I have tears in my eyes now and I’m sort of choked up, because I just finished reading a poignant "My Turn Online" piece, entitled, "Starvation of the Spirit," from anorexic Emma Farnsworth.
My emotions were triggered upon reading this beautiful, brutually honest essay, because years ago, I was very heavy into an eating disorder myself, dropping as low as 96 pounds. (I’m 5’6 1/2.") Naturally, I’m thinking back to a time when I was riddled by unhappiness, loneliness, and despair until I finally licked my disease.
But, as I mentioned in Chapter 1 of my book SUGAR SHOCK!, while I had overcome anorexia and bulimia years previously, back in 1998, I was still trapped by my sugar addiction.
Sadly, years ago, when medical doctors and therapists were treating me for my eating disorder, they were not at all hip to the dangers of sugar and refined carbs, and they made me drink this disgusting, sugar-loaded, calorie-packed concoction about three times — or was it 6 times? — a day so I’d gain weight and leave my state of emaciation behind me. (FYI, I’m normal weight now and have been for years.)
By the way, after plying me with this excessively sugary, calorie-packed substance, those same M.D.s and therapists who were helping me couldn’t figure out why I was so moody. Well, duh, like millions of Americans, when I consume a lot of sugar, I get really edgy, irritable and cranky.
Please see Chapter 11 in SUGAR SHOCK!, "Sweets Can Sour Your Moods," in which I reveal recent research about this and delve into this fascinating, but little-known phenomenon in detail.
Anyhow, this is all history for me and my memory is kind of fuzzy because this was a different Connie who suffered from this horrible problem. But I do remember that crying when confronting my eating disorder is nothing new to me. As I recall, while I was recovering from the disease, I shed a flood of tears.
Then, years later, in around 2002 and 2003, when I was knee deep into researching and writing SUGAR SHOCK!, on several occasions, I simply blubbered (in privacy, of course), because I was finally — although years had past — excising remaining demons of my tragically sad days of either restricting food but allowing myself many low-cal sugary candies or over-consuming sweets and simple carbs and then purging.
Nowadays, I rarely think about my eating disorder. It’s like I’ve forgotten that it happened. It’s simply not a part of me or my life anymore. I’ve so moved beyond it and now have a normal life. But when I do very occasionally reflect on that time of my life, I get terribly sad and really remorseful.
You see, I’m absolutely convinced that my eating disorder would have quickly come and gone and would never have progressed to the extent it did if I’d known what I know now about nutrition and the importance of protein, healthy oils, vegetables, fruits and the addictive qualties of sugar and simple carbs. I’m not discounting the emotional component, but I think I could have moved through it rapidly if I hadn’t been eating sweets and those processed grains or what I call "culprit carbs."
If you suffer from bulimia and anorexia as I once did, I just know that you’ll find my book SUGAR SHOCK! to contain some ahah! information that sheds light on why it can be very hard to lick this eating disorder. Eating sweets and culprit carbs is very tied into bulimia, as some researchers revealed to me. (You’ll definitely want to check out Chapter 9, "Proof Pours In: New Studies Show That You Can Become Dependent on Sweets.")
Although I felt sad after reading this article, I now feel very exhilarated and excited, because I know the power and joy that comes from leaving the miserable, sugar-addicted, eating-disorder-plagued Connie behind, and I’m now on a mission to bring hope to sugar sufferers everywhere, many of whom may be now in the depths of bulimia. (As it was, to clarify, first I conquered the eating disorder and then years later dealt with the sugar issues. You can lick them both at the same time, I believe.)
Even if you don’t suffer from an eating disorder, I highly recommend that you read this compelling "My Turn Online" piece in which the anorexic Emma so very bravely confronts "the depression, fear and hopelessness that," as she put it, "ache far more than a bony body."
Just listen to her honest glimpse at this disease." Eating disorders are abusive, selfish, vacuous and deadly—but the media glamorizes them by giving them attention, even when showing a skeletal model on the verge of death."
Please know, sugar addicts, bulimics and anorexics out there — as well as overweight and obese people — you do not need to suffer. You can break free from your seemingly hopeless situation. And my intention — however lofty it may sound — is to help millions of you to do just that.
I invite you to begin to receive help by getting my book SUGAR SHOCK! now.
Again, all you sugar addicts, bulimics and anorexics out there, my thoughts and warmest wishes are with you.
Let me repeat, because I feel so very strongly about this: You can triumph over your sugar habit, eating disorder or binge-eating symdrome. I’m now living proof that you can squash those habits to smithereens and reclaim a joyous, fulfilling, healthy life instead.