A Sweet Middle Path

Sugar, specifically white refined sugar, has gotten a bad rap.

While I typically abide by a “to each their own” approach to food, it seems that this era is abundant in celebrities and influencers ‘coming out’ with their sugar-free lifestyle.

To many this seems logical and saintly. To me this is yet another extreme shift of the dietary pendulum that leaves people swinging between restriction and over consumption, more obsessed with food and less at ease in life

Out of a desire to offer a different perspective and perhaps provide a middle path, I bring you my thoughts on sugar. This post isn’t for the nutrition police who have, for the time being, made up their mind. This is for those of you lost in the middle of a world that plies you with sugary sodas and tells you it’s poison at the same time.

Here are six thoughtful ‘spoonfuls’:

1. A sweet role model on the sweet middle path...

Henry Ware. “Hal” to most. Grandpa, or more often Bapa, to me.

At 91, my grandfather lived alone, remained active, and, for his age, was very healthy. He also ate dessert nearly everyday of his life. He lived to be 96. [Cue needle scratch]

When I hear of people saying sugar is poison I reminisce about the lemon meringue pie I used to bake with my grandmother. It was so delicious.

2. When there is nothing to rebel against…

In my experience, when I have something to rebel against, I rebel. When I have nothing to rebel against, I’m free and traveling an easeful middle path. A no-sugar rule would, and has, in my more restrictive days, made me straight-up bonkers. Being a freedom-junkie is what has kept me from being a sugar-junkie.

3. Play food has a place…

Here’s an excerpt from a favorite book of mine, Intuitive Eating:

“Sometimes you have a desire for food that has no nutritionally redemptive powers. We call this food play food. We prefer this term to one of the most commonly used terms to describe what’s considered unhealthy foods–junk food. The term junk food implies that there is no intrinsic value in this food–in fact, that it probably should be thrown in the garbage can. But we feel that this thinking is unwarranted. There are times when a piece of red velvet cake or a stick of licorice is just the food that will satisfy your taste buds. And eating these types of foods doesn’t mean you are an unhealthy eater.”

I have often found important, health-promoting, value in foods with little nutritional value.

4. The secret ingredient...

Food is way more than just a sum of it’s macro and micronutrients. Michael Pollan calls this misconception nutritionism. The truth is that there are intangibles in food that we can’t quantify. For example, why does, for some of us, our mother’s version of a dish taste so much better than our own? The answer is something we can’t see under a microscope or write into a recipe. Food, if we pay attention, has (or doesn’t have) soul to it. A factor often ignored when we eliminate whole categories of food.

5. Pleasure as a food group…

Speaking of intangibles in food. I’ve found that just like I can eat a diet deficient in fat or Vitamin C, I can be deficient in pleasure. I’ve learned to treat pleasure like a food group with a hearty dose of daily servings. This is how I feel most well-fed and this sometimes includes sugar.

6. We’re all moderators…

Some people argue that people can be divided into moderators and abstainers - people who have just a little of something and people who can’t. I balk at this argument.

In my experience, and the science supports this, an inability to “have just a little” of something is a result of the pendulum swing that occurs for everyone where there is some sort of psychological belief that the item is scarce (“Remember, you only get to eat this when you’re on vacation”) or shouldn’t be eaten (“Good thing no one is here to see you stuffing your face with this naughty food”). When we truly feel free to eat whatever we want, whenever we want, in any quantity we want we naturally find that we don’t overdo much. In my experience, overdoing is a result of compensation for some form of restriction. Moderation is the result of being free and deeply trusting oneself.

7. Information overload...

Lest you think I’m clueless about nutrition and sugar's effect on our bodies, rest assured that I know my omega-3’s from my omega-6s. At the height of my own eating disorder I was a walking nutritional encyclopedia. I also spent three years spent earning my master’s degree in holistic health education where I studied everything from the USDA guidelines to Ayurvedic eating approaches; raw food to the Weston A. Price approach; Chinese medicine to eco-political food systems.

In the end, I believe we suffer from a dangerous mix of information overload, food paranoia, and body disconnection.

Bottomline: I don’t want to live a life without sugar. I’m all for taking into account what my body and our planet need in order to be healthy, but I’m not willing to sacrifice my mental health for it. I also think the answer is always somewhere in shades of gray, not in the black and white approach of forgoing sugar all together. Turns out I don’t have to. Thank goodness. So this is the path I have chosen: turn down the noise, ignore fads of the moment, aim for a middle path (all things in moderation, including moderation), restrict nothing, listen to my body, pay attention to the seasons and where my food comes from, and deeply enjoy sweet foods whenever I want them.

The Five Languages of Body Love

Have you heard of The Five Love Languages?

I’m guessing yes given the best-seller status of the book, but if not, here’s the rundown.

Gary Chapman, the author, posits that there are five ways that we can show love to each other, and especially toward a romantic partner: through gifts, quality time, words of affirmation, act of service, and physical touch.

The idea is that each of us has a dominant love language, or way we are best able to receive love. If our partner shows their love in a language we don’t ‘speak’ well then we might end up feeling uncared for or unloved. The trick, Chapman argues, is to understand each others love language and do our best to communicate accordingly. Some people feel loved when they are given quality time while others interpret physical touch or gifts as an affirmative signs.

I think this theory has a lot of value AND I think we need to take it with a big grain of salt. I’m not sure that love can be simplified so easily, but it’s valuable to note that we all experience it uniquely.

Switching subjects for a minute, let's talk about our bodies and how we feel about them. It's a pretty body-unfriendly swamp that we're swimming in. Everywhere you look are shame-inducing messages, overt and subliminal, targeted at our natural and diverse forms.

As a life coach and woman who seeks to practice self-acceptance and respect, I know just how much our relationship with our body determines how fulfilling our life is overall. Seriously, what's possible for a woman who is body-respectful is two-fold to what's possible to those ensnared in body-loathing.

So what does body love and The Five Languages of Love have to do with each other?

A lot. I’ve noticed that there are periods when we either communicate with our body through only one language or not through the language our body is asking us to love it through. To explore this further, here are the questions I began to ask myself and that you might find useful.

Gifts

Do I give my body gifts? Do I find yourself making kind purchases with my body’s care in mind? What’s the last gift I gave my body?

Quality Time

Do I give my body my time? Do I leave space in my life for my body to be heard and cared for? When is the last time I spent quality time with my body?

Words of Affirmation

Do I speak kindly towards my body? Are the messages I surround my body with respectful and/or loving? What’s the last generous and sweet thing I said to my body?

Acts of Service

Do I consider myself my body’s advocate and caregiver? When was the last time I went out of my way to do something for my body?

Physical Touch

Do I lay my hands on my own flesh? Do I do so with love? Do I provide my body with opportunities for caring and loving touch from another? When was the last time my body felt that it had been touched “enough” or to the point of “fullness”?

This line of inquiry was powerful for me and it opened me up to all the ways I could expand my body-love practice. So interesting to see where we easily give love and where we have blind spots. If you want to communicate your body through a broader range of love languages, here are a few ideas:

Gifts

Purchase a foam roller and use it to loosen up with myofacial release.

Treat your body to a coveted care product, be it lotion, massage oil, or scented soap.

Offer your body clothing that makes you feel good, comfortable, and stylish.

Quality Time

Dedicate 10 minutes in the morning to scanning your body with presence and curiosity.

Allow your body to write you a letter in your journal.

Take a nap, regularly.

Words of Affirmation

Commit to one day of body-respectful talk towards yourself.

Put up affirming words on your walls, bathroom mirror, or refrigerator door.

Come up with a mantra to recite every time you are feeling anything less than loving towards your body.

Acts of Service

Advocate for your body to another. Make a request. Make your body’s desires known.

Cook for your body. Prepare food that delights all your senses and your belly.

Take your body to see the doctor or dentist for a routine check-up.

Physical Touch

Massage yourself with sesame oil after a shower.

Try out a new type of bodywork, such as craniosacral or Thai massage.

Make love to yourself or with a partner.

The trick here, if this inquiry interests you, is to explore what makes your body feel loved?

Vitamin P

Pleasure is a food group.

We need servings of it every single day. And most of us aren’t getting it. We’re malnourished of Vitamin P. We’re actually starving for pleasure. By taking care of everyone else. By striving to be loved, liked, approved of, to be the ‘good’ girl, to be the ‘bad’ girl. By seeking to numb ourselves and distract from what's here. It’s exhausting, we're exhausted, and all this clouds out pleasure. We don’t receive pleasure when we do ‘shoulds’, have ‘to do’s, or when we try to fit in, suck it up, suck it in. Low carb and pureed kale. Shoes so uncomfortable they make you want to cut your big toe off. The job that looks good on paper. Faking it in all the many ways we do. Denying our self what we truly hunger for. This is where so many of us live and this is a pleasure desert.

What we need is to feel good. To feel delicious. To feed our our five senses. For me lounging in bed. It’s turning my face to the sunrise. It’s a steaming mug of chai. It’s a skilled massage. It’s face oil that smells sweet. It’s practicing seeing beauty in every person. It’s sudden laugh attacks. It’s playing bingo at the senior center. It’s clean sheets. It’s ranunculus. It’s bearded wirey dogs. It’s dancing with my daughter. It’s the smell of creosote in the desert after it rains. It’s a firm mattress. It’s the rare day where I do absolutely nothing. My five senses and your five senses require pleasure.

Pleasure is quite simply a daily medicine needed for living well and being full.

And we need to be intentional about it. Not just taking what crumbs of pleasure come our way. We need to live has sensualists. We must treat pleasure like we do drinking water - essential and something we don't apologize for needing.

Think of how your life might be different if you got a mega-dose of pleasure every day? Would you have more bounce in yours step? More radiant energy? Less tension in your muscles? What if you asked yourself each night before you go to sleep: “What will please me tomorrow?” What if you started each day by asking yourself: “What would please me right now?" Or "How can what I wear today bring me pleasure?", "How can what I eat today be a full-on pleasurable experience?", and "Is the music I'm listening to releasing my endorphins?" Ask yourself: "How can the everyday moments in my life, the ones that string together to form what we call “busy” be pleasurable?" Moments like taking a shower. Like getting dressed or eating breakfast. Moments like driving in the car. Start small (or big). Eat pleasure. Listen to pleasure. Feel pleasure. Smell pleasure. Look at pleasure. Surround yourself and infuse your life with pleasure. This is a life with luster and this is a big part of what makes life worth living.

Pleasure teaches us that life doesn't have to feel like swimming up stream. I used to think it did. I used think that toxic levels of stress, a wildly abusive inner critic, and days spent striving for perfection were normal and what life was all about. No. More. With pleasure as my carrot I don't need a stick. And neither do you.

Stuck on what you’d find pleasurable? Don’t use your head. Use your body. Like a homing beacon just continue to tune into what FEELS good.