Six Days Out

 I'm six days out from my surrendering (yet again) to the fact that my body doesn't metabolize carbs like an average person.  That doesn't mean that I can't eat any carbs.  It just means I can't eat any carbs that are "refined" (i.e. have no fiber/roughage connected).  In other words, 90% of the carbs I eat need to have either fiber or fat connected.

I know, I know.  It sounds totally like anarchy or blasphemy from all the scientific studies and theories to say that fat is a bonus to me, but I can't help it.  I've tried for 30 years to make fats the culprit and pare them down, meanwhile eating refined carbs like average people--in moderation, just once in a while, etc.--but I can't do it.  Try as I might.  They cause me just about every symptom that alcohol causes an alcoholic (just on a toned-down scale) . . . and then some.

They cause me to crave them--the more of them I eat, the more I want.  To an alcoholic, one drinks too many and a hundred isn't enough.  To an carboholic like myself, one bite of refined carbs is too much and a whole batch of cookie dough or pan of brownies or loaf of bread isn't enough.  The more I eat those kinds of foods, the more I want of them.

Vegetables, even fruits, I can eat in moderate quantities, walk away, and never look back until the next time I'm genuinely hungry.  But not so with breads (pretty much all kinds--even ww) or anything with wheat or sugar.  Those things are like hard liqueur to me.  And things like potatoes and other grains are very slippery slopes for me.  I have to be very honest with myself about them and eat them with great respect--because it takes very little to push me over the edge into the "strange mental blind spot" the AA guys wrote about.  "Oh, just a little bit won't hurt."  Right?  Not for me.  And 30 years of trying to ignore that fact is long enough.

Oh yes, and fats?  I seem to be able to eat all the fat I want within reason.  I mean I can't eat it by the pound or by the quart, but I lose weight consistently without having to worry about measuring it.  My body seems to let a lot of it slip on through for some reason.  Meanwhile, my body holds onto every stinking calorie I ingest in the form of starchy, sugary carbs.

Six days out isn't much, but I can feel the fog clearing in my brain.  I can feel the arthritis letting up in my joints.  I can feel why it is that OA has the old slogan, "NOTHING TASTES AS GOOD AS ABSTINENCE FEELS."  I'd just make a slight tweek to that slogan, "Nothing tastes as good (or as sweet) as deliverance feels."


©2010 Colleen C. Harrison