Sugar is my addiction.  By Melissa Matson

As I sat on the plane heading to West Palm Beach, I was reading Jackie Warner’s latest book “This Is Why You’re Fat.”
My reason for reading this book was simply because Jackie Warner is my fitness idol in every sense of the word. In my opinion, she has the perfect body. She is an expert on fitness and nutrition and really knows her stuff. I wanted to learn from her.

As I read each page thoroughly, I started feeling many emotions such as curiosity, empathy, guilt, frustration, inspiration, and excitement.
I am going to explain my reasons for such mixed emotions.

As soon as I started to turn the pages I was filled with curiosity from reading about Jackie’s childhood and the struggles she faced growing up. It was fascinating to hear another fitness trainer speak of adversity and the way she overcame. It sounded to me as if fitness literally saved Jackie’s life.

I felt empathy for Jackie because I too faced struggles with extreme sadness in my childhood and teen years. Mostly from death of family members I was really close to and then seeing my parents have to go through the heartbreak. That was almost worse for me than the loss itself.
I lost my grandpa when I was 5 and my 4 year old cousin when I was 13.
I lost my sister 6 days before her 18th birthday when I was 26. There could have been nothing more tragic for my parents and myself to go through. Jackie losing her father to his own suicide when she was 18 must have been just awful. I felt myself relating to her through her pain.
She also talked about self-medicating with sugary foods. Maybe that’s what I was doing all those years. My mom always had dessert in the house. I had access to sweets 24/7 with no parental restrictions on sugar. I am in no way blaming my parents for this. People just ate that way back then. Homemade desserts were everywhere and the stores were getting more and more packed with “junk food”.

As I read further and she started discussing diet and nutrition, I was getting completely consumed by her words. Some things I already knew and followed, others I knew and was ignoring, and then there were other things that were blowing me away. She was talking in depth about sugar and the devastating affects it can have on our health and our life.
All of a sudden I felt massive amounts of guilt. Some was in regards to my own diet, but mostly in regards to my children’s diet. Wow. I have been doing my children a huge injustice.
Let me start with my diet. I realized sitting right there on that plane, what my problem is. I AM A SUGAR ADDICT. I am a sugar addict in every sense of the word. And it started when I was a child. Memories flooded my head of making brownie batter and cake batter and just eating the batter from the bowl (all of it). I would eat things like cinnamon and sugar bread, cookies, little debbie snack cakes, pop tarts (like Jackie), pillsbury cinnamon rolls, gum, candy, sugary cereal that I would even add more sugar to, jello powder right from the box, and the list goes on and on.
I suddenly wanted to puke.
And here is where the major guilt kicked in. I am letting my children eat the way I ate when I was growing up. I know I am doing this with my children but I tell myself “I ate that way and I’m fine.”
Seriously? Am I fine?
I watch my seven year old eat sugary cereal or cinnamon and sugar toast every single morning. She has ice cream sometimes twice a day. She would literally eat sugar for all 3 meals a day. She does not like one single vegetable! My 15 year old eats similarly.
What am I doing to my kids? This is my fault and I take full responsibility.
Talk about feeling frustrated? It’s awful to feel as though you are setting your kids up for failure, diet and weight struggles, and more importantly disease.

You probably know that too much sugar causes diabetes’s.
Did you know that fat doesn’t make us fat? Sugar makes us fat.
Did you know that cancer cells feed on sugar?
Did you know that sugar makes tumors grow?
Did you know that sugar promotes Alzheimer’s disease?
Did you know that sugar ages your skin and gives you wrinkles?
Did you know that sugar kills your immune system?
Did you know that sugar shrinks memory areas in the brain?
Did you know that alcohol makes you chubby and is loaded with sugar?
Did you know that excess sugar wreaks havoc on every single organ in our body?

Now THAT’S frustrating.

As I continued to read I felt myself leave a “place of frustration” and enter a place of inspiration. I was getting inspired by Jackie’s determination to change her own habits and help other people to do the same.
I can relate to her desire to inspire other people and coach them to be fit and eat healthy. I do this everyday and it’s my calling in life!
You see, of course we all want a fit looking body, but to be healthy on the inside too, takes more dedication. I know plenty of people who look good on the outside but are sugar addicts on the inside.
I am one of them.

Now you may look at me and think I look fit and wonder why I am calling myself a sugar addict. Let me explain.
I totally obsess about food. It occupies my thoughts most of the time.
My husband is the same way and together we are dangerous. If he is not eating healthy with me, I have difficulty staying on track.
Dessert in front of me is like alcohol to a struggling alcoholic.
Sugar is my addiction. My body craves it. I have to use massive amounts of self-control to keep my cravings at bay.
Sound ridiculous?
Or sound familiar?

We form habits as we grow up. Habits that our body gets addicted to.
Drugs and alcohol can be devastating to our bodies but sugar can be just as bad. I agree with Jackie in saying that alcohol and drug addiction seem like worse threats-but are they? Read Jackie’s book and your thinking will change.

I continued to read. As Jackie explained to me the “antidote” for my sugar addiction, I thought hmmm. “This does not seem that difficult to follow.” As a matter of fact I felt it was too many cheat meals and calories for me to stay at the weight that I feel best at. BUT I was excited to try and follow her method to see what I would conclude. After all, it’s my “job” to evaluate exercises and eating plans so that I may pass on knowledge to my clients. I never recommend a path that I would not follow myself.

In comes excitement!! I started “the Jackie plan” on Feb. 3, 2011.
She calls it a 5 + 2 food plan. You eat clean 5 consecutive days M-F and then have 2 “cheat meals” each being no more than 1500 calories each, on Saturday and Sunday. Sounds pretty darn good to me! (Plus I can still use my Advocare products☺)

So you see, it’s not an existence without any fun. I mean you gotta have some sugar sometimes right? It’s the sugar over-load that’s the problem. And the body does not register 5 grams of sugar or less so if I make my decisions wisely I can stay on track.
Truvia (a natural sweetener) is allowed and you can buy it at Kroger so I’m kicking the Splenda to the curb!
It may take a few weeks for the sugar cravings to subside. Day 1 was pretty rough. I did not realize how many things I eat that is loaded with hidden sugars. It’s ugly. A bit scary actually.
Although it may be challenging at times to kick my own sugar addiction, the true challenge comes in kicking my kids sugar addiction. But I am excited and up for the challenge because I want my kids to have a good foundation to live a long healthy life.

The best advice I can give to you today is for you to read Jackie Warner’s book. There is way too much valuable information to include in this blog. The book includes awesome exercises and talks about how to naturally speed up your metabolism. She explains Metaphysiques and tells us exactly what to do to stay thin and healthy forever.
Please do me a favor and just buy the book and read it.

The best way to succeed and reach your goals, is to find someone who is succeeding and do what they are doing!

Here’s to a long healthy fit life!
~Melissa