Remember my post about Danielle’s dining instructions?  I’ve been trying to minimize my sugar intake by eating healthier foods. Silly me, I thought I was eating healthily already, but I was wrong.  I would purposefully eat low fat foods, but would still eat things with lots of sugar, like uh, Sweettarts. It was a poor strategy. Though briefly disgruntled at my years of self-deception during her presentation, I decided to practice what Danielle preaches.

But is sugar really that bad?

Let me try to remember.  Danielle used some large word whose employment suggests great credibility with me. This labeled element influences varicose veins, wrinkles and the shine factor in your hair. Really?  Huh. I want to be healthy and all those sound great, but I’d be more effectively thwarted from sugar consumption if every time I ate a Sweettart, I sprouted a pre-30 yr old wrinkle.

This weekend my brother-in-law crafted some shapely pancakes.

I couldn’t have mine without maple syrup. Yum!

But my mind has created a new direction.

A day after this pancake scrumptious-ness, I realized that sugar was the driving force behind the slave trade during America’s colonization. Kidnappers snatched people in Africa to sell them to overlords in the Carribbean to cultivate sugar cane where they were eventually worked to death. Then, slave traffickers provided replacement batches of Africans to continue the inhumanity of prematurely killing people.

Britain’s addiction to sugar drove up the demand.

Because of Georgia and the Carolinas’ proximity to the Caribbean’s sugar cesspool, African slaves were introduced to the cultivation of tobacco. Slavery was so entrenched by the creation of the U.S. Constitution, there was never any thought during the Constitutional Convention of eliminating it. The Framers only considered limiting the slave trade, which they actually ended up protecting for 20 years.

I lost my appetite for sugar, almost cold turkey.

It’s been about two days and I’m still angry at sugar.

Tags: my body is a Temple

We had a fabulous Relief Society meeting last weekend.

Relief Society is the women’s organization in the Church. During the third hour of the Sunday services, the men and women split into their own classes, but we study the same lessons. I’ve heard that the men in the singles congregation I attend are more insightful in their class contributions during this hour than when they’re combined with the women in the preceding Sunday School hour. Who wants to know they’re insightful?

They should definitely keep that a secret.:)

If you ask me, which you didn’t and no one did, I think that this third hour should be eliminated all together. If I were in charge of the Church, which I won’t ever be, I’d organize it only to have the Sacrament (Communion) portion where everyone is combined and then a Sunday School hour where people are divided by age groups.

Then we’d go home and spend time keeping the Sabbath Day holy in ways that we choose.

I would still have the women organized by visiting teachers as they are. This means that two women at least once a month visit one particular woman outside of the Church hours and act as go-to girls for personal spiritual and physical needs. About once a month, we also have additional Relief Society meetings outside of Church services where we develop skills and provide service. This used to be called “Home, Family and Personal Enrichment” and prior to that it was called, “Homemaking.” During the Homemaking years, they made lots of crafts, at least this is all I remember my Mom ever doing when I was a kid. They were always cheap and a little hokey. I’m so glad we’ve made progress in this area now that I’m a woman in Relief Society. So our most recent outside of Church services Relief Society meeting was fabulous.

We learned about budgeting from a certified public accountant who keeps the federal government honest, we learned about grief and loss from a counselor who works with people in gang plagued neighborhoods and we learned about nutrition and health from a woman who competes in body sculpting competitions. I love Washington, D.C.. The diversity of talents in the Church never ceases to impress me and all the above are filled with faith in the Savior.

Danielle, the body sculpting girl, taught us that “abs are made in the kitchen, not the gym.” Who knew? Definitely not me. “The way you look and feel,” she said, “is 80% nutrition, 10% training and 10% genes.” She said you can’t eat ice cream and then work out and expect to burn it off because it doesn’t work that way. I was a little disillusioned because that’s how I’ve managed my own health and fitness since, uh, I was managing my own health and fitness, but life is all about new beginnings, right? Since I still want to be hiking mountains when I’m an old lady, I’m paying attention to what she’s saying. After describing the consequences of consuming sugar, she told us how to look for it. She said that if one of the first 5 ingredients on the nutrition label is sugar, we shouldn’t be eating it. She also told us that yogurt usually has added sugar and instant oatmeal is terrible for you.

I looked at the label of my Special K Berries that I eat almost every morning and its third ingredient was sugar. So I looked at the non-berries added Special K, same story. Betrayal!  I’m a victim of false advertising! I was also eating yogurt almost daily and instant oatmeal on the mornings I wasn’t eating Special K Berries.

I switched!

Now I’m eating sugarless vanilla yogurt with added real fruit and the old fashioned oatmeal with added honey. Mmmmm. Deeelisshus.

Thanks Danielle! I still can’t find my abs in my kitchen anywhere, but I’m glad I’m taking better care of myself.

You can access the handout from Danielle’s presentation here.  Trust me, she knows what she’s talking about.  She’s a trophy winner in those body sculpting competitions.

Now, if only I didn’t eat those Starbursts on campus this week. But they are so good.:(

Tags: faith in Jesus Christ, If I were in charge of the Church, my body is a Temple, Relief Society