If you have been a lover of sugar all your life, like I have…..listen up.
As sweet as it is…..in the moment…..over time it does horrendous things to our minds and bodies. I hate that for myself. Another pleasure that turns out to be BAD FOR ME. I wish I could love broccoli, or kale…but
I have never met a praline, or a cupcake or a key lime pie or a red velvet cake with that ooey-gooey, cream cheese icing I didn’t like/love. Eating an entire half-gallon of Blue Bell Pistachio Almond ice cream. A day in Heaven. Then there’s my own hot fudge sauce concoction(known commercially as Liquid Sin) that I sold to a 5-star restaurant, way back when….where I would sit at home, in the sack with a pot full of the stuff and a huge spoon and just lick it down. Who needs dinner? Isn’t chocolate protein. Sort of?
OK….enough about my Sugar-holic-ism. For so many of us, it’s hard to have “just a taste”. Refined white sugar just trips our “more of everything all the time” switch. It’s a “GOTTA HAVE IT” machine pounding in our brains and physical make-up.
You probably already know this but sugar and cocaine are known to be equally addictive…..research has proven that they light up the same centers of the brain that throw your whole system into perpetual,
insatiable cravings.
Sugar IS a D R U G. Period.
Because it comes in a cookie or a pie, it seems so socially acceptable…unlike the images we have of druggies at some all-night rave, or suave hedge fund high rollers living the “high life” snorting coke. Please….it’s just cookies, from my point of view.
So, getting me to address “my issue” by stating this whole thing about sugar being a “drug” was a great big ho-hum, wave of the hand for me for so many years. Even though a lot of my sugar consumption was done behind closed doors…..or if you read my article…earlier this week…you know that my favorite place to consume sugar is in the privacy of my car!
“Emergency KIT KATS” stashed in my glove box to soothe some emotional beastly trigger. Does that sound like an addict to you?? Yes, I know. It kinda sorta does. But…..well…..
So, what got my attention about changing my sugar-binging habits? What’s finally inspired me to tame my tongue?
VANITY. Pure vanity.
What if I told you that ingesting sugar on a regular basis would make you look MUCH OLDER…..FASTER?
Ever heard of something called GLYCATION?
I hadn’t either. But when I did, I flipped out. Eating sugar causes glycation…..which WRECKS your skin. FAST. It’s been found to be worse than sitting in the sun for years, for hours on end.
We all know the ravages of sun damage, especially if you were ever a sun worshipper, which I was. Slathered in baby oil & iodine, I have spent thousands of hours and gallons of the stuff “baking” with a reflector screen held up to my neck and face. I was going for the “The Girl From Ipanema” look, right in my own backyard. Well, swell. Now, years later, I have spent thousands of hours and dollars trying to undo all those cavalier years. There’s not a cream or a treatment I haven’t eagerly tried.
Ask any skincare professional. They ALL know about glycation. It’s the new buzzword in skincare. Ageless skin isn’t just about products we use on our faces or treatments we get in a spa. So much of it is about what we are putting in our bodies.
We’ve known for forever how damaging sugar can be to our teeth but recent research has confirmed that ingested sugar is one of the leading causes of aging skin through this process called glycation. Get ready to hear much more about it in the future, not only as it relates to skincare, but also how if affects the body and contributes to many age-related diseases, including diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and Alzheimer’s disease.
Simply put, glycation happens when too much sugar in the bloodstream attaches to proteins and causes a by product called AGE (advanced glycation end-products). Because AGEs are not recognized by the body as normal, they produce antibodies that cause inflammation. These antibodies are of the key factors in the rapid aging of skin. AGE causes healthy cells and vital proteins to die off. They prevent collagen and elastic proteins from functioning properly and damage the intracellular matrix that forms the very structure of our skin. In turn, there is a deterioration of our natural collagen. Our skin begins to thin. More and deeper wrinkles appear. Skin becomes slack and lacking in tone. If that’s not enough, it can become the source of pigmented spots and it can worsen acne and rosacea. Due to all this, AGE, our skin becomes more susceptible to damage from free radicals in our everyday atmosphere, plus it exacerbates the effects of being in the sun or around
cigarette smoke.
Glycation exponentially speeds up the aging process.
SUGAR. It tastes so sweet. But OH MY GOODNESS, the damage we are doing to ourselves with every piece of fudge, every cookie, every ice cream cone. The mood swings caused by sugar can affect our relationships. The rise and fall of blood sugar, especially at night…if we have a cocktail or two, then even a tiny dessert after dinner….forget a good night’s sleep. Lack of consistent deep sleep is just one more ticket on the high-speed train to faster aging and other serious health concerns.
We still have to live….I know….moderation, in all things.
But the problem is…..sugar is stashed away in so many products…we are ingesting sugar every which way we turn. The way to counteract some of this insidious ingesting of all this “sweetness” is by becoming an avid label reader. There are SO MANY NAMES for sugar. Be on the lookout for the whole new language of SUGAR which is sneaking its way into our “All-American” diets!
I’m including a graphic, created by the developers of the Whole 30 program, listing some of the ways sugar is still sneaking into our lives and bombarding our systems with a constant addictive “drip, drip, drip, sip, sip, sip”.
Be on the lookout.
And. Be sweet. To Yourself!
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