Silencing the Siren Song of Sugar*

Katy Perry may have thought that she liked kissing a girl because of her soft lips (or because it got her attention from men who like to watch two girls kiss thereby relinquishing the power of her sexuality for the voyeuristic enjoyment of others) but it turns out there may have been another reason the Teenage Dream star enjoyed the smooch: y'all Cherry Chapstick has sugar in it. How do I know this when their website only lists the vague "flavor/scent" ingredient?

Because I've been there. Hot Chocolate Bonne Bell Lip Smackers is where the love affair began for me. My friend Liz and I each ate a tube one day while we were on a ski trip in middle school. Why? I don't know, middle schoolers are weird. At any rate, it was delicious. A little waxy but no more so than a Hershey bar (reason #210 why I refuse to eat Hershey's). Ever since that magical day I've been pretty loyal to my Lip Smackers. Yes I'm a grown woman with three different flavors of lip gloss in my purse (Skittles - the yummiest, Dr. Pepper - gives such a nice hint of color, and Burt's Bees regular flavor - my nod to adulthood although I gotta say it's pretty tasty too.).

One day, curious about my decades long addiction, I googled every chemically sounding ingredient on the tube and underneath some of those fancy names I found, yes, sugar. The White Satan lives in inauspicious tubes of beeswax masquerading as a health product. And who doesn't love Chapstick?

I am a life-long sugar addict. And when I say addict, I mean that sugar has been shown in research to operate on the same neural pathways in the brain that narcotics do. So I realize that it's a little hard to take advice about quitting sugar from someone who used to routinely strap on a 12-ounce bag of jelly beans like a nose bag as I wandered about my house performing my various duties. (True story: I used to bribe myself to get up with my babies in the middle of the night with jelly beans. As in, "if you go and nurse the baby again you can grab a handful of sour-ized sugar pellets!") But it turns out that all of this struggle with sugar means I've learned a few things. Plus we're coming up on the High Sugar Holidays and I figure I can use all the help I can get so I hope you guys will chime in with your tips in the comments!

Tip #1: Get Educated. Sugar is in friggin' lip gloss! That's the main problem with sugar: it's everywhere! Even in places you don't expect, like Katy Perry's boobs - she shoots whip cream from her knockers in her California Gurls video which is inexplicably set on a life-size Candyland board. We all know we should eat less sugar but it's hard when it's almost unavoidable. This is why you need to get into reading labels. You don't have to go over the ingredient list with a fine-tooth comb unless you're a science nerd like me but just look at the "sugars" line of the nutrition label. It's not perfect but it's a pretty good gauge.

Tip #2: Avoid Sauces. This is more of a shortcut for tip #1 as sauces are a major source of hidden sugars. Spaghetti sauce, salad dressings, ketchup, relish, barbecue sauce, marinades, gravies and even flavored rice vinegars are all loaded with sugar. If you have the time, make your own - it'll taste better anyhow - or just limit your use of them.

Tip #3: Eat enough protein. I'm stealing this one from Geneen Roth (the Intuitive Eating lady whom I routinely worship on this site). She says - and I've found this to be true in my own life - that intense sugar cravings are really your body craving protein. I know it sounds counterintuitive (hee!) but if you eat a yummy piece of salmon or steak you will probably discover you're not craving those chocolate-covered cinnamon bears anymore. I find it helps to prepare ahead for this one. I cook extra servings of meat and beans and keep them in single serving packages in the fridge so all I have to do is microwave one rather than fight off the talking cinnamon bears for 20 minutes while it cooks. Also, those little cans of sardines are perfect for this! Just eat the bones. I'm serious. You will get used to it.

Tip #4: Get Enough Rest. How many times have I tried to compensate for a lack of sleep by going for the quick hit of ice cream eaten off a fork standing in front of the freezer (that's so I can pretend I'm not really eating it, see)? Too many to count. Just remember when you're tempted by the quick lift, that it will inevitably be followed by a quick crash leaving you feeling worse than when you started.

Tip #5: Alcohol is all sugar. But you knew that already right?

Tip #6: Eat What You Want. Fact: I have a bag of Halloween candy sitting in my cabinet right now and I haven't eaten any of it since it first was toted into my house by three little gremlins. As a person who used to throw bags of candy in the garbage because I couldn't handle them calling to me 24/7, I am beyond shocked. And this is where the magic of Intuitive Eating comes in: teaching myself that if I really want a treat, I can eat it. Guilt free. The only rules are that it has to be exactly what I want and I stop when I'm sated. So every time I've gone and pawed through the bag of candy swiftly growing stale, I find that it doesn't really appeal to me. If I'm going to eat chocolate I want the real deal - these days I've been really into making my own Almond Joys (from Heather Eats Almond Butter). They're not health food but they are delicious and they are exactly what I want. I know this sounds crazy. A year ago I would have rolled my eyes (and then blogged about it) when someone said "Eh, I don't really like candy." But if I can get to this point of peace with sugar then you can too.

Tip #7: Know Your Limits. Now that I've just told you to eat what you want, I'm going to tell you that successfully doing #6 requires you to really know yourself. I don't keep ice cream in the house anymore. If I want some, that's fine but I'm going to have to go get it. It's too easy for me to go into mindless eating mode with it. Other things like Halloween candy don't have the same effect on me but you need to find out what your triggers are and then set yourself up for success. Remember, Intuitive Eating is eating mindfully in a way that makes your body feel good - not eating whatever you think you want until you're sick. It's a fine line but it gets easier to discern with practice!

So, now that we're in Sugar Season - what's your strategy? Do you abstain completely? Do you have just a little of the really good stuff? What kind of lip balm do you use?

*By golly I love a good alliteration.

Finding Your "Best" Weight

Cartoon Credit: The inimitable XKCD.

Woman #1, to me: Girl, you look good! Got rid of all that baby weight! But don't you lose anymore 'cause you're right on the edge of scary skinny, know what I mean?

Woman #2, also to me: Oh you are over that edge, eat a sandwich already!

Woman #3: Shut up! Charlotte, you look fine but definitely don't gain any weight!!

I'm not sure if every woman is the subject of such weight scrutiny or if this is further evidence of my magnetic ability to draw weird comments (probably both) but this conversation sent me on the crazy roller coaster from elation to worry to chagrin in the 15 seconds it took to say it. First I'm perfect, then I'm too thin and then I'm borderline too big? This is exactly what drove Goldilocks to start hiding her porridge under her napkin and taking excessively long hikes in the woods. Fairytale gone bad, my friends.

In an effort to settle the debate - because of course I can't trust my own opinion, I'm nuts remember? - I asked a fourth friend what she thought. Not even glancing at my figure, she gave me a sheepish smile and said, "You know me, no such thing as 'too thin'..." Which is when I realized that my weight is a Rorshach test for how other women feel about their bodies and how each person interprets our societal standards about beauty. I can't trust other people's opinions any more than I can trust my own and yet, just like Goldilocks can't stop sleeping in stranger's beds, I can't stop asking for other people's thoughts.

This question is on my mind because, as those of you who follow me on Twitter already know, my baby Jelly Bean turned one on Friday! (Incidentally the exact same day Heather Eats Almond Butter and her husband welcomed their sweet baby into the world - how cool is that?!) And lurking in the background of the joyous present-opening (why play with the toy when you can shred the wrapping paper?) and the naked cake rolling (her, not me, although I was tempted) that marked this huge milestone (Joy = no more SIDs risk!!) was the Weight Question.

There's a rule that is drilled into the mind of every expectant mother that she has until the baby's first birthday to peel off those baby pounds. After that you get no more free pass and people will resume judging you. Although with all the celebrity baby explosions lately, that free year has been whittled down to a free month. And to be honest, I did pretty well with it. By 9 months post-partum I had just two stubborn pounds hanging around. Then as if by magic (or by barfing my way through a ten-mile race), on her first birthday there I was at exactly my pre-pregnancy weight. Yay?

Here's the slippery slope: My pre-baby weight - three pounds = my "ideal" weight (picked arbitrarily in my head from looking at pictures). But I can guarantee you that once I hit my "ideal" weight then I'll want to lose just a few more pounds to have a safe buffer around that number. And usually by that point I'll want just a few more gone because even though I'll have visible ribs, a chest that makes xylophones weep in envy and collarbones that could take your eye out, my thighs will still have their fatty bits at the top and my hips will still have a little extra padding. (Dear Charlotte, your thighs are Siamese twins. They have never ever not touched. Separating them would be traumatizing. Stop trying - you are not meant to have legs that are widest at the knee.) And so it goes with never feeling good in my skin, with no weight ever being low enough.

I refuse to let that happen again. REFUSE.

I have been down that path to self-hatred more times than I can count. And I have learned that thin does not guarantee happiness. In fact, at my thinnest I was supremely unhappy because I was a) really hungry b) really worried about how to maintain that weight and c) still sure I was fat! But that leaves me with the question of where exactly then is my best, healthiest weight? Do I go by BMI? By what my husband says? My friends (see above, ahem)? My doctor? A website that calculates via a survey what weight other people find you most attractive at? (Yes those websites exist and no I'm not linking one because they are crazy making in the extreme.)

When I was complaining about my "last three pounds" (I know, first-world country problem) to Gym Buddy Allison she pointed out, "How cool is it that you lost all your baby weight without dieting??" And the Intuitive Eating lightbulb clicked on. She's right. For the first time, eating whatever my body needs (not necessarily whatever it wants), I've lost my pregnancy weight without craziness. That's a freaking coup. (For reference, after the last two babies were born I ended up in eating disorder treatment.) And that's also my answer: if I trust my body enough to tell me when it's hungry and when it's full then I also have to trust it enough to tell me when it is at a healthy sustainable weight - whether or not that is the magic number in my head. That is a very scary thought for me. How will I know it when I hit it? What range should I expect for normal fluctuations? How do I quiet the crazy thoughts that tell me it's just not enough? And yet I'm 100% committed to making this work because these past few months I've come to enjoy an ease and, dare I say it?, JOY around food. I'm not giving that up. Even if it means hanging on to a few "extra" pounds.

Please help me out - tell me how you know when you are at your "best" weight! How have you learned to trust yourself? Anyone else get caught in that slippery slope of "just a couple more pounds and then I'll be perfect"?? What do you say when people comment about your weight?

Intuitive Eating Dilemma: How To Eat What Your Body Wants

Intuitive Eating is a roller coaster. I'm not going to lie to you. In concept - eat what your body wants, it knows you best - it's elegantly simple. In practice it's, well, as messy as the stretching mats of ill repute right after our high-intensity bootcamp class finishes our 100 push-ups. (Seriously, we did over 100 push-ups today. My name is sore. My middle name is stupid.) I've been officially following Intuitive Eating principles for 4.5 months now and in addition to losing a few pounds, I've dialed the crazy down from a padded-room Mel Gibson to a lovably kooky Sharon Osborne. I'm aiming for a sassy and serene Kate Winslet. (Anyone else measure their mental health against the celebrity scale of insanity? Anyone??)

I cannot emphasize enough how life-changing this mental shift has been for me. It's the freedom to walk into a party with a buffet and not feel trapped between my desire to shovel in all the forbidden goodies and my panicky need to hide in another room for the whole party so I won't shovel in all the forbidden goodies. It's the freedom to go to a restaurant without checking the menu online first. It's the freedom to skip over all the diet tips in magazines because the majority of them make no sense to me any more. Why should I drink 16 ounces of water before every meal to "trick my body" into feeling full when I already know, without tricks, what full feels like? Indeed, I no longer hide treats from myself (did that ever work anyhow?) and ended up giving away half a bag of Godiva chocolates because I just didn't like them. I know.

So now that we've had the sunshine-and-roses portion of our program let's move on to the down and dirty. It's not like the above paragraph all the time. Maybe not even most of the time. I wish it was. But I get tired, cranky, PMS-y, bored and all the other foibles of our imperfect natures. (True story: One day I ate half a bag of butterscotch chips out of frustration that I couldn't get "If I Die Young" out of my head. Stupid catchy song - I dare you not to sing it for the rest of the day. And if that's not the worst reason ever to eat, I don't know what is.) And so my weight loss hasn't been picture perfect either. This is the real reason it's taken me so long to write this post. Despite numerous e-mails from you guys asking for an Intuitive Eating update, I've been afraid to write about it. The abbreviated version:

Good news: I finally hit my pre-pregnancy weight!
Bad news: for one day - the next day the scale jumped 2 pounds and hasn't come down since.
Good news: It didn't bother me as much as it would have six months ago!
Bad news: It still really bothered me.
Good news: I can still fit in 90% of my clothes!
Bad news: I still can't fit in 10% of my cute clothes.
Good news: I didn't cry in my closet!
Bad news: it still ruined my day.

All of which is to say I an not, in any way, the poster girl for Intuitive Eating (I'll leave that role to Geneen Roth and Ms. Oprah). So take the following advice with a grain of salt.

I got two interesting e-mails about IE recently and I think they sum up the main struggle most of us have with this program - knowing what our body wants versus what our mind wants.

Reader L writes, "How do you get past emotional eating? Do you have any tricks that get you through those moment when you "need" to eat an entire batch of cookies? And I mean literally, an entire batch! Its gotten really out of hand lately and though I feel like i have squared with the emotional causes, the pull to down large amounts of treats is really strong. Likely some of that is because sugar is like crack to me so maybe I should detox and go without for a while just to get it out of my system to reduce cravings, but with winter and its drearyness on its way , I am worried I will be diabetic by spring if I dont get a handle on this. Any thoughts?"

Reader C writes, "How did you decide what to eat? Did you eat anything and everything? Maybe I'm making this more difficult than possible but I just don't know. Maybe I should find a nutritionist or therapist with experience with IE. Who knows?"

My first suggestion would be to read Geneen Roth's books Breaking Free From Emotional Eating and When You Eat at the Refrigerator, Pull Up a Chair. (I know people love Women, Food and God right now and while it is an excellent read it isn't much of a how-to manual. These two books are.) She says it so much better than I can.

Second, I want you to know that it is difficult trying to figure out the difference between true bodily hunger and a craving. At the beginning it's very difficult. The first two weeks were agonizing for me as I questioned every.single.bite. But it gets easier! I thought that I'd so messed up my internal cues with decades of dieting that I'd never be able to know when my body was hungry and what it wants. But you know what? For the most part, I can now. And if I can learn to do it, you totally can learn to do it too!

Third: sometimes it's easier to know what you don't want than what you do and sometimes you can only learn that lesson after you eat too much and feel like crap. A couple of weeks ago I made biscuits (white flour, butter, sugar - the real, non-healthified version) and for whatever reason ate nearly the whole batch of dough. First I got the carb-rush euphoria. Then I got hit with a tidal wave of exhaustion, headaches, self-recrimination and, of course, guilt. But now I know. Healthy food makes my body feel happier, more energetic, and more calm. There's a world of difference between "knowing" that a food is bad for you and forcing yourself to avoid it and knowing that you can eat it if you want but you will have to deal with the inevitable sugar crash afterward. The end result may be the same (not eating the whole batch of biscuit dough) but the motivations are so opposite that it's the difference between diet rebellion/feelings of deprivation and taking gentle care of your body.

Fourth, a note on sugar: I still think the white granulated stuff is as addictive as the other white powder. I know I feel better when I don't eat sugar. And yet I still decide sometimes to take the accompanying icky feelings just to get that sugar high for a few moments. The idea of a sugar detox is a good one in theory. I think if you can do it without feeling deprived then you probably will find it helpful in managing your cravings. However, if you force yourself you're only going to end up face down in a plate of coconut cream pie at the end. Me, I can't go cold turkey for very long without feeling seriously pissy so my compromise (that I will emphasize works for me and may not necessarily be the solution for you) is to have a little bit every day. My only caveat is that it has to be what I really want to eat. No nibbling out of the bag of chocolate chips every time I walk past and pretending that I'm not really eating them because "it's just 1 chip". If I'm going to have a treat it's going to be coconut sorbet served in a bowl with hardshell fudge topping and I'm going to sit there and do nothing but enjoy it. (Ideally. Feel free to reference the butterscotch chips, biscuit dough above.)

How would you answer L & C? Do you have ways of knowing the difference between "mind hunger" and "body hunger"? What is your philosophy when it comes to sugar? Which celebrity are you as crazy as?