I’m Divorcing……..Sugar

I am day 5 into my current separation with Sugar. No, it is not a dog or stripper, but rather that sweet substance that gave me diabetes 2. We have lived together for years. Kinky? No. (Wait does honey in 1984 count?) Complicated? Yes. The reality is that I’m always struggling with maintaining my sugars. I have plateaued in my health gains and I needed to make a change. Along came a nutritionist named Dawn. Someone who is a perfect to the Jimmy fitness team, not formulaic, laidback, funny, focused, horizon seeing and most important, passionate. These are the same qualities as most of my friends, even the ones that don’t claim me.

Dawn is passionate about nutrition. She explained how my diet needs to get closer to the ground. At first I thought she meant I needed a smaller chair, which was strange because I only have 26” inseam, I can’t get much lower. My feet rarely touch the ground when I’m sitting. I digress. She explained that I needed to get things that had roots, roots that contained all the nutrients of the earth. Carrots are good. Beets were very good. Ummmm no, I’ve had Uncle Gene’s Borscht and I’m not having beets. I will have beats, preferably those of Charlie Parker…Crap I digress again. The further away from the earth, the more processed, the worse that food is. She said this with such passion and conviction I was inclined to have a cigarette at the end.

Sugar is not bad, but it is sort of addicting. Sugar is the gateway drug to Bundt Cake, which is the gateway drug to Petits fours, which is the gateway drug to Tiramisu with a DiSarno aperitif. It’s easy to see how I got to this place. We all have put a sugar cube on our tongue and felt it dissolve. Sugar, that bastard, has been leading me down a horrible path.

Dawn said I needed a divorce and I knew she was right. Plus, this would not be as ugly as 1984, post-honey. Sticky? Maybe. Per my nutritionist’s instruction, no bread unless it’s artisanal right out of the oven. Salads. Have salads all the time and add protein. This is a genetic challenge. I’m an American of Greek descent, bread is hemoglobin to my tribe. A Greek with no bread is like a hairless Greek. You just don’t see this. It is a simple genetic misfire. However, I have been challenged!

Oh yeah. 90 ounces of water too. I need to bring a bowl to put under my chair. I push on.

I’ve made two major changes this week. 1^st is that I have recalibrated myfitnesspal to diabetic recommended sugars, which is 6 tablespoons or about 60 grams. The second is that I have not had bread all week. Discoveries are that salads are okay, sometimes really good. Pistachios come from the ground and a great source of energy, much healthier, and longer lasting, than Skittles.

I have also found some great food alternatives. Today I had Brussel Sprouts, Pearl Onions, Chevre, Bacon, Sweet Potato, another Green Thing and Scallops in a cast iron skillet. It was awesome! Never would I have even thought about it had it not been for Dawn. I would have had the bread & cheese plate with wine. (I have included a picture for your pleasure.)

At the end of 5 days, I’m okay. I’m sure sugar and I will still hook-up. I am planning a macaron safari in Chicago, Thanksgiving and our Christmas Party too. I also know, even before my talk with Dawn, that if my sugars get too far out of whack because of abuse, it will take 3 to 5 days to normalize. It sucks too when it happens. I’ll keep you posted how this goes.

PS: If Jill ever puts sweet whip cream on wedding cake again…I’ll be confused. What a decadent delicious surprise. Of course, it took 3 days for my sugars to normalize. I should have drank! lol

Along the Lenten Highway

In the last 72 hours I have been asked “How’s your Lent?” or “Are you sticking to the fast?” and before I can fire off a reply, the people asking the question say, “I don’t follow the exact fast.” Me, I’m thinking I just need to get to church, my prayer life is in the crapper and fasting? That is a mixed bag because of medical issues. The great thing is before I start down the road of random confession to a non-priest, I realized that I have a fellow sojourner who is struggling just like me.

Relief seems to be the first emotion that we share. Fasting stories about others or the time we followed the “strict” fast immediately follows. Then we talk simply as friends, Orthodox Christian friends. Looking to each other to help justify or comfort our own failings and knowing that it is only a misstep. The important point is to turn to God at each misstep. I have no answers, but I now have friends struggling on the same path.

It’s interesting we get wrapped-up in  fasting and forget the other part of the bible verse (augmented in the King James translation by the way) that it is fasting AND prayer. We should ask, “How is my prayer life improved/become stronger and what can I do to make/keep it stronger?”  This is where thinking like an athlete is handy. A boxer runs not to throw a harder uppercut but to last 15 rounds. He does pushups not for endurance but to get strength. They spar to get situational awareness, so when faced with a real fight, all that training pays off. It becomes instinct.

Yes, diet is one component, but so is a better prayer life, or a more intense one. If we share recipes of foods, we should also share prayers. Troy pointed out the prayer of St. Philaret, Metropolitan of Moscow. That’s a example of how someone shared with me.

Turning ourselves to Christ is what love is all about. Talking about our trials together gets us talking and pointing in the right direction. Hopefully, I can take their inspiration and propel myself closer to Christ, knowing I have friends along the way is of great content.

Although I said no diet tips…Hydrox cookies! Delicious chocolate, 100% artificial ingredient Oreos J You’re welcome for the cheat.

My Lenten Voyage Starts with a Shower

Warm water enveloping my head in a forest rainfall. Everything is quiet and I can meditate. That is my morning ritual. My bride, the Love Goddess, enjoys the “massage” settings that punches her with water 1,492 times a minute. While she is free and relaxed I have the percussion section blasting Carmina Burana at 300 decibels. The thump reverberates through the whole house.

Next morning I change our shower back to the Serene Forest rainfall and the Love Goddess will turn on a Jackhammer. The pattern has repeated itself for the last 7 years since we got the new shower head. Last week, after my shower, I changed the shower to Jackhammer mode for the Love Goddess. She was startled. She had never heard how loud the shower was before. She still likes jackhammer mode, but is aware of how loud it is.

That’s when I realized that Lent is about getting out of the shower. Seeing yourself from a different perspective, getting clean from a spiritual perspective. What the Love Goddess didn’t know was the shower sounded rocks in the garbage disposal. It’s not bad, it’s self-awareness.

Getting back on the spiritual path is as easy as jumping into the shower only drier. Make the effort to get to church, do an extra prayer, skip that dessert, etc. Shake things up and intensify. I’ll paraphrase CS Lewis “I didn’t know what a straight line was until I saw one. I had been looking at curves that I thought were straight.” So the moral is – take a shower and get some perspective.