The Phenomenon of Craving.
I am now cancer free. However, I have a diagnosed fatty liver condition to live with. The best treatment for the liver thing is to give up eating sugar in any form. It’s also a good idea to avoid sugar as cancers feed on sugar..
So I am wearing a glucose monitor stuck in my arm that registers on my cell phone whenever I ingest any sugar or grains. All grains, wheat, oats, rice and even potatoes turn to instant sugar in my belly which will lead to fatty liver, insulin resistance and diabetes in me.
I have been culturally trained for 80 years to crave sugary cereals for breakfast and carbs with every meal. The effects of these foods keep our health care industry very busy.
I am discovering a new variation on the phenomenon of craving. Cigarettes, alcohol and recreational drugs required some divine intervention to let go of. This sugar thing is a whole new level of craving. And just as deadly. An insidiously socially acceptable way to kill myself.
I am sitting at the one year birthday party of Andrea and Bob’s Grandson, Bradford. There are around 50 people at this party. Of the fifty, about half of us are grandparent age. The rest are young parents and 5 or 6 very young, toddler size other children running around playfully. The people are all from the same neighborhood, upper middle class and have known each other for many years.
A sumptuous spread of catered sandwiches, salads, fruit and many. many cookies and desserts. Beer, wine, lemonade and soft drinks are on another table. In the center of the food table is a huge, green frosting covered cake with a big One Candle in the middle.
After everyone sang Happy Birthday and Bradford, with help from his parents and older sister, blew out the candle, everyone cheered and toasted the guest of honor. He just wanted a handful of the cake in front of him.
Andrea came over to me and said, “Jim, this is the best cake Gelson’s makes. Here celebrate with us.”
I looked at her, smiled, hesitated and looked around the room. After several months of having to work so hard to stay off of sugar I know what the phenomenon of craving is all about and how it gets triggered. I still wear a glucose monitor although I do not need it anymore. I can feel the effects of sugar on my body and mood. After three months of abstinence my liver enzymes went back to normal. However, any kind of sugar or sweet will trigger the craving even now. I remember what I went through to stop the craving for nicotine and cigarettes. Nicotine and lung disease killed both my parents, lung cancer and COPD, and they could not stop the cravings.
And I smoked for 39 years. Cravings kill. I looked around at the mostly overweight and out of condition old folks at the party that were all busy gobbling down the dose of sugars. I know about heart disease and cancer being the effects of lifetimes of succumbing to sugar addictions. Yet none of these people think of it as a killer. Kind of like how cigarettes were in the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s. Well, I’m not gonna tell em and ruin their party. Who am I anyway? I had a vision of an abandoned house in the poorest part of town filled with drug addicts all laying around in a squalor, shooting drugs into their arms or wherever. It sure wouldn’t work to yell at them. My good friend who guided me into this Carnivore/Keto way of eating cautioned me by saying, “It’s better to be a Light House than a Foghorn.” I turned back to our host, Grandma Andrea with the cake and graciously said,
“Andrea,Thank you so much. What a great party. I am going to pass on the cake today though.”
