Speaking of sugar addiction, I just read a great post by Aaaron Wall about how sugar addiction affects your whole life.

He captures so well the struggle that those of us addicted to sugar go through, trying to find balance in our lives while we are under the pernicious influence of the sugar drug. The whole thing is a vicious circle - he explains it a lot better than I can.

The post also mentions a book called The Sugar Addict’s Total Recovery Program. I had not heard of this book before, but it is by Kathleen DesMaisons Ph.D., the author of the book Potatoes Not Prozac that I mentioned earlier.

I ordered the book and will let you know how it is. I have a feeling it will really help me. I am on my 10th day without sugar now, by the way. The irritability was not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. But I feel constantly hungry and am really missing sweets. So far I have been strong, but I hope I don’t cave in and have any. It’s like being an alcoholic, one drink (one piece of candy) is enough to do me in.

Anyway, I am going to have to re-read Aaron’s post several more times - there is a lot there.

I have been fascinated with Feng Shui for a long time. Feng Shui comes from China, and it deals with how your environment affects you. If you are oblivious to your environment, you may not notice this consciously, but just try to notice how you feel when your house is nice and welcoming versus when it is cluttered and depressing.

Through Feng Shui, I have learned that how I arrange and care for my home has a great effect on my well-being. I try to keep clutter away, and try not to have anything blocking the flow of energy (energy is called “chi” in Feng Shui) - for example, no piles of stuff blocking doorways and no furniture that I have to squeeze around to get anywhere.

I read somewhere that a cluttered home can contribute to weight gain, and I believe that is true. If your home is healthy, you are a lot more likely to be healthy too.

In addition to general things like removing clutter and obstacles, there are specific cures in Feng Shui for specific problems that you may be having. If you always enter your house through the kitchen (as you might if you always use your back door or garage entrance), then you can have weight issues due to the kitchen being the first room that you see. It right away primes your mind to think about food. One cure for this is to hang a mirror on the kitchen door, so that you see the mirror before you enter the kitchen, distracting you from the food.

This is the case in my house. I always enter through the back door, and the first room I go through is the kitchen. So I hung a mirror on the door into the kitchen. I was amazed at what happened to me. (By the way, if you try this - remember that your intention is very important in Feng Shui, so be sure to think of your intention of having a more healthy relationship to food, as you hang your mirror.)

I had gotten in the habit of having a Lean Cuisine for dinner every night for the past 5 years (ever since my son left for college). After I hung the mirror, I could not eat the Lean Cuisines anymore. I just had no taste for them. So I had to start cooking dinner, and I am trying to cook healthy things.

While Lean Cuisines are relatively healthy, I don’t think it can be healthy to have one every single night and never eat a home cooked meal. I was probably missing out on some important nutrients there. Not to mention the more healthy relationship you have to food when you cook it yourself.

The next thing that happened was that my friend told me about the book, Potatoes Not Prozac, as I mentioned in a previous post, which started my journey to find a good diet for me.

Speaking of clutter and Feng Shui, I recently moved my office into a different room, and made the old office into a guest bedroom. But all my old papers and books were still in there, practically covering the floor. This weekend, I finally got done cleaning it all up. Now the guest room looks great, and I can finally get at the elliptical exercise machine that is in there. So I have been exercising on the elliptical machine every day. (Today is my 3rd day.) I can only do 5 minutes so far, but it’s a start.

So, try a little Feng Shui in your house, and see what interesting changes come about. There are many books on the subject. One that deals specifically with clutter is Clear Your Clutter With Feng Shui, by Karen Kingston. Another excellent book is Wind and Water, by Carole Hyder.

A friend recently told me about the book, Potatoes Not Prozac, by Kathleen DeMaisons. I was so glad she recommended it. It has been very helpful to me.

The author has done a lot of work with addicted people (drug addictions, alcoholism), and she has found a diet that is helpful not just to alcoholics and drug addicts, but also to people who are addicted to sugar or sensitive to sugar. I am definitely one of those people who are sensitive/addicted to sugar.

The book does a great job of explaining what goes on in your body when you eat sugar, why you crave it, etc. It explains the role of diet in your levels of serotonin and beta-endorphin, two chemicals which influence your mood and sense of well-being. It all made so much sense.

The diet itself is pretty much a diet of healthy eating, but she breaks it down into stages and also has some helpful suggestions. One of the suggestions that I have already been following is to have some protein with every meal and to have a carbohydrate snack before bed. This has really helped my moods already.

However, her actual first step of eating only 3 meals a day (and the snack before bed) has been way too hard for me. I am used to snacking and grazing all day long, and I think my sugar addiction has a lot to do with it.

Anyway, without going into too many details about the book, I decided to quit sugar “cold turkey”. I have been struggling along for weeks with the diet in the book, but have not been able to do the gradual process. I have quit sugar, cold turkey, before, so I know I can do it. It just takes about 3 weeks of misery until my body adjusts.

Those first 3 weeks are hell, though. So I want to get started now, before my son comes home for Christmas. I don’t want to be crabby and irritable when he is here.

So it’s now day 2 for me without sugar. I have found this time, that the trick is to expect to feel bad, and not do anything about it. I am so used to medicating myself with food whenever I feel bad. But there is nothing that is going to make me feel better except to eat sugar, which I am not going to do. Actually, if I do nothing, the bad feelings usually pass for a while.

I think I can do this.

Wow, I can’t belive I have readers to this blog already! It’s great to know that what I am writing might be of interest to others. Hope you keep reading…

The last few days have been crazy. Talk about getting to bed on time - ha! It’s been late nights and then sleeping in and waking up with a headache. I’m too old for these crazy hours, I guess. And like I said, it wreaks havoc with my eating patterns.

Yesterday I went to a folk dance event and did a lot of dancing. This was the first exercise I have had in a while (other than walking the dog), and it felt great! My body feels so much better. I really have to get going on some regular exercise. Dawn at life inchoate has posted that she is losing weight by eating healthy and exercising daily. That’s what I want to do. I just need to get into the right habits.

One of the friends I went dancing with mentioned that she has a membership to the Y but never goes. Me too! So we decided to start meeting there once a week, as a start. Maybe we can keep each other going. We’ll start the Wednesday after Thanksgiving.