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Are You a
Sugarholic?
By Nancy Appleton
 What signals is
your body giving you? Are you a sugarholic? This quiz will help you
determine how pervasive refined sugar is in your life-style, and what
effect it's having on your body. Answer each question as truthfully as
you can; you're not going to be graded, and no one is looking over
your shoulder. Be honest with yourself - your health depends on it.
TRUE OR FALSE?
- I don't eat refined sugar
every day.
- I can go for more than a day
without eating some type of sugar-containing food.
- I never have cravings for
sugar, coffee, chocolate, peanut butter, or alcohol.
- I've never hidden candy or
other sweets around my home in order to find and eat them later.
- I can stop after one piece of
candy or one bite of pastry.
- There are times when I have no
sugar of any kind in my home.
- I can go for three or more
hours without eating and not experience the shakes, fatigue,
perspiration, irritability, depressions, or anxiety.
- I can have candy and other
sweets in my home and not eat them.
- I don't eat something sweet
after every meal.
- I rarely drink coffee and eat
doughnuts or sweet rolls for breakfast.
- I can go for more than an hour
after waking up in the morning without eating.
- I can go from one day to the
next without drinking a soft drink.
If you answered
"false" to more than four of these statements, chances are that you
are sugar-sensitive. You probably are allergic to sugar, and probably
are also addicted to it - the same way an alcoholic is addicted to
alcohol. You crave sugar, have withdrawal symptoms when you don't get
it, and probably feel better for a short time after you've eaten it.
In eating sugar to feel better, you are actually making your condition
worse.
If you answered
"false" to four questions or fewer, that doesn't prove you don't have
a problem with sugar. Perhaps you aren't addicted to it, but perhaps
you don't quite realize just how much sugar you're eating. The average
American consumes over 10 pounds of sugar each month, nearly 4-1/2
cups per week or 30 to 33 teaspoonfuls of sugar every day. That's over
20 percent of our daily caloric intake spent on a refined food which
upsets body chemistry and has no nutritional value.
How You Feel Is up
to You
My experience is a
classic example of what I've called the "degenerative disease
process." All my ailments were caused by the substances I put into my
body. The excess sugar that I ate so obsessively led to a disturbance
of mineral relationships in my system - leading to a calcium excess so
severe that it built up in my chest. This mineral imbalance made my
enzymes (those chemicals in the body that help digest food) incapable
of digesting food properly, and I developed classic allergic symptoms
due to the undigested food. My immune system wore itself down reacting
to these toxic foods, and I became extremely susceptible to disease.
The process that
started with the excess consumption of sugar ended in tooth decay,
pneumonia, and bronchitis. It was mainly when I removed sugar from my
diet that my body was able to regain health. I realized then, for the
first time, that if I stopped doing to my body what I had done to make
it sick, my body would heal itself.
If you're a
sugarholic, as I was, your body is telling you quite bluntly that
sugar is causing problems. Addiction is closely related to allergy;
the body has become so accustomed to compensating for the presence of
the allergenic substance that when the substance is removed,
withdrawal symptoms occur. Your sugar cravings are a direct indication
that sugar is at work destroying your immune system.
It is possible to
feel better - and if you really want to, chances are that you can.
It is up to you. You can make yourself sick by ingesting harmful
substances or, by becoming aware of what serves your health and
listening to your body's signals, you can stop upsetting the body and
let the body heal itself.
If, on the other
hand, you ignore the signals your body is sending, you force doctors
to use stronger and more dangerous techniques, and relegate yourself
to the victim role. Doctors are accustomed to treating conditions that
have progressed to a point that there are serious complaints (severe
pain, heart palpitations, swollen joints, or rapid weight loss). They
see these drastic conditions and they take drastic measures.
From the book,
LICK THE SUGAR HABIT by Nancy Appleton, copyright 1988,
Avery Publishing Group Inc. |
