Confessions of a Confused Carb Addict

The Cursed Carbohydrate

Damn carbohydrates. Sugar, flour, crack cocaine... what's the difference? I'll tell you what the difference is, absolutely NOTHING! They are all the same. Each substance is as addictive and as deadly as the next. Each causes pain and suffering. I have never smoked crack or snorted or freebased cocaine, and I have never injected a needle into my arm, but I can imagine what it must be like. Your heart is always pounding, you're always full of anxiety, and you're always needing more just to help you get through the day. It's much more of a chore than a pleasure, but you cannot seem to stop yourself from having your next fix, thinking about your next fix, obsessing about your next fix. That is what carbohydrates are like for me. That is how I live from day to day. Carbohydrates are my constant obsession. I don't feel like I am ever completely free. I try to walk away from them, but something always drives me back into the comforting embrace of chocolatecakeandyeastrollsandchickenparmesanandbreadand pizzaandpancakeswithmaplesyrupandFrenchfriesdrippingwithketchupandbagelsandahot fudgesundaewithmintchocolatechipicecreamandextrawhippedcream. Can I have two cherries please? Is there anything better? Sure, how about an ass whipping with some verbal abuse on the side all the days of your life? It has the same effect, I am certain. Mental break down due to continued physical and mental torture. It's like Stockholm syndrome. I'm in love with my captor, owing a constant debt of gratitude for the many comforts and kindnesses it shows me.

Unlearned Lessons

A carbohydrate is "an organic compound of carbon with oxygen and hydrogen in the proportion to form water. They are divided into sugars proper (C₁₂H₂₂O₁₁), grape-sugars or glucoses (C₆H₁₂O₆), and amyloses, comprising starch and woody fibre." In other words, carbohydrates are nothing but sugar. According to one explanation of the word carbohydrate, "the glycogen of the liver greatly diminishes in amount in the absence of carbohydrate food stuffs." This means that the storage of sugar in the body decreases when the amount of carbohydrates in the body is decreased. This, by the way, is a basic tenet of the low carbohydrate diet. When the body is not continuously being loaded with carbohydrates, it must switch over to a fat burning process rather than a fat storing process, and the excess fat in the body burns away, thereby helping a dieter to lose excess weight. No wonder there are so many confused overweight people in the world today. Carbohydrates are an enigma. Children are told not to eat sweets because sugar will rot their teeth, yet the government suggested food pyramid recommends that the vast majority of people's dietary intake should come from foods that turn directly into sugar, and physicians and dieticians tell people to eat a high carbohydrate diet for energy and optimal nutrition.

Beaten Again by the Sugar Cane

I enter my freshman year of high school a petite young lady. I work hard to rid myself of the excess weight that plagues me since my early childhood. Like a rebellious teenager, I ignore the government approved food pyramid and give up many carbohydrates. I eliminate nearly all of my favorite foods from my diet, and I am so thin that I can look at myself in the mirror or see my shadow on the ground without thinking I am a hideous blob. I almost forget that carbohydrates exist, except for the fact that they are hiding everywhere, even in many of the foods people are taught to believe are healthy.

At one point, however, I begin to feel that something is missing. Something down deep inside of me feels empty (something besides my stomach, of course). Yet my carbohydrate addiction is how I always fill the terrible void. I do not reach for something healthy. No! I want sugar. I want food that I can sink my teeth into. I want the really good stuff. Grocery bags full of frozen Halloween candy that I have saved for myself to indulge in over the last couple years become my passion. This candy that I have faithfully rationed out to myself in increments of one tiny piece every other Saturday is gone in four days. If it were not so disgraceful, it would somehow be fantastic how I gain a total of sixty pounds in three months time. Before the end of the first quarter, I weigh more than I weigh before the diet begins.

What Was Old is New Again

Carbohydrates, proteins, and fats make up the categories that each of the foods we eat falls into, with carbohydrates being the most highly recommended. However, if we look back to the times before there was an abundance of fruits, vegetables, and grains, at least to the extent that we find them today, and people were limited to eating animal proteins and whole grains before they were ground into the flour we recognize today, then is it not beyond reason to question how people survived for thousands of years? And the word carbohydrate did not even exist prior to 1869. Quite simply, people then managed to not only survive but to be healthy without having to deal with obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and certain cancers which have arisen since the advent of the low fat high carbohydrate diet.

A few years ago, Dr. Atkins' New Diet Revolution was a highly popular book; however, the diet itself was not new. Indeed, it is the type of diet that many type I diabetics used to regulate their insulin levels long before other treatments came into existence. Though the low-carbohydrate/high-fat diet has been considered taboo to many, especially since the advent of the low fat diet in the previous decades, it is a diet that preexisted the dawn of processed sugar and flour, which are the main staples of low fat foods. As stated previously, people are taught to believe that carbohydrates are necessary, and of course if you are referring to leafy greens and healthy nuts and seeds, then this is a true assessment; but if you are referring to heavily processed foods that have been made in factories and are not found naturally, then nothing could be further from the truth. Dr. Atkins himself said something in his diet book that resonated greatly with me. He stated that many people believe they are compulsive overeaters, but he wondered how many people would binge on a steak the way they would on a plate of brownies. He believed that foods that were high in protein and fat were self limiting, but foods that were high in carbohydrates that turn into nothing but sugar in the body cause cravings, making them highly addictive.

Return of the Crack

I finally conquer the dreaded carbohydrate. I give them up once and for all. No starchy foods, no milk, no potatoes, nothing in my system that can turn on me, including fruit which has enough sugar to trigger a binge. Furthermore, I finally understand that carbohydrates truly are the bane of my existence. They are the enemy. I am no longer bound in chains. I vow never to eat them again. I succeed, too. Three years, nine months, 11 days, 17 hours, and 42 seconds. Until one day something comes over me. I feel so lonely. Where is my best friend? Where is my comfort? Where is my strength? Several elements combine somewhere inside of me creating the perfect conditions for a binge to end all binges.

It starts out slowly, however, with a deceptive piece of fruit. The summer produces watermelon and cantaloupe and nectarines that smell so sweet. One taste, just one little bite won't hurt me. I will be fine. It will be fine. Everything will be fine, I tell myself in various ways, in an effort to convince myself that it is the truth and that I will be able to taste a succulent piece of fruit and it will have no devastating effect on me. I assure myself that I can eat just one little piece of candy, one little smidgen of pizza, one little slice of pie. It is insidious, really, the effect that carbohydrates have on me. It is almost unfathomable how one little taste of any sweet tasting or any sugar laden food reacts within my system. One little bite is never enough. I resemble a steam shovel on the highway to sugar heaven. The carbohydrate obsession returns.

It takes me nearly a year and a half to lose ninety-five pounds, and I manage to keep it off for an additional two years. That is just over three years without feeling fat and bloated; without seeing a misshapen face when I look in the mirror; without knowing that people must be looking at me as though I belong to a side show in a local carnival. Three years that I do not feel the need to constantly have food in my mouth. Three years that my blood pressure is not elevated. Three years that my knees do not ache from carrying more weight than they can handle. Three years that I do not know the prices of burgers and fries at each and every fast food restaurant in the tri-state area so that I am able to have exact change ready when I pull up to the window. It is freedom. It is peace. It is a dream come true. And suddenly, it is gone, and I am deeply saddened and disgusted and hungry. I know the best thing for me to do would be to get back on the ball, to start over and try again. And I will, just as soon as I finish eating.