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Fighting Food Cravings- Is it really Life and Death?
I think it is very fitting to speak about my dad in this blog this week. He passed away a week ago Monday, and it was truly a week of sadness and also soul searching for me. I thought about this blog a lot. My dad had chronic adult-onset diabetes, you see.
In the days of my childhood my dad and I had a great time together, and our time always included goodies. Ice cream, donuts, and candy bars were among our favorites. We laughed and sang and ate in a fairy tale world where I had never even heard of food addiction or cravings.
In short my dad loved to eat and so did I. It was one of the many levels upon which we met. We were very connected and we loved each other a lot.
But as I watched my dad in the last years of his life, I remember thinking so frequently "What a price pleasure in food can exact." As time went by my father could hardly walk due to his diabetes. He couldn't see very well. Food began to have no flavor at all and he had a hard time swallowing. He spent his days dozing listlessly in a chair, and was sad beyond measure at the loss of all that he had ever enjoyed in life.
And the odd irony was that toward the end my father couldn't even eat from the havoc to his body. And one might even say that in the end he died of starvation.
So what does this say to us, the masses of us, as we go about our lives? The pat and easy answer would be "just don't eat so many complex carbohydrates." But with food cravings, and nearly every label on every food container in the grocery store having some sort of sugar or flour product listed in the ingredients- and usually high up- this seems nearly impossible. I know it took me nearly seven years of eating absolutely no trace of sugar, wheat or flour to feel that such things no longer had a draw for me. Oddly enough, this is about the same amount of time it takes for the body to regenerate all of its cells- and I have often pondered that perhaps I am now literally 'a whole new me' with mo more cells that are addicted to foods.
Most food addiction plans will tell you to stay away from all of those foods permanently. And I don't disagree. Why play with fire after all? Although I will say that during the week of my dad's death I lit the match a bit by eating some onion rings and some ketchup with sugar. In some ways I think it was a last feeble attempt to connect with my dad again. Still, I have had my days of intense cravings- and I don't think I am any too smart to play around in that arena.
So where does this whole conversation leave us. For me it leaves me with a stark reality. I feel healthy, vibrant, and fully alive these days, and I want to honor my father's love by not following him down the path to self destruction. He could not avoid it, but I can. So I will stick to the foods that keep me feeling great. And I will try to educate others on the same issue. And I will hope that the manufacturers and food stores eventually start to provide us with foods that we can eat. And knowing my father and his loving nature, his spirit will be happy if I follow this path.
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