Fifty-Seventh Step

Drum roll...After two years of adding in good, good foods and a steady diet of them, I am finally detoxing from sugar. If you are out there reading this and think, "I want to stop sugar," don't do it. Read Potatoes not Prozac or The Sugar Addict's Total Recovery Program by Kathleen DesMaisons. Go to www.radiantrecovery.com and start with breakfast. Believe me, if you try to go cold turkey, you will be miserable and just end up bingeing in a couple weeks. So give yourself the gift of a tried-and-true program that takes into account all aspects of what's going on in your brain and body each time you turn to sugar. And definitely ask me more about it!

I've already seen some progress after doing the first 5 steps of the program leading up to detox, but taking sugars out and the subsequent six months is where the most visible healing takes place. Goals of all this do not involve a masochistic restriction mentality, but a desire for real, natural, long-term healing without the side effects of medication. Here are some of my goals:

1. getting out of the pit of low-grade depression
2. having more energy for life
3. enjoying life free from addiction
4. not basing my days and social times on how I will get my sugar fix
5. reducing chronic body pain, inflammation, fatigue
6. eventually losing some weight so I can look and feel healthier
7. more patience with my family and more stable mood
8. winning battles with yeast overgrowth, hormone imbalances, and insulin resistance
9. not having anything be my master except Jesus Christ.

I really thank God for leading me to this program and giving me the faith to keep going even when it was hard to believe I was getting anywhere. This week has been hard, since my companions have been headaches, body aches, tummy aches, and today, joint aches (wild--feels like I have arthritis and hurts to go up and down the stairs. Has really given me new empathy for people suffering from joint pain--I'm used to fibromyalgia muscle pain). Plus the almost-six-month old sweetie has had a hard time the past few days, but she'll thank me later for how great she feels. : )

Please pray, y'all, because it takes a lot of praying and depending on Jesus to change 20 years of abusing my body with pounds and pounds of sugar and non-foods. But it's going well, and is not like any other time I've stopped "using." I am not panicking, not really craving, not being dramatic and pouty with my family. This weekend I did have to escape and go nurse the baby when the rest of the family had cake at Grandma and Grandpa's, for mine and 2 other birthdays, this weekend (It was even gluten-free, but at least that way my kids could eat it). Honestly, I've tried to get myself to be mad and stomp out of the room when my family is picking out Halloween treats after dinner, but I really am OK. I feel calm. I do not want what it does to me.