Hopping Off the Sugar Train

Winter is saying, "Hold up! Hold up! I'm not done here." The cold returned over the weekend, with a biting wind blowing, and it is still hanging around. We've reached that point of wintertime where it's close to the end but still far enough away from the end to bring about frustration. Temperatures of 14 degrees with real feel of -5 because of the wind have gotten long in the tooth. I am more than ready for winter to ease up its onslaught. 

Because of the cold, the desire to go outside has waned. Having to pile on clothes multiple times a day is now annoying. Instead of getting out for walks, I'm simply opening the door and letting the boys out into the fenced yard, but even they don't want to be outside for any length of time. The four of us have decided to hole up, napping through the rest of winter (I wish).

Recently I had my annual physical. This has become a requirement by my health insurance company to ensure my premium doesn't go up. So I jumped through the new hoop and in the process had labs done. Only the lab didn't conduct the basic tests my doctor ordered, meaning I now have to schedule another appointment to have labs done again. The two tests the lab did run were my B12 and A1C. Both are in the normal range, which is great. But having to reschedule for the basic labs is truly irksome. 

The one lab I do want to see about is my liver enzymes. The last time I had labs done, the result was raised liver enzymes, better known as fatty liver. I was thrown off by this result as I have never overly or even regularly consumed alcohol. Little did I know then that fatty liver isn't just caused by alcohol. My doctor at the time brushed my concerns aside (she is no longer my doctor -- long story, maybe for another time). Nothing to worry about, she said. The elevation is minimal, she said. So I didn't really make any changes. I just hoped that cutting out all alcohol entirely would do the trick. Then, very recently, because I really wanted to dial in the healthy eating even more, I started learning as much as I could about sugar. To say I was shocked by what I learned is an understatement. I knew sugar isn't great, but I wasn't drinking sodas, I wasn't drinking juices, so I thought I was doing okay. I wasn't. I was still consuming sugar every single day in the form of candy and cookies and Gatorade. While they were vegan candies and vegan cookies, they still had sugar. The Gatorade? Good lord, so much sugar. It was time to hop off the sugar train.

Because I like my liver, I decided it's time to really take care of it. As of today, I am 55 days in of consuming little to almost no sugar on a daily basis. I read all labels, and if there is added sugar, the product goes back on the shelf. I've had one piece of candy -- Angel Baby, not knowing that I have decided to eliminate as much sugar as possible, brought me a small bag of sea salt dark chocolate covered caramels (yes, I know they're not vegan). I laughed when he handed them to me. It was very sweet (no pun intended!) of him to think about me when he saw them, so I accepted the bag of candy. I also told him I'm trying to reduce my sugar intake, to which he said, "You can have one candy here and there." He's right. So I enjoyed one piece that evening, and the rest I tucked away for another time.

I do think the very little sugar consumption is making a difference for me. A good difference. I'm sleeping so much better. Seriously. I was sleeping so poorly it had become incredibly frustrating. Tossing and turning all night. For the last two months, I've been sleeping through the night, only being awakened when Sunny let's me know it's 5 am and he needs to go outside. When I wake up to his quiet harrumph, I'm always surprised it's 5 am and I didn't wake up at all during the night. I've also lost four pounds since I stopped eating the amount of sugar I had been eating every day. Not much else about my eating has changed. Just the sugar intake. When I think back on the amount of Gatorade I had been drinking, I have to shake my head. It was a lot. To think there are nearly 5 teaspoons of sugar in a 12 oz bottle is nuts. And every day I was drinking two or three bottles because I thought Gatorade was a better choice than soda or juice. Silly me. So now it's just water or peppermint tea for me. I've always known water is the very best choice, but my taste buds were used to having the sweet flavor and wanted that sweet flavor.

Now I just need to do the labs. Again. I hope the results show my liver is healing, but it very well could take more than just two months for real change to happen. The damage didn't occur overnight. I can't expect healing to occur overnight. I'll keep plugging away, making sure my choices are in the best interest of my liver, as well as the rest of me.