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Svasti: A Journey From Assault To Wholeness

~ Recovery from PTSD & depression + yoga, silliness & poetry…

Svasti: A Journey From Assault To Wholeness

Tag Archives: quitting sugar

So Sugar, what’s the deal?

09 Wednesday Nov 2011

Posted by Svasti in Health & healing, Hypothyroidism, I quit sugar!

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

anti-masturbation tactic, Anxiety, autoimmune, Depression, gluten free eating, Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, Healing, hypothyroidism, I Quit Sugar, inflammation, PTSD, quitting sugar, Sarah Wilson, sugar, thyroid

Gimme some sugar, Sugar

Hey honey! Sweetie, darling! Sweetcakes! Gimme some sugar!

Or rather… please don’t.

As I mentioned briefly last week, I’ve just started a brand new regime of quitting sugar.

Today is day three.

I know. WHY the heck would I do something like that? Maybe you’re staring at the screen in horror at such a suggestion. When I announced my plans on Twitter, someone asked me: All sugar, forever?

Even across the internets, I could hear the disbelief and tension in those three little words.

But really, why?

Good question! Glad you asked. 😀

Here’s the skinny: I have Hashimoto’s thyroiditis. An autoimmune condition wherein my body has decided that my thyroid is a foreign entity to be attacked and destroyed. Thanks, body!

Hashimoto’s is inflammation in the body, and basically causes the thyroid to be underactive – meaning a slowed metabolism (hello, weight gain/difficulty with weight loss), an impaired immune system (getting sick a lot), low-low-low iron levels, a massive loss of energy (you try getting out of bed like this!) and a whole bunch of other less than lovely symptoms.

But if you’ve been reading this blog for a little while you’d know about some of this already. As well as my various efforts to heal my body. You can read some of my other posts if you like.

There’s all sorts of information out there about the causes (there are several), what to do about it, treatment (western and alternative medicine), what to eat and so on.

One of my key goals at the moment is reducing inflammation and trying to make my body chemistry as alkaline as possible.

Get your addict on

Here’s the thing about sugar: generally speaking it’s in everything we eat, when physiologically it’s only meant to be consumed sparingly.

As in, not every day. Heck, not even every week!

Too much sugar causes inflammation in the body, as well as contributing to weight gain, and possibly even things like making our minds whizz around too fast, sleep disturbances and so on.

Also, sugar is addictive. The more we have, the more we want.

For a somewhat humorous take on this, read how breakfast cereal was originally developed as an anti-masturbation tactic.

Been there, done it before

A bunch of years ago I did the whole sugar quitting thing. Not because I needed to (although really, we all need to at least reduce our sugar intake), but because it was a Thing.

A dieting technique: cut all sugars and all grains and the weight drops off!

While this is actually true, that kind of all-or-nothing approach can be hard to sustain.

But for the period of time I was on my ABSOLUTELY NO SUGAR kick, I felt and looked amazing.

Keeping it up is another story. Especially in our heavily sugar addicted culture. Especially when attempting to eat out with friends, or even order a drink in a bar. Seriously.

So I lapsed. Eventually my sugar intake was back to its previous levels and with it, much of the weight I’d dropped.

Then I was assaulted, developed PTSD and depression and started eating like shit because most days all I could manage was cheese and crackers, peanut butter on toast, eating out/ordering take-away, or ice cream. So I put on more weight.

Finally, I started to work on healing my mind, heart and soul. What I didn’t realise at the time is that mental health issues like PTSD, anxiety and depression absolutely mess with your body and brain chemistry, and even your DNA.

So as a result of all of this, I now have an autoimmune condition. More healing required! But then, when does it ever truly stop? And why should it have to?

Sarah Wilson’s “I Quit Sugar” e-book

Sarah Wilson's "I Quit Sugar" ebook

When I was first diagnosed, I took to Twitter to ask for information on thyroid stuff as well as gluten-free eating (recommended for thyroidy people).

One of the first crowd-sourced suggestions was to read Sarah’s blog.

She doesn’t just write about Hashimoto’s, eating gluten and sugar free – there’s lots of other cool posts, too.

Recently she published a little ebook (note: this is an affiliate link*) that I immediately snapped up. I’ve now read it cover to cover and this week I began my new journey to a sugar-free life!

The thing I like about Sarah’s approach is that she’s NOT all hardcore do-or-die about it. She suggests an eight week slowly-does-it technique.

Allowing you to ween yourself off the sweet stuff bit by bit.

* Which means that if you buy Sarah’s ebook from clicking on the above link, I get paid a small fee.

But really, for how long?

The answer to “All sugar, forever?” is: I don’t know. Maybe. We’ll see. It’s “for now” anyways. For the foreseeable future, yes.

Sarah even suggests that after you’ve “detoxed” from your sugar addiction, it might be possible to re-introduce limited amounts of sugar into your diet again.

But it really depends on your body and how it reacts to even a little bit of sugar. Does it kick off the addiction again or are you cool with tiny amounts?

You kinda won’t know until you detox for a few months and then give it a try.

So yeah, here I go with my new sugar-free living adventure.

Let me know if you’d like to join in so we can support each other. It’d be excellent to have a buddy along for the ride.

Anyways, I’ll be posting updates on my progress around once a week to keep myself accountable to someone – YOU!

Wish me well, m’lovelies.

~ Svasti xxx

-37.814251 144.963169

Swaying in the wind

04 Friday Nov 2011

Posted by Svasti in Fun, Learnings

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

aneurysm, Anxiety, Depression, Donkey Kong, evil zombie ninja, indelicately explode, newspaper cartoonery, Potential Impending Unemployment Survival Kit, PTSD, quitting sugar, Repression, sapling, Stress, vrksasana, Yoga

Found in a local newspaper this week!

I laughed out loud when I saw this and not just because hey, yoga is now so mainstream it’s an object of daily newspaper cartoonery. But because I recognised myself right there.

Despite our best intentions of being steadfast and strong, sometimes we look more like the right side of that cartoon than the left.

Guess you could say I’m feeling a little sway-ish once again.

Seven more working days in total. That’s how much/little confirmed work I have left right now and believe me, I’ve been looking for a new (and more permanent) job for at least the last six months. But for one reason or another, nothing has turned up. And now this contract is coming to an end and… nada.

So I am very busily finding my balance right now and doing an awful lot of wobbling in the process.

Sometimes I’m all calm and mellow and trusting in the universe to provide.

Others, I’m all twisty leaden bellied and constricted chest and throat on account of the OMIGODDESS it’s-right-before-Christmas-and-my-fully-paid-up-holiday-and-whoooaaaah-what-am-I-gonna-do-if-I-don’t-get-a-job?

Which causes me to batten down the hatches. Which helps me to understand how I did such a good job of hiding my PTSD and depression for years on end from anyone but the most observant of folks.

Because I internalise like a champion. It’s a super power. I mean, if I could take down  a hoard of evil zombie ninjas by internalising my rage and fear, they’d ALL BE DEAD AND THERE WOULD BE NO EVIL ZOMBIE NINJA PLAGUE TEARING APART SOCIETY AS WE KNOW IT…

Whaddya mean there IS no evil zombie ninja plague? And how can you be so sure? Evil zombie ninjas have many faces, y’know!

Anyway, the point is that I’ve got a killer “there’s nothing going on here” facade, which kicks in when I get hyper-stressy. Yet all the while I’m wobbling like a wee baby vrksasana sapling in a hurricane.

Well, sometimes anyway. When I’m feeling less super-heroish, that is. Which is only sometimes.

At this point I could go on and on about all kinds of angsty things and I realise my luverly readers here would probably let me get away with it. But that’s kind of a crappy use of my blog, I’m thinking, over something as piddling as potential impending unemployment.

And trust me, I’m working my connections and contacts to find some work ASAP. It’s on like…like…Donkey Kong!

So instead of letting my anxiety run riot here (which I’m trying not to have anyway because hello, Hashimoto’s), I thought that instead, I’d tell you about my…

Potential Impending Unemployment Survival Kit

Because that’s MUCH MORE fun. Such a kit contains:

  • Invoicing slightly early for my October yoga teaching duties, the sum of which almost pays for an entire term of me being a yoga student – until the end of the year. So that the yogas are covered.
  • Getting a much overdue haircut this coming weekend so I look stylish while I’m broke.
  • Making plans for the 16th November (potential impending unemployment day 1) which include: taking the cat to the vet (immunisations and grooming); and going to see my accountant (still haven’t done my taxes yet for this year).
  • Being resolved that even if I do get a job, I won’t work on the 16th so I can get to the vet and the accountant anyways.
  • Committing to getting some of my writing work going. On account of if I don’t get it out of my head soon, I might just get an aneurysm or otherwise explode rather indelicately. And nobody wants to see that.
  • Putting out the feelers for some extra yoga teaching gigs. It mightn’t pay the bills too well but it’ll sure keep me in a good mood. Which might be beneficial for job interviews.
  • Spring clean of the house. It. Must. Happen.
  • More riding of my push bike, which has sadly spent a great deal of the last few months doing very little.
  • Otherwise spending as much time as I can outside and by the beach.

Oh, and as of Monday, I’m going to be starting a new experiment: the quitting of sugar.

I’ve done it before, many years ago now. But I lapsed. Because of the Hashimoto’s I’ve been seriously curbing sugar anyway, but I’m convinced the timing is right to give it a go once more. For my health, and not just for vanity or because everyone else is doing it.

But I’ll talk more about that next week.

Anyway, the plan is to keep trying to find my balance and engage in activities that’ll make me feel good. Well, except for the cat grooming – although that’ll help with less cat hair to clean up. And the accountant – although hey, a tax refund will be in the works, so yay!

Also, my giveaway winner finally turned up (HOORAY!!) so there will be no re-draw of the yogAttitude cards.

Til soon, lovely peoples…

~Svasti xxx

-37.814251 144.963169
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