Happy & Healthy
I DON'T EAT SUGAR ANYMORE AND THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED
Well, last summer I suddenly had something that looked like a stomach ulcer, a condition that seemed more fitting for corpulent fifty-somethings with a well-paid stressful job in real estate. Completely unasked for, yet received. There was little to be done, taking a bit of rest and waiting it out was the advice. And: no coffee, no black tea, an amount of fat that hardly makes a person happy and just a tiny bit of spices. Me in a fetal position on the couch, indignant, squeaking and lamenting over the dreadful suffering that was inflicted upon me. And without a single scapegoat to point to as the main culprit, such a jerk to vent all your anger on.
A week, weeks, months went by without improvement: I kept feeling terrible stabbing pains in my stomach, got nauseous from almost every meal, and I kept burping like it was a dear pleasure. Burp. Burp. Burp. The whole day long! Really, I can't express in words how horrible that is. Time for drastic measures.
“Boy, all of the Netherlands is hooked up to a stationary sugar infusion, I can tell you”
This woman goes to the doctor, turns out a very unpleasant bacterium is the culprit of all the suffering already endured. No stomach ulcer. A course of antibiotics already made a few sips of the drink easier, but the lion's share of my slow but certain recovery turned out to be a different diet. I had to stop eating sugar immediately. Sugar! My dear precious white poison! That wonderfully sweet comforting stuff that I am so in love with! You shouldn't shoot the messenger, but a little reprimand or a small punishment for Mr. Doctor seemed to me a fitting penalty for bringing such bad news.
Once accustomed to the idea, I saw it positively: I don't drink soda anyway and I don't cook anything from packages but make everything myself. Giving up that one Snickers a day shouldn't be too difficult, right? Well, it was. And I turned out to reward myself more often than I realized with a little sugar here and there: tea with honey to start the day, a piece of licorice in between, a stack of ginger cookies as morning treat, quality chocolate with tea and honey around four in the afternoon, evening snack butter cake, French toast with fruit and brown sugar on the weekend… My sugar intake turned out to be endless. Damn. And I was so blissfully unaware.
“I dream of dancing with a cotton candy and playing majorette with a pipe of cinnamon”
Anyway, I’m now doing quite well at letting go of my beloved sugar. I hardly snack anymore – with a little relapse once a month, that’s true – and I’m gradually paying attention to how much sugar is in other foods. Boy, all of the Netherlands is hooked up to a stationary sugar infusion, I can tell you. Don’t count cookies, candy and the obvious suspects in, and then you still have things like ketchup, mayonnaise, crackers, bacon, bouillon cubes and more products where unexpectedly a flavorful hit of sugar is hidden. I could cry.
And the worst part of this whole story: I feel a thousand times better. No tearing stomach pain, no burping, hardly any nausea. And a lot less headache. And a few kilos lighter. And did I already mention that I feel so much better? Just more myself again? It’s rotten, yes, because inside I’m crying over all the beautiful moments that sugar and I could have had together. I dream of dancing with a cotton candy and playing majorette with a pipe of cinnamon. Of gumballs, Roald Dahl's gobblefunkers, gum glitters, devilish fizzers and fizzy lemonade. But yes, feeling a thousand times better is also worth something, right? Just try not to, saying goodbye to sugar. It will hurt.
