Health

Food, Health

Quitting Sugar Resources: “Fat Chance”

FC

It’s early January, and the new health books are out, which means their authors are making the talk show rounds. The UCSF doctor who was mentioned in the New York Times piece on sugar has a new book out on his work. I caught him talking on NPR’s Science Friday and the conversation was pretty lively. If you’re not looking for a health book, you can also learn a lot from his appearance on the Diane Rehm show. Here’s the blurb from that show:

Recently published research suggests that obese people have a lower risk of death compared to people with normal weight. But this is not news to pediatric endocrinologist, Robert Lustig. He says fat doesn’t matter. What does matter, he argues, is metabolic function. For the past 16 years, he’s been treating childhood obesity and studying the effects of sugar on the central nervous system. In a new book he details the science and politics behind the dramatic increase in our consumption of sugar and explains why this shift is so detrimental to our health. Please join us to talk with Dr. Robert Lustig about obesity and disease.

How am I doing with cutting back on sugar? Not great, but I’m not eating anything processed this week so that helps. I’m really nervous about cutting it out cold turkey- starting… Week 2. :l

Food, Health

30 Day Vegan + the I Quit Sugar Program: An Introduction

Cheese… dairy… I’m gonna miss you guys

 

A Jump Start…

So I mentioned in my New Year’s Resolution post that I wanted to give my 2013 a kick in the pants by going vegan for 30 days and cutting out refined sugars using the 8 wk long I Quit Sugar program. I’m not trying to make some gigantic lifestyle change. I’m just really curious about the effect that this diet tweak will have on my energy levels and skin. If I can avoid my usual afternoon crash and burn I’ll be really happy. Also, diabetes and liver disease runs in my family, so cutting back on sugar is important in that regard. After these 8 weeks are said and done, I hope to just overall cut back on my meat consumption.

My history: Like most things, you don’t just go vegan in a vacuum. Back in college I was vegetarian for quite a few years, and then tried the vegan thing. Veganism was hard to sustain as a lifestyle for me, so I switched back to vegetarianism. Then when I came home from school and moved in with my mom, she gave me hell so I started eating meat again. Who turns away a home-cooked meal from their mom? Not me.

When I moved out to San Francisco, there was so much exciting food to eat that I couldn’t think of being vegetarian- I had to eat it all! Of course I wanted to make the choice to eat sustainable meat/farm raised/organic/blahblahblah… except I never did. I just used the fact that meat could be eaten in a conscious way as an excuse to never truly look at my diet head-on and take steps that meshed with my morals. I was always saving it for someday. These days I eat everything, but moving forward I do want to cut back on my animal consumption for environmental, health and moral reasons.

Anyways, enough about me. On to the obvious questions:

What is Veganism?

So for those who aren’t acquainted with veganism, here’s a quickie primer:

  • No meat, poultry or fish
  • No dairy
  • No eggs
  • No animal byproducts: honey, whey, gelatin, fish oil, casein, rennet, lanolin, bee pollen, collagen, fish paste, etc.
  • No wearing animals: leather, wool, fur, down, horse hair, etc.
  • No animal products in your toiletries: sea sponges, collagen, squalene, tallow, beeswax, etc.

Of course, animal byproducts are everywhere. My favorite knitting needles are made out of casein, which is a protein found in milk. My face cream has shark oil in it. It’s tricky. So, for the purposes of my resolution, I’m trying to eat vegan for 30 days.

What is I Quit Sugar?

IQS

According to the American Heart Association, women should get no more than 24 grams of sugar a day (about 6 teaspoons). The average American woman eats about 18 teaspoons per day. In the infographic below, another cited stat is about 12 teaspoons a day. Either way, it’s a friggin lot.

I Quit Sugar is a nifty little e-book that helps you cut back on sugar over the course of 8 weeks. The author is Australian blogger/journalist Sarah Wilson, and she asks you to approach the whole thing as an “experiment” and not a life sentence. I can get behind that. From what I’ve read of it the book so far it’s light and entertaining, but could have a bit more substance and recipes.

sugar

Love this illuminating illustration from a popular New York Times article called Is Sugar Toxic?

Progress

I started my resolution last Saturday, so I’m on day 6. This first week I’m working on transitioning smoothly by eating vegan where I can, finishing up the rest of my non-vegan groceries (cheese, eggs, yogurt) and being more conscious of the sugar that I do eat.

Being vegan has been so far easy peasy as long as I’m in the house. On Sunday I made a giant tofu lasagna and one of my favorite dishes of 2012- spinach and chickpeas. I had mad leftovers so I was pretty set. Yesterday I royally screwed up by eating ahi tuna rolls at happy hour with my friend Brittani, but so be it. It’s about reducing my intake, not perfection.

Honestly cutting back on my sugar has been much harder than going vegan. It’s like learning a new language. Everything has sugar. Pasta sauce, bread, canned beans, frozen Indian food, crackers. It’s wild. Do yourself a favor and check the sugar content of what you eat next. You might be surprised.

I’ll continue to post updates on this vegan/sugar experiment, but to be honest, I’m a bit nervous about it all. I hope I can keep it up.

 

Health, Life

10/18/2020 Update: Here’s another update since people are still landing on this post. 9 years later, my cyst is still in the same place on my uvula. It’s the same size and hardness. I never had surgery to remove it, and I hardly think about it anymore. 🙂

3/6/2014 Update: When I wrote this post back in 2011 I had NO IDEA so many other people would be searching for this same problem. I just wanted to give you guys an update- It’s almost three years later, and my cyst is the same size (quarter inch), and still hangs annoyingly in the back of my mouth, about a half inch to the right of my uvula. I poke at it with my tongue when I’m bored in meetings, and it can move around a little bit. Anyways, all this is to say, it’s still there, same size, and it’s still not cancer. Probably just a blocked salivary duct. If you’re really worried about a lump in the back of your throat, please please please go to an Ear Nose Throat doctor! Your health and peace of mind is worth it! 

I know that I mentioned my minor health complications (and corresponding mini depression) to close friends a few weeks back, but now that it’s over, I thought I would share the whole neurotic story with the internet. Who knows, maybe somebody in the same situation will find it and be less freaked out by reading a similar story.

Sooooo…

About a month and a half ago I noticed a small lump in the back of my throat, quite close to my uvula (I almost typed in “hangy thing that hangs in the back of your throat”  🙂 ). Well of course I instantly thought THROAT CANCER! and started poking at it with my finger. Then I remembered that I’m a hypochondriac and I let it go. Gotta keep the crazy at bay.

A few days later my monthly copy of Cosmopolitan came in (it was a present, don’t judge), and guess what was this month’s freaky health story? It was oral cancer! According to Cosmo, women in my age range are making up almost 25% of new oral cancer diagnoses, and it’s credited to rise in STD infections in the mouth (oral sex, duh). Nevermind that the annual # of new oral cancer diagnoses is about 1,200, and I had a VERY low chance of being one of those 300 women… I felt anxious.

I then proceeded to fall into a downward spiral of thought pattern that fellow hypochondriacs will understand all too well. I became slightly obsessed. In my spare time I conducted Google image searches, stared deeply into a mirror with my mouth wide open, read random health message boards and showed disinterested friends my throat… Oh it was bad.

Anyways. Weeks passed, and a wave of flu-like sickness passed through my house. My throat lump got bigger. I had a bright red sore throat and developed canker sore like ulcerations in the back of my throat. It was gross. I finally went to the doctor.

My GP addressed my flu symptoms and told me to come back if my throat lump was still there after my flu passed. The flu passed, and yet the lump was still there. I went back to the doctor, finally scoring a referral to an Ear/Nose/Throat guy. After checking my ENT’s credentials on Yelp I was a bit nervous, because his headshot was so unflattering. Does that sound bad? He just didn’t look very nurturing, more like Frankenstein.

It turned out that “Dr. E.” was actually a very kind specialist, who put me quite at ease (he was rather touchy, but that’s a whole ‘nother story).  He really didn’t do too much- he just took a look, sprayed some numbing spray on the back of my throat, and tried to pop my bump open with a syringe… Only  a little painful!

His verdict:  “It’s not cancer. If it was cancer it would be eating through your throat right now. It would look like  a herpes sore in the back of your mouth.”

AAAAAAAAAAA! Quite a visual! So, no oral cancer. But I do have a benign “lump thing”  in the back of my throat! It could be a blocked salivary gland, it could be virus related… he wasn’t really sure. Basically I’m just supposed to live with it. If it gets bigger I will go back for “minor” surgery to have it cut out. That is an unpleasant thought, but whatever.

Anyways, I’m fine now, but out $$$ from all the doctor visits. I suppose it was worth it just to learn this fun factoid: My tonsils are 3x larger than the average human tonsil. I am a freak. My ENT suggests that I get them cut out as well, since my “future husband will probably be bothered by my snoring….” ????!!!

Health, Life

Well, the thirty days have passed, and I amazingly finished my 30 day challenge! It was not without a few struggles, however, so here’s a quick recap:

Monday was class #27. I was already exhausted from doing a double the day before, and the heat was terrible. It was bad even by yoga standards,but with my stopped up nose I felt like I was suffocating. Lying on the floor I realized that the entire situation was absurd.  I left class for the first time ever. When I came back 5 minutes later and stepped on my mat I started crying, I just couldn’t control it.Not a high point, but I made it through to the end.

Tuesday I did a double (Classes 28 + 29). Got through it okay, but it was straight to bed afterwards.

Wednesday was my last class. It was uneventful but happy, as my friends had agreed to come and do the class with me. Great stuff, and there was a round of sweaty hugs after it was all over.

Now that it’s over, I think I will keep going 3-4 times a week, in addition to the gym/biking, until the classes on my card run out. After that I’ll have to reevaluate whether I want to continue doing this craziness.

Several thoughts and tips from the whole experience:

1. The bikram 30 day challenge is crazy. Doing yoga that frequently is probably not good for you. My body is seriously blown out and while everyday aches and pains from sitting at a desk for 8 hrs/day have gone away, new pains are in their place.

2. The challenge is doable. Decide on a schedule and stick to it. This way you aren’t wasting time thinking “Oh, when am I going to yoga today?” you just know, and you go.

3. It’s probably not a good idea to go on vacation during your challenge, but I did!

4. Even if you don’t go out of town, you will have to do some doubles. Don’t worry, it’s not that bad.

5. If you are a woman take your clothes off ASAP post-yoga. Don’t walk around in them and get bubble tea or whatever the hell on your walk back home. You will get a yeast infection!!!

6. After class soak your clothes in cold soapy water. This will help keep the stink at bay.

7. Be prepared to do mountains of laundry.

8. Drink water, coconut juice, lemon water, kombucha, anything, everything, all day long. If you must drink alcohol go light.

9. It can get pricey renting a mat, towel and water every time, so try your best to bring your own materials. However, renting a towel can be worth it just so you don’t have to deal with the mess.

10. You may not lose weight. I don’t think I lost a pound, which really frustrated me (Two hours + of exercise a day for 30 days, what the hell???). I did, however, lose half an inch+ on my stomach. My abs and quads are super strong and defined, and at the gym today running was … EASY. I didn’t break a sweat or breathe hard at all. So… definite improvement, but not a tip of the scales.

Health, Life

Just got back from 4 days of nonstop overeating and overdrinking in Austin, TX. Feeling kind of fat and bloated.

Did a double today. It was bearable, but I’m absolutely useless now.

Four classes left to go in three days. I’m tempted to do two more doubles in a row, just so I will have earned the right to celebrate with a “Triple Double” cocktail. What’s in a Triple Double? Hmm I don’t know. But it sounds like a fun drink, right?

Possible ideas include:

  • Coconut Juice (with rum???)
  • A fine Tripel beer
  • Sweat
  • Cayenne
  • EmergenC

Mmmmmm