The Love Garden

Love will bring the best out of people. I've been pondering this thought these past couple of months. It is in love, people will be daring enough to express their real selves - the ugly, the selfish, the unmasked selves. It is in love too, those flaws will be confronted and nurtured and changed. Love is the safe garden for change and transformation to take place.

I Lost Weight, Part 2

The Connection of Food and Emotion

I began to journal my eating (you don't believe it, huh?)...yeps, I did. I took note on what I ate and how I felt afterward. I was so curious. I need to know what was the effect of all the food I ate... that had caused me to gain weight.

First, I notice how the sugar effected me. Every time I ate something with sugar in it, cookies, ice cream, etc...I began to feel refreshed and happy. But it didn't last. 2 or 3 hours afterward, I would want to have sugar again. The cycle continued like this all the time.

Cheryl Townsley, an expert in nutrition said, "sugar is the major cause of my emotional and mental problem...Lowering your sugar intake could cause a symptom similar to a person who stop using drugs." I couldn't agree more.

My body react to sugar. (read my post: 76 Ways Sugar can Ruin Your Health)

It was so bad, that sometimes during the first 2 weeks, I found myself walking back and forth in front of my college's office just to see if she had cookies I can take. This usually happened around 2 or 3pm. I felt restless and could not think straight.

After those lowest season, on the 3rd week, I finally could gain control over my sugar addiction. Yeah, now that I know i was addicted to sugar...

Through it all, I learned to exercise self-control and focusing on what is good for my body.


To be continued...

76 Ways Sugar can Ruin Your Health

In addition to throwing off the body's homeostasis, excess sugar may result in a number of other significant consequences. The following is a listing of some of sugar's metabolic consequences from a variety of medical journals and other scientific publications.

1. Sugar can suppress your immune system and impair your defenses against infectious disease.
2. Sugar upsets the mineral relationships in your body: causes chromium and copper deficiencies and interferes with absorption of calcium and magnesium.
3. Sugar can cause can cause a rapid rise of adrenaline, hyperactivity, anxiety, difficulty concentrating, and crankiness in children.
4. Sugar can produce a significant rise in total cholesterol, triglycerides and bad cholesterol and a decrease in good cholesterol.
5. Sugar causes a loss of tissue elasticity and function.
6. Sugar feeds cancer cells and has been connected with the development of cancer of the breast, ovaries, prostate, rectum, pancreas, biliary tract, lung, gallbladder and stomach.
7. Sugar can increase fasting levels of glucose and can cause reactive hypoglycemia.
8. Sugar can weaken eyesight.
9. Sugar can cause many problems with the gastrointestinal tract including: an acidic digestive tract, indigestion, malabsorption in patients with functional bowel disease, increased risk of Crohn's disease, and ulcerative colitis.
10. Sugar can cause premature aging.
11. Sugar can lead to alcoholism.
12. Sugar can cause your saliva to become acidic, tooth decay, and periodontal disease.
13. Sugar contributes to obesity.
14. Sugar can cause autoimmune diseases such as: arthritis, asthma, multiple sclerosis.
15. Sugar greatly assists the uncontrolled growth of Candida Albicans (yeast infections)
16. Sugar can cause gallstones.
17. Sugar can cause appendicitis.
18. Sugar can cause hemorrhoids.
19. Sugar can cause varicose veins.
20. Sugar can elevate glucose and insulin responses in oral contraceptive users.
21. Sugar can contribute to osteoporosis.
22. Sugar can cause a decrease in your insulin sensitivity thereby causing an abnormally high insulin levels and eventually diabetes.
23. Sugar can lower your Vitamin E levels.
24. Sugar can increase your systolic blood pressure.
25. Sugar can cause drowsiness and decreased activity in children.
26. High sugar intake increases advanced glycation end products (AGEs)(Sugar molecules attaching to and thereby damaging proteins in the body)
27. Sugar can interfere with your absorption of protein.
28. Sugar causes food allergies.
29. Sugar can cause toxemia during pregnancy
30. Sugar can contribute to eczema in children
31. Sugar can cause atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease.
32. Sugar can impair the structure of your DNA
33. Sugar can change the structure of protein and cause a permanent alteration of the way the proteins act in your body.
34. Sugar can make your skin age by changing the structure of collagen
35. Sugar can cause cataracts and nearsightedness
36. Sugar can cause emphysema.
37. High sugar intake can impair the physiological homeostasis of many systems in your body
38. Sugar lowers the ability of enzymes to function.
39. Sugar intake is higher in people with Parkinson's disease.
40. Sugar can increase the size of your liver by making your liver cells divide and it can increase the amount of liver fat
41. Sugar can increase kidney size and produce pathological changes in the kidney such as the formation of kidney stones
42. Sugar can damage your pancreas.
43. Sugar can increase your body's fluid retention.
44. Sugar is enemy #1 of your bowel movement.
45. Sugar can compromise the lining of your capillaries.
46. Sugar can make your tendons more brittle.
47. Sugar can cause headaches, including migraines
48. Sugar can reduce the learning capacity, adversely affect school children's grades and cause learning disorders
49. Sugar can cause an increase in delta, alpha, and theta brain waves which can alter your mind's ability to think clearly
50. Sugar can cause depression
51. Sugar can increase your risk of gout
52. Sugar can increase your risk of Alzheimer's disease.
53. Sugar can cause hormonal imbalances such as: increasing estrogen in men, exacerbating PMS, and decreasing growth hormone
54. Sugar can lead to dizziness.
55. Diets high in sugar will increase free radicals and oxidative stress.
56. High sucrose diets of subjects with peripheral vascular disease significantly increases platelet adhesion.
57. High sugar consumption of pregnant adolescents can lead to substantial decrease in gestation duration and is associated with a twofold increased risk for delivering a small-for-gestational-age (SGA) infant
58. Sugar is an addictive substance.
59. Sugar can be intoxicating, similar to alcohol.
60. Sugar given to premature babies can affect the amount of carbon dioxide they produce.
61. Decrease in sugar intake can increase emotional stability.
62. Your body changes sugar into 2 to 5 times more fat in the bloodstream than it does starch.
63. The rapid absorption of sugar promotes excessive food intake in obese subjects.
64. Sugar can worsen the symptoms of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
65. Sugar adversely affects urinary electrolyte composition.
66. Sugar can slow down the ability of your adrenal glands to function.
67. Sugar has the potential of inducing abnormal metabolic processes in a normal healthy individual and to promote chronic degenerative diseases.
68. I.V.s (intravenous feedings) of sugar water can cut off oxygen to your brain.
69. Sugar increases your risk of polio.
70. High sugar intake can cause epileptic seizures.
71. Sugar causes high blood pressure in obese people.
72. In intensive care units: Limiting sugar saves lives.
73. Sugar may induce cell death.
74. In juvenile rehabilitation camps, when children were put on a low sugar diet, there was a 44 percent drop in antisocial behavior.
75. Sugar dehydrates newborns.
76. Sugar can cause gum disease.

My 'Trimming' Season

It was said, 'You can not be the Jack of all trades' - the master of none. I decided in the few weeks approaching the end of December to evaluate and examine the way I've walked my journey so far. I came to find out that I've wasted most of my energy doing things that is not in alignment with my gifts and talents, things only based on assignments, things I didn't find enjoyment doing, burdensome and boring. Things that brought me to my knees and drove me to the wall. Things that pinched my nerves.

So, I began my trimming session. I trimmed branches that bore me little and almost no fruits, activities and connections that is not producing much, and decided to only concentrate on the little few that I can cultivate. These little few are the ones God placed in my hands. He entrusted me with those - like the master gave 5 or 2 or even 1 talents to the servants.

Cultivating and aiming to be excellent in what He called and designed you to be, will make you a unique individual. You will be irreplaceable - just the way He wanted it to be. There won't be anybody in the face of this earth that can be like you. ... hmm, just this thought is already comforting :)

I know that time will come when He will ask of my accountability.

I don't want to stand shy before Him, ashamed that I have not produce anything of those few talents He gave me.

So, 2010 is my trimming season...