I am often asked how I have lost so much weight and manage to keep it off, which of course leads to discussing intermittent fasting coupled with a high protein low carb diet. The conversation usually goes well until we venture into what I am talking about in regards to eating low carb. I eat only complex carbs from vegetable and fruit sources. The only caveat to this is fruit contains simple carbs, however, your body processes these in the same manner as it does complex carbs because of the pulp or fiber content. What gets the talk going side ways is when I tell them they should quit eating sugar all together. The irony is that I will be asked for advice and some folks, men and women, will get all fucking butt hurt to the max when I tell them to drop sugar entirely from their diet. As if, I personally have the ability to deprive them of anything. Well, if I am asked, I am going to tell you what I think. I will give you an uncomfortable truth before I comfort you with a lie. If you want to be comforted and told that its not your fault you can not lose weight and it is perfectly fine to continue your love affair with sugar, then I am not one you want to ask questions of. I’m not going to sugar coat my answer for you Buttercup. Personally speaking, it is not that I am an insensitive ogre, to the contrary I am sensitive to my fellow human kind. But I care more about you as a human than I give a damn about your feelings getting all out of whack because I said to quit indulging in that chocolate cake which is keeping pounds of lard on your ass.

Here is a good dose of reality for you. Most folks who have become rotund have an addiction to sugar that they have little to no control over. If you had control, your ass would not be fat in the first place. That is a fucking simple reality. If you are addicted to sugar, you have the same problem as someone addicted to alcohol or drugs. It is fact, that consuming sugar releases dopamine in your brain which brings that instant and temporary pleasure when you eat. I ask, how is this any different than taking a snort of cocaine or a toke off of a joint. You consume the drug and it provides an instant release of dopamine to give you pleasure. Sugar does the same goddamn thing whether some want to admit it or not. Is there any other food source that you can consume that gives you an instant sensation of pleasure? Vegetables? Chicken? Fish? Not likely any of these will ever give you the same instant pleasure, unless it is coated with a sugary sauce. This is why Weight Watchers has given some foods a zero point value. It is because they do not cause the same sensation to your body as any food source high in simple carbs. You are not likely to keep eating chicken breast until you are stuffed, but how often would a sugar addict eat a huge meal and then still find room to pig out on a piece of cake or pie with a scoop of ice cream?

If you have a weight problem coupled with an addiction to sugar in which you have little to no control, you have no more business trying to eat it than an alcoholic does by having a social drink on the weekend. It does not make you a bad person, it just means you need to kill your addiction. And yes, a sugar addiction is as difficult if not harder to squash than alcohol, tobacco or drugs. Because first we have to eat, and second, because too many do not recognize sugar for what it is. An addictive substance that can wreak havoc on your health and well being.

God, how often do we go to a family function or a get together with friends and there are tons of sugary goodness laying there in wait of entering your pie hole. Lying there in wait to give you a very brief sense of pleasure while knowing that you will be feeling remorse when you step on the scale in a day or so. How often do we have well meaning family and friends that tell us that just one little piece is not going to hurt you. Just look at how skinny you are now… OK, first in this situation these people need to know that just because they are correct that a few extra calories right then are not going to have a negative impact on your physical being, that is a given. It’s that if you have a weight problem or health issue, it is not a couple hundred calories that cause harm. The harm comes from the whole mental aspect of once again having that uncontrollable urge to indulge. The mind fuck which will bring on those sick cravings where you could sit on the kitchen floor eating frosting with a spoon in the middle of the night. The kind of cravings, which not only completely sabotage your efforts at health and wellness, but also make you feel like shit as a person afterwards. Those feelings of being a complete failure at life. Understand the irony too that some times, if not a lot of times, those same skinny folks pushing sweets on you at the get together will afterwards be talking about what a fat ass you are and how you need to lose all that blubber hanging over your belt and filling those extra large pants.