laws Italian gravy.  A couple hours later it was complete.  Left to sit and muddle the flavors into the rich sweet scent of tomatoes and garlic.  It was to be enjoyed the next day, but was simmering happily on the stove at a very low temperature.  However, it was not safe from the tiny little fingers of my angel girl who as of yet cannot see eye level with the counter, but oh how she can turn those knobs.  And she did.  The heat cranked up it wasn't long before the putrid smell of burned metal and sauce caused me to race to the stove, lift the lid and be hit in the face with an acidic billow of smoke.  Try as I might it was ruined.  7am the next day I started a new pot of gravy, ending at 130 in the afternoon.

My new gravy now simmering, my house clean, company coming, we went to the park.  It was the only safe place.  We returned with 45 minutes to clean up and get dinner on the table, plenty of time.
  unless. .  .
while upstairs, my little ones moved a chair over to the stove and tried stirring and eating the thick red sauce, which resulted in splatters and goo in a three foot radius.  I pulled them upstairs, cleaned them up, deposited them in their room and finished getting ready.  2 minutes later Avalyn came screaming into my room with soap from head to toe and of course in her eyes.  As I threw her into the tub and was trying to clean her up, Judah came in, laughing.  I lost it.  I started to yell.  Then I went into their room found puddles of soap on the carpet, in their toys, EVERYWHERE!  and I screamed.  I was psycho mommy and I broke my heart.  No I didn't hit or 'hurt' my children, but I demolished my sons heart.  I demolished myself.

I am not a person who gets upset over messes.  They are the hallmark of my life.  Never something to lose yourself over.  But I did.  I let go of myself and yelled at my most precious boy.  The child that I would give my life for.  The son of my heart, my delight and my joy.  In that moment how I appeared was more important than my kids, and for me, that is never okay.   I had forgotten that having friends over to a perfectly clean house with dinner on the table is NOT who I am right now.  I am spaghetti splatters and mess, lots of life and laughter.  I forgot and yep, I failed.

Eric and I prayed over Judah, I apologized, lots of cuddles and lots of tears on my end.  He is okay, still the amazing precious boy as always.  I am doing my best and sometimes my best sucks.

Two nights later, just to make this a full and complete week of failure, I succumbed to my sugar addiction.  Found myself under the table, box of donuts on my stomach, candy wrapper in one hand, whipped cream in the other, or something like that.  Okay, it was the vanilla ice cream that has been in the freezer since I started my sugar fast.  It's been whispering to me.  So I finally gave in, big fat bowl with broken up snickerdoodles, that my kids and I had made that afternoon, covered in hot fudge.  Mmmm.  It was good.  Though on the second bowl I decided maybe not that good and I tossed it.  Yep, I failed.  I was shooting for 40 days and I made it 16.

I should point out that I made it over two weeks, even while at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk and if there's one food weakness I have, it's carnival food.  Must be all the sugar.  I made it through 2 days of smelling funnel cake and corn dogs, ice cream sundaes in waffle cones and huge cokes.  But, I'm not stronger than my husband out of town and ice cream in the freezer.  So, yes.  This week I have failed.

What is failure?  def.  A lack of success.  Isn't it interesting the guilt that tries to sneak in when you don't make a goal?  The sinking feeling that maybe you just aren't good enough.  Maybe you'll never be good enough.  You quit, does that make you a quitter?  You flipped on your kid, does that make you a bad parent?  Sneaky little lies that if you aren't careful could completely trip you up and have you give into where you failed.  I could go nuts and binge on sugar and just blame it on how I couldn't make it 40 days.  I could decide I'm a terrible mom and not try to be better.  I could take my low moments and camp there.  Or I could be really proud of my successes and realize the areas that I need to improve.  I didn't eat sugar for 16 days!  I didn't succumb to carnival food!  That's pretty awesome!  I am a GOOD mom.  I adore my kids and I focus on them and put them first every day.  There is GRACE.

Lessons learned.  In the movie Meet the Robinsons their motto is just keep moving forward.  Failure is fabulous at letting you know what doesn't work.  It shines a glaring light on areas that need improvement.
My highlighted areas this week were:
-I need to be careful in moments of stress and remember that no matter what happens I value the condition of my children's hearts over myself.
-I can't have sugar in my house.  It talks to me.

What I am walking away with here and what is moving me forward:  The unconditional grace that God has for me.  The depth of his love and passion.  His covering, when I fail.  I am moving toward perfection, I'm not there yet.  Every day I'm taking a step closer.  

confessions of a sugar addict.

Few of you may know this, but I love sugar.  Not just sweets or bread or soda, but pretty much if there is sugar in it, I will gleefully imbibe and more than likely not be the best sharer.  I have managed to shelter my children from this addiction as much as possible.  They are rarely privilege to my late night ice cream binges or the skittles and m&m's snuck quietly while they aren't looking.  Occasionally they'll find my stash and I'll share one or two, but remind them that we don't want to eat sweets because it isn't good for our bodies.

Poor Judah is convinced that if he eats too much ice cream he'll be sick.  I haven't meant to make it that taboo.  But, balance in everything is important.  This is one area in my life that I'm striving to learn self control.  Often I'll fast sweets only to binge like the mayor in Chocolat when I let them back into my diet.  And that isn't pretty for anyone.

However, even attempting to allow myself a few treats now and then, lulls me into a false feeling of calm only to realize I've completely stopped eating food, but have managed to exist on coffee, donuts and ice cream for weeks at a time.  This is embarrassingly true.  There was actually a time when I literally did not eat anything but ice cream for a month.  mmmm.  It was a yummy month.  No I did not feel terrible or gain weight.  If I had, I would have stopped.

Perhaps my lack of noticeable side effects is what allows me to so freely indulge.

Therefore, I am making changes not based on my weight or mood swings, but my desire to model a healthy lifestyle for my kids.  Children demand everything of their parents, they expect them to be perfect and it is a hard reality to face when they realize that they are fallible.  I am fully aware of my shortcomings, but I do not want it to be one that cuts off my life prematurely.  Regardless of what I see, sugar is death to the body and I have been slowly killing mine for far too long.

Sob.

A few interesting things about sugar.  It feeds cancer growth, leaches minerals, has a similar chemical make-up to heroin (though it is not considered addictive), promotes heart disease and diabetes, depresses  immunity, feeds candida growth, raises insulin levels. . . and the list goes on.

Sniffle.

I want to be very clear, that I am not planning to cut sugar out of my diet forever!  That would be silly.  I'd feel guilty if I slipped and had a bite of cake and I do not like guilt.  Rather I am taking a break, my goal is 40 days, but I won't hate myself if I don't make it.  I have quit all sweets, including all of the 'good' sugars.  Just in case you were curious, I am not supplementing with artificial sweeteners.  I hope that's not even a question, because I won't even begin to talk about how terrible those are for you.   I'm avoiding snack foods and breads, but I am not being overly cautious, just attempting to keep all sugars out of my diet.  I am eating fruit and I've made a couple of raw treats for myself.  I am mostly trying to teach myself how to eat whole, real food.

Sigh.

I am glad it is day six and I can tell you that I haven't broken down in a fit of tears, run wildly to the candy store, or harmed anyone as I've come off of my addiction.  And I am was addicted.  I have been tired, lethargic and a little out of sorts, kind of like being sick.  I have been famished and eaten more than I have ever seen myself eat, except maybe when pregnant.  Though, cutting out the five cokes and chocolate cake I would typically consume at a meal, may be lowering my calorie intake.

My goal at the end of forty days will be to slowly reintroduce healthy forms of sugar, but I'll do my best to avoid the scary white stuff as much as possible.  Because I know that just a little will have me lying under the table with an empty box of donuts on my stomach a can of whipped cream in one hand, a candy wrapper in the other.  So, I'll make my changes slowly, envying the multitude of people with massive amounts of self control.