Hi, My name is Craig. I am an ex-carboholic. Nice to meet you.”
“Just 10 years ago, I was unaware that my relationship to carbohydrates was an addiction. But after a decade of self-investigation and strategic, gradual carbohydrate restriction, I now eat a “normal” carbohydrate diet for an adult. In the throes of my addiction. I was letting myself suffer unnecessary symptoms and discomfort, because my mindset was defending that carbohydrates were “good,” “healthy,” and “part of a balanced diet.”
The Early Wake-Up Call in Life
I began my path in health by breaking my neck in a car accident over 20 years ago. While the modern medical community was full of information regarding how lucky I was to survive the crash, modern medicine had no cure for my damaged body, nor any suggestions for what kind of foods and herbs would help the recovery. I felt disappointed , to say the least and I was feeding myself a lot of carbohydrate goodies, unaware that they were slowing down my recovery.
Yoga was the first thing I gravitated to in my self-invented healing protocol. It helped me mend, and changed the way I looked at life forever. I remember my first class. I was high-strung, uptight, and depressed, sitting in a large gymnasium that smelled of dirty socks and B.O. The class teacher, Sonya Glassmeyer, began the class and I watched her state-of-being transform into the antithesis of how I was experiencing myself. She began to flow into a state of calm, her voice changed to a sweet melody, and her words offered me encouragement for the first time in years.
That class got me started, and then diet changes came….gradually. It took another 15 years for me to finally integrate what my body had been trying to tell me. The normal comfortable pattern I maintained was what I called, “sloth-ness.” It entailed plopping myself down on the couch in the afternoon, and eating anything and everything I could manage to get in my mouth. Interestingly, I had a college roommate who used to be my mirror in this. Many mornings I would find him passed out on the couch from the night before, crumbs of Nilla wafers, sunflower seeds, and drool covering his face and head! The mirror was not pretty to look at, but sometimes very funny.
My diet consisted of mostly carbohydrate goodies. I loved cookies, milk, cake, muffins, chocolate, you know, the usual repertoire. My friends would be shocked at how much food I could stuff into my nice toned tight stomach! I could easily consume 5000 calories without a sigh but within an hour, I would go into what felt like being drunk. Much later, I found documentation that some people, if their gut is severely compromised, produce their own alcohol from the yeast growing in their intestines. That would be me, Craig, the carbo-holic, thank you very much. “Drunk in my own juices” I used to say.
Eventually my discomfort forced me to explore how I could rebuild my diet. I added in more vegetables, more fruit, more whole grains, and I saw myself changing. But “something” kept blocking my path. I wrote about this dilemma in my journal and titled it, “Cookies and Kicharee:”
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“It’s funny, but the path to purity is fraught with temptations, desires, and obstacles. So it seems. When I made the statement to the universe that I wanted to be pure, its opposite appeared. Such is the nature of duality.
During my practice of spirituality, I kept bumping up against temptations beyond “my” control. I knew even before I started a path of health that addictions were damaging. And addictions were the antithesis of freedom. How free can we be when we think about and obsess about someone or something frequently? Health must mean more than just changing ones diet.
My body was healthy enough to sustain good energy all day without a coke, without a cup of coffee. What came of this newfound energy and awareness was a desire to make all my own food. So I began to make homemade cookies. Not just any cookie, but the old Tollhouse Chocolate chip cookie.
When practicing meditation and choosing to live austere, as I had been for 5-10 years at this point, then only brown rice, vegetables, and pure water became sensible to me. How did chocolate chip cookies fit into this life? I explored this question more.
I thought I could trust my cravings for food. Because I would crave balanced meals. I would crave very specific items like a bowl of rice, a small piece of salmon, and steamed kale with carrots. Then I also discovered this little piece of me (left behind in some weird way) still craved the sweets, especially in the evening.
So I would often laugh at myself after eating a food (the best survival food in India because they say sages have lived on it for lifetimes) called Kicharee (basically brown rice with mung beans and certain spices). I would eat it with vegetables, then crave cookies for dessert. The paradox, the annoyance was interesting. I could not resolve this.” Perhaps that was the lesson! Burning in no resolution.
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It was not until many years later, actually another ten, that I finally felt the internal “yes” to trying life without these sweet goodies. And I was in for a big surprise as I investigated why and how sugar affected health.
“Sugar is the ultimate gateway drug.” wrote Shanahan MD, in the book, Deep Nutrition. (2009)
I had read similar sayings many times in my life, but never really put it together. I had surfer friends who used to talk with me about, “life being a chemical state” but it did not penetrate into my world of food and health. When it did sink in, it was all so logical. Each food has different chemicals in it, and different “imprints.” An imprint is how the food was grown, what it ate (or was fed), the conditions it was grown in, and what kind of consciousness it was around.
I remember being shocked, reading about Taoist masters having only their advanced disciples make their food. They felt the person making their food and the energy that went into the preparation was as important as the food itself. Wouldn’t you want to have your food made with love, under a person’s unrushed hands? The extra goodies you get from that food cannot be measured. It made sense. Something manufactured in a factory like sugar was in conflict with this.
The comedy of my situation was my knowing that sweets were causing me problems but because of my attachment, I did not care. Just like an alcoholic or other addict, I rationalized it. Benjamin Franklin observed, “So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do”. I had a mind to continue to eat sugar; that is, until the day came that I got scared.
It happened in a class. A guest speaker on nutrition said that even though she was suffering terribly from diabetes and its complications, she was going to eat herself into the grave. She thought her treats were more important than having a longer and higher quality life. I realized then that I felt the same and had for a long time.
Faced with what I was really doing to myself, I tried a few days without even natural sugars like raw honey or agave. Then I tried no grain or flour products. I went a full year not even eating fruit! I went 30 days without wheat in any form. My scientist mind would not let me rest until I had tried the experiment. This is called an “Elimination Program”. The experiment is to leave out the problematic food for 3-4 weeks, then eat it for a day or two and watch for changes in energy, health, and even emotions.
I could not believe what happened to me! Upon re-introduction of wheat, I got so much mucus, my throat felt like it was going to burst. I also became extremely fatigued, and my bowels went from liquid to hard little pebbles within hours, (sure signs of liver stress).
I also tried this with corn. Upon re-introduction, strange cold-like symptoms appeared. But I knew better. I knew this was not a cold or flu. I even vomited one time and it was the only time in my life I felt better after vomiting!
And upon adding a few fruit treats over that year I was trying to stay off, a pattern of sneezing, sniffles, foggy head, and fatigue would set in within minutes. I was convinced something was not right inside my body. So I made the changes while tending to the emotional attachments.
The End and the Beginning
Hi. My name is Craig, and this is my confession. I am a fraud. We all are. We will never be enough. Life will never be enough. But something is. The old Enlightened Ones call it, “The Natural State.” Others call it, “Un-caused joy”. The Standard American Diet calls it “sugar”. But while sugar may whisper a promise of “I am enough” our bodies know it is a lie and tells us so with our symptoms.
My greatest discovery was this: Who cares if we aren’t enough? Life has all we need, and as some put it, “want what you get, instead of trying to always get what you want.” I began the first step in the rest of my life by assessing my mindset and habits regarding sugar and I invite each of you to do the same. Don’t look back.
Please read the few quotes and investigate what they are pointing to. This is not philosophy, it is reality.
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Be content with what you have, see the Joy prior to thought. When you realize nothing is lacking, Life conspires with you.
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Tao Te Ching Chapter 44 (translation Craig Lane)
Non-Dual Beingness
Fame or integrity: which is more important?
Money or happiness: which has more value?
Gain or loss: which hurts more?
Looking to the World for happiness,
We spend our fortunes on things and acquire.
Looking to the Self,
We see we are the fortune!
See contentment is already here,
Rejoicing in Life.
Realizing nothing is lacking,
We can be who we really are.
Please watch Food Inc. for more information or go to www.westonaprice.org.
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