Sugar, Sugar, Sugar - Is there a middle way??

Well today is my birthday and you know what that means - sugar, sugar, sugar......  I know I have choices when it comes to sweets on my birthday but boy is it hard. Everyone wants to go out and celebrate and that usually includes sweet foods, dessert and cocktails, all of which I love!  What shall I do??

I'm reading a very interesting book called Sugardetoxme, that explains the science of our brain's response to sugars and sweeteners (even no calorie ones) of all kinds. I, like the writer, have a sweet tooth. She has chosen to completely detoxify from sweet foods of ALL kinds except a small amount of low sweet whole fruit. She explains that even fruit smoothies where the fruit is blended to a pulp loses fiber and stresses the body, and fructose in general is extremely hard on our blood sugar regulatory system. She informs us that metabolically we really can only handle 100-200 calories of sweet foods/liquids per day of ANY kind (including lactose milk sugar and the no calorie herbal sweetener stevia).

It's true that many, many people on the planet, and especially in America, are terribly addicted to sugar (and other stimulants), causing a wide variety of health problems, but where do you draw the line?  Especially in this day and age when sweet foods are so readily available everywhere you go and for every occasion imaginable, and Jamba Juice and Starbucks have become a daily habit.

I'm fascinated by this scientific analysis of the full effects of sugar spelled out so well by this author, and commend her ability to abstain from sweet foods completely, possibly living the healthiest life she can live while also helping others strive for this as well. Can I do that?  Food, and especially sweets, are consumed for a variety of reasons and I know I eat them for fun, emotional issues, stress, fatigue, social occasions, habit - you name it. When I have completely cut these foods out for long periods of time in the past because they made me so incredibly sick that I had no choice (even absolutely no fruit!), I felt deprived and like I was going to go crazy, though my health did improve over time.

Ultimately I believe in the middle way in all things. Enjoy life but do it in balance. Find sweets that work for you even if they might have a small side affect, once in a while. Force never works!  Love yourself and love life, as naturally, healthfully, and in balance as you can. Don't go to battle or become obsessed with food and let that consume you just for "perfect" health or a skinny body, forever and always. If you can do it and be happy then good for you!  But there are many other things to work on in life besides food, things that can change your health and who you are as a person in a deep way, so you can experience more LOVE - romantic, supernatural, personal, familial, etc - such as improving communication, decreasing stress, caring for ourselves and others in a variety of ways, experiencing new things, finding a higher calling, living a full life as best you can. LOVE of ALL kinds is the true lifelong elixir. Don't get bogged down by food!!!

For more to come on sugar detoxing the middle way, follow my experience and instruction as a long time "sugar sensitive"/hypoglycemic, as I uncover this middle way in my life, recorded in this blog.