CHALLENGE
NO SUGAR
CHALLENGE: No Sugar
TIME LINE: Thirty days
RULES: I will not eat refined or natural sugars, including honey, corn syrup, molasses, agave, coconut nectar, etc., or sugar substitutes. I will not eat corn, but other (gluten-free) starchy foods are okay. I will not eat fruit. I will not drink alcohol.
UNSWEETENED
In September, JAMA Internal Medicine published documents revealing that back in the 1960s the Sugar Research Foundation (now the Sugar Association) helped to falsify studies on the dangers of eating fat.22 CEOs threw money at scientists, scientists skewed data, and for decades following, marketing campaigns then encouraged us to scarf low-fat foods saturated with extra sweet in the name of our good health. Those who sold the sweet stuff got rich; those who ate got obesity, heart disease, and diabetes.
Or so the story goes in the flood of think pieces following JAMA’s reveal.23
I want my next Challenge to push the physical health parameter I set out in My Year, Without rules, and so I ponder my relationship with sugar. While I don’t have a stereotypical addiction, I adore sweets as treats. Reading Isabel Allende on São Miguel, I crunched away at café meringues until my sticky fingers were licked clean. At home, a sliver of gluten-free brownie often accompanies a good single-gal Gilmore Girls binge-in-bed—there’s definitely a feeling of reward in the loop here. Angsty food-writer work events often require a wine crutch, and dating practically demands booze. So going without habitual consumption of sugar (and the sugar inherent in alcohol) would satisfy social interaction parameters too. And then there’s a clear sense-of-self struggle I’m almost afraid to face head-on: I detest the extra pounds I carry.
A year or so before Ruark and I broke up, life teemed with health, work, and energy. Then—poof. In a short span of time, I fell lost to illness again. I could no longer work and so quit my jobs. My theater company produced shows without me. My parents provided financial support. As I was too sick to go out, a few loyal friends trekked over for game nights. The rest sort of ... friend-ghosted. I wasted away in spirit, and pounds wasted from my body; in sickness, it loathed food, despite how much I pushed to nourish it. I don’t look back at this time with fond remembrance. But as a tailor took in my pants and I received regular compliments on the dramatic loss, I felt secret pleasure in outward drama matching interior strife. I bought those smaller-size clothes. I tilted my face in the mirror to admire the pronounced curve of my jawline. I knew I was underweight. I loved food. I would have done anything to get back to living. But being skinny was something.
Today, I’m sick without the skinny reward, overweight the amount I was underweight before. It feels like I’m stuck inside a puffy me-suit, one that comes with me into every dressing room, every cocktail party, and every speaking engagement. As a feminist and rational thinker, I despise myself for falling prey to such superficial strife.
I can’t be the only woman struggling with this.
I take the conundrum in story form to Bust magazine.24 For my research, I conduct an informal online survey with 285 women who identify losing or gaining weight because of illness. Eighty percent report an adverse effect on their body image. Across the board, those who lost weight recount being praised for it; those who gained, shamed. Reflections range from “It felt like I was preconditioned to feel a grim satisfaction as I watched the pounds slip away” to “I don’t look into mirrors anymore.”
I then interview Dr. Erin I. Kleifield, a psychologist and the director of the eating disorders program at Silver Hill Hospital in New Canaan, Connecticut. Why do I struggle with this particular weight shift and identity conflict? She explains that our brain pushes us toward anything we think will move us higher on the social survival ladder; as described by Kasser’s hedonic treadmill, striving for thinness is rooted in a society that constantly blasts us with images of successful thin models and celebrities. The loss of our health makes us feel powerless; we then loathe our lack of control over rational thought too. “We need to be aware, and we need to bring in compassion,” she says.
I easily feel compassion for those in my Bust story.
Self-compassion comes harder.
Like many others surveyed, I carry an exorbitant amount of guilt inside my me-suit, sure I must be feeding or denying my body something it needs and, therefore, it continually punishes me with pain. I have reason to fear this; Lyme disease remains one of the most misunderstood diseases of my lifetime.25 Accurate diagnosis and effective treatment were even more unreliable when I was first diagnosed in the early 1990s than they are today. Because we don’t yet know why some patients remain symptomatic post-treatment, many doctors pass what they cannot cure over to the realm of psychiatry. Despite confirmative blood work and treatment a second time, I often face suspicion of my mental health from medical professionals. On a recent first visit, a new doctor wouldn’t even look at my records; instead, she concluded twelve minutes into our consultation that my ongoing pain and fatigue stem from depression, despite lab work in my hands charting healthy dopamine and serotonin levels. I know too many with similar stories of misdiagnosis and distrust. Gender bias in medical care often leaves women particularly untreated:26 in comparable circumstances with men, we are more likely to die in the ICU and to be given sedatives over painkillers.27 Established racial bias28 further harms nonwhite women: Black women are less likely to have breast cancer than white women but 40 percent more likely to die from it,29 and black and Hispanic women are up to three times more likely to have lupus,30 yet go longer before diagnosis all because of systems that limit education, access, and options.
To reduce any chance of fault, I’ve spent years working my body through the Atkins Diet, the Ketogenic Diet, the Arthritis Diet, the ALCAT Test—all of which remove sugar. I’ve done several elimination diets, too, where you reset your digestive system’s inflammatory response and then incrementally add foods back to identify which cause symptoms. I spend months eating alone for these, poring over lists and obsessing over minuscule changes. From them all, I’ve learned much about how food affects my symptoms and overall health. But my enigma of a disease is not easily Sherlocked, and none cured the source.
I’ve spent years of my life fielding guilt for self-harm I haven’t committed.
And every failed attempt scars me against hope.
But this Year has proven change can come from unexpected places.
Maybe going without sugar again will shift something unexplored?
For thirty days, I will not eat refined or natural sugars. I will not drink alcohol. Sticking to self-imposed simplicity, I’ll allow the dairy or carbs other sugar abstainers might argue I should also quit. Because this Year is about going without one thing at a time; throwing one stone, not tossing pebbles.
I want change within my body.
I want change within my reflection.
I will try.
WITHDRAWAL
Day One. Time to take a cold, hard look at my drinking habits.
I make some strong coffee—thank dog my favorite brand of almond milk contains no sugar or sneaky successor ending in ose (fructose, galactose, etc.)! I hit the computer. Five color-coded digital calendars differentiate life responsibilities, piecing together what my brain could never recall on its own. I print out last month and get my pen ready. I check Xs for drinking nights and circle large Os around when I was blissfully not sober anymore.
Sixteen Xs. Five large Os.
In one week, alcohol had entered my bloodstream on five evenings.
I sit with this.
None of those nights involved embarrassment, vomit, or dramatically regretful decisions. The X often stood for only a glass. But I’m apparently in denial at the ease at which I self-medicate against social interactions or the crap end of a long day. And now, I’m using “self-medicate” to justify my actions out of self-conscious shame.
What will life be like without booze?
This would be easier to face with a brownie in hand.
I have an all-day date planned with a guy I’ll call . . . RoboWriter. (For anonymity, here on out men met in some romantic context will be given a crude nom de guerre. This guy is former military and a writer.) We’ve been dating for twenty-four days now, and we met because I couldn’t buy a cup of coffee during the No Shopping Challenge. No joke.
Ben and I had just wrapped a show with Rashied Amini, who founded Nanaya, a dating algorithm that suggests where you’re most likely to find compatible mates given your social habits, values, etc. In prep, I’d run Nanaya on myself and was crushed to learn my odds are best online. Easily convinced, there I was after the show: killing time in Roberta’s backyard before a Tinder date, unable to buy the nonessential cup of coffee I wanted from next door, and bored. I scrolled OKCupid, found RoboWriter, and before I knew it we had dinner plans for two nights later. The thing is, I already had a third date planned for Friday with Mr. Meet-Cute, who I’d met in Connecticut when out not drinking tequila shots on Lizzie’s birthday.
A week later I was exhausted and confused.
Three first dates with men different in profession, intellect, emotion, and physicality. Three perfectly lovely evenings of dinner and conversation. Three goodnight kisses I confess to slightly phoning in. Three invitations for second dates; a freak occurrence if there ever was one. Eventually, timing and charm had me choose RoboWriter: he’s cute, smart, and a nerd in the hottest sense of the word. We’ve talked books, dined through Manhattan, overnighted in Brooklyn, and slowly opened to each other.
Today, a work-pleasure date will end at my place.
For the first time.
Without alcohol.
It’s a crisp New York fall day; sorta wet and sorta cold and not the kind I’d prefer to spend moving from one place to the next. But RoboWriter’s a workaholic and seems to admire that part of me, so my ego pushes me to impress. He watches me prerecord a radio interview with an author we both admire. Then we grab Chinese and nosh on a park bench. (Cantonese takeout might save me during this Challenge.) Late afternoon, we settle into the Rose Room to write. But his muscly, tattooed arms and the screeching of my joints distract; I’m fading in the absence of adrenaline lost to interview, conversation, and traversing streets and subways. I ignore my body’s call to go home alone and, kissing him on the head in a gesture of easy affection I’m excited to try, whisper I’m off to grab dinner supplies. I stock up on scallops and spices, grab us both a coffee, and burn under the weight of recording equipment, my ancient laptop, and groceries as we subway uptown.
I hide my pain. I like him. I want to appear strong.
I sit him in my kitchen with tequila and perform my seduction dinner around him. He doesn’t know I call it this, of course, but I run some variation of this show when trying to impress a dude I like. My feet are bare, and my apron is tied tight. I casually whip sunchokes and fry fritters. In the past, I’d break to sip or quickly canoodle. But it’s late. The muscles around my spine burn. As I sear the scallops and toss spicy arugula with oil and pepper, I realize we’re not flirting. RoboWriter is smart and cute and—damn—I haven’t liked anyone since the porch guy last summer. I sense he seeks deep discussion, but I can barely keep casual conversation. I slip into a neurological haze and—shit—my thoughts muddle like the spices I pound together in my mortar.
This is why there are so many Xs on the calendar, Jacqueline.
A wine haze delays this decline so that others don’t have to deal with this part of me. So that I can be more fun, flirtier. So that wit and words matter less. If alone, I’d sink into the tub. I’d melt into bed, self-soothing with the flat screen, a heating pad, and Mitra. I’d let the pain come.
But I’m not alone. I don’t know how to date sick and sugar free.
Last week, tarot reader and author Sasha Graham came on to Love Bites. “It’s interesting, the things that come up for us in our lifetime,” she said after I filled her in on similar symptoms and dating worries. “You’re a wordsmith. This is your life and your passion. For something to strike at the heart of that . . . it can’t be easy.” She pulled the Knight of Swords from her deck and suggested I envision myself held up by its beautiful suit of steel; clear in thought and intent, I am the hero of my story.
I don’t tell RoboWriter how I’m feeling: I don’t know how he’ll react and feel too sick to risk vulnerability. I’ll try when stronger. For now, I envision my suit. For now, I finish cooking. We eat. I phone in sex. We sleep.
After I announced this Challenge, one online friend shared that she’d passed out after only eight hours off of sugar. Another had suffered massive headaches for four days straight. My Day Three, I put RoboWriter on the subway and breathe out in relief. I could devour an entire pint of sorbet, but I recognize that I’m overtired, in pain, and dehydrated, and put extra lemon in my water instead. The next night, a spiced tea satisfies a want for something sweet. I make it past the withdrawal mark without any dramatic reaction.31
Maybe I will just coast through this one.
Day Five. Election Night 2016. The country hums.
I’ve been invited to parties around Manhattan. But since I can’t drink or dine with the best of them, I make tea and cuddle Mitra in the warm living room light, alone. I note projections: seven major analysts, from the Associated Press to the Los Angeles Times, predict a sweeping victory for Hillary Clinton. The AP gives her lowest-odds 274 Electoral College votes to Donald Trump’s projected 190.32 Friends text, already tippling champagne for Clinton’s historic win. I light candles, content with tea and temperance.
Shortly after seven o’clock, Trump takes Indiana and Kentucky while Clinton takes Vermont; nothing surprising there. New York votes Clinton, and the Empire State Building blasts blue.33 Among headlines revealing endless lines and voter suppression, Clinton gets Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Maryland, and Texas goes to Trump. 34
9:45 p.m., something is . . . off.
Trump already has 145 electoral votes and is showing well in Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, and Ohio, battleground states Clinton needs. She still leads, but victory is not guaranteed. I stare, dumbfounded, as the scene collapses, my sweet little sweet-less ritual collapsing with it. Trump gets Missouri, then Ohio. My jaw grinds. Clinton gets Virginia and Colorado, but then Trump Florida.35 My stomach knots. I scan social media and read similar shock and woe fueled or numbed by alcohol.
With a blow to the gut I realize:
I cannot grab the bottles on the bar across the room.
I cannot pull the brownies from my freezer.
I never took this scenario into Challenge consideration!
I take it back!
No. I don’t.
I warm a plate of food. I make more tea.
I hope nourishment will suffice.
It doesn’t.
I watch as the future shifts in a way my brain cannot comprehend. I sit and take it, on my couch, alone. Trump gets North Carolina . . . I want an entire bottle of white wine. If Clinton can get Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Nevada . . . I want an entire chocolate cake or a stiff martini—the ingredients sit ready, only ten feet away. It would be so easy to raise the white flag and give in. I want to raise the white flag and give in! I need something to take off this edge, to self-soothe, to wrap my insides in a hug. I am horribly, painfully alone. I’m lonely. I’m angry at my body for not being strong enough, so I could spend this significant evening with others. I’m hurt RoboWriter doesn’t give a shit enough to be in touch today. I’m disappointed that loved ones who know I’m alone haven’t checked in. And, more than anything, I’m furious with myself for not handling this better! Evidently, I did not learn a lesson in solitude and self-reliance when I went off social media!
I take Mitra for a walk. I look up at the sky. I breathe.
“The stars have seen worse,” I comfort myself.
“You are safe,” I comfort myself.
We come back inside.
At 2:30 a.m. on November 9, the Associated Press announces that Hillary Clinton has conceded the forty-fifth presidency of the United States of America to Donald Trump.36 In the weeks to come, I’ll join the mass of clichéd white liberals pushed from our temperate social bubbles to join those who’ve never had a choice but to fight for themselves. Of course, I don’t know this yet. Right now I’m just sober and stunned.
As I move forward from Election Day, I consider coping mechanisms.
Through Hypnotherapist-Higgins again, I recently took an online workshop with narrative medicine instructor Micaela Bombard called The Body Speaks. Exhausted from living in my mine, I wrote this during a two-minute exercise inviting us to write a love letter to one specific body part:
Dear right pinky finger,
I don’t think about you much. I mean that as the highest compliment because that means you don’t hurt me. You’re on my stronger hand. You don’t swell. I don’t wear rings on you, and you’re not vital for writing, cooking, carrying, or anything, really, that I can think of. I honestly don’t know what I would do if I lost you because I don’t think of you. And for that, I am thankful. I love you, right-hand pinky finger. You’re my favorite body part today. I am naming you Happy. You just made me smile. I like your fingernail. After this phone call, I am going to paint it. Just yours. Probably before the end of this phone call, after I put the phone back on mute. Just you. Thanks, Happy. Time hasn’t run out yet, so I’m going to only type with you now, Happy…
Postelection, Happy doesn’t distract for more than a few passing seconds.
I cry over coffee with Roomie Erika. I cry, cuddling Mitra in my corner chair. I cry, watching Clinton’s concession speech. I cry on the phone with Mom—Nana fell and is in the hospital with a broken hip and fractured shoulder. I cry at my desk, losing time to the rain. I stress about family and lapsing deadlines as I rotate coffee and water. I don’t give a damn about food. I pretend not to give a damn that RoboWriter is still acting gauzy. A part of me wishes I could drink away my pain; another is relieved I’m not hungover on top of all this.
Maybe it’s better to be sober during hard times?
Maybe barreling through bad is the fastest way to good?
Finally, a text! RoboWriter’s work schedule has changed, and he invites me to join him for dinner. Sweet comfort, yes!
I scramble downtown in the still-misting rain. My step lightens as I pass under massive stone archways and into the courtyard of his building. I’m nervous and excited. I settle under the romantic streetlamp glow a dozen feet from where, two weeks ago, he welcomed me with a comforting hug after I showed up exhausted. Today, he’s the one walking low; I can’t imagine this election is easy on a liberal writer in law enforcement. He offers a quick peck, then collapses on to the stone by my side. The air hangs heavy between us, our fears shared. I want to hold his body to mine as we start to talk it out, but his posture doesn’t invite this. And so I offer space. He starts venting concern for those in military and public office—friends and colleagues—steering from one facet to another, his body tense. I don’t have solutions to soothe him. But I have spent my life navigating realities out of my control. And so I listen. As best I can, I guide him through thoughts and feelings. I nurture. Twenty minutes pass. He stands to face me.
“You are such an amazing woman . . .”
—my heart lifts—
“ . . . but I’m just not feeling a spark.”
I don’t realize I’m holding my breath until I force my lungs to exhale.
He starts to apologize, to excuse. I keep my gaze steady as he rambles: he doesn’t know why he feels this way. He’s told his friends I’m perfect on paper, but he can’t figure out why he doesn’t feel longterm potential. He’d needed a few days to assess but could tell I sensed his pulling away. He didn’t want to do this via text and finds talking on the phone barbaric, which is why he asked me to come down here. He hopes we stay in touch. He offers his connections in publishing. He’s sorry and . . .
I nod and keep my voice low, contemplating both his concern and condescension: It’s okay. Don’t beat yourself up. Sometimes there’s no logic. Better to move on sooner than later. We’re good. He calms.
We stand in silence. There’s nothing more to say.
We move back under the now-oppressive stone. We hit the avenue.
For the first time, he doesn’t walk me to my train.
Instead, we awkwardly hug.
He turns left; I continue straight.
And he’s gone.
I walk forward, navigating slowly. Somehow, still breathing.
Everything before me looks a little different than it did an hour ago.
Two days later.
One hundred and forty-five days of going without.
I stand in the shower, sobbing.
A man who mocks fundamental human rights is president-elect.
A man I was emotionally warming to rejected me.
Sweetheart Nana’s body is broken and sweetheart Poppa beside himself.
Sweetheart mother has a long road in tending to them.
I barely made deadlines this week.
I overtaxed my body in the drive to make them.
I’ve cried so much my right eye is infected.
I feel pathetic and insignificant and deserted and afraid.
My body folds over in angular origami.
I dig gnarled fingers into my flesh.
I don’t want to feel this!
“Please tell me this misery is sugar withdrawal?”
I reach out to Dr. Nicole Avena, a neuroscientist and researcher who studies hedonic eating; eating for reasons other than hunger. She explains sugar is a stimulant that releases dopamine (that happy neurotransmitter) in the brain; when we get addicted to the happy rush and remove the source, we then crave it and go into withdrawal.37 Prior to this Challenge, I had been feeding my brain sugar through fruit, wine, occasional desserts, and trace amounts in things like mayonnaise and restaurant meals. Having removed such compounded sources, I almost hope that my brain is screaming for a dopamine hit, making life circumstances feel exponentially worse than they are.
We’re only projecting here, but I want her best guess:
Is this physiological or psychological?
“We’ve seen in our studies that people who are casual sugar eaters or on a regularly low-sugar diet don’t show that opioid response,” Dr. Avena explains. “Based on what you’re telling me about your diet history, it was more a psychological component,” she concludes. She calls my wine and brownies “little indulgences”—not responses to brain cravings. I show easy judgment and restraint otherwise and had no direct physical symptoms after I removed them, so her studies suggest sugar has not altered my brain in such a way that I have gone into a severely disturbed withdrawal mode from the loss.
This isn’t sugar. This is life.
And so . . . I ask my body to process. To accept.
Years of unreliable health, failed romance, and job insecurity have encouraged habits of emotional survival; like putting mere bandages on wounds that needed stitching. I allow the sum reality to soak in: the anger, loneliness, fear, and helplessness I can’t remember feeling in such depths before, let alone all at once.
I didn’t expect airing wounds to hurt this much.
Anthropologist-Amber lectures, “There’s this thing where women joke, ‘Oh, it’s a bad day. I’ll drink wine.’ Stop! You’re covering up the fact that you are miserable . . . Allow yourself to be miserable. Allow yourself to hate yourself and to start to like yourself again. Monitor all those bad-thoughts loops.”
Loops can go suck lollipops.
But I can do this.
I can face unexpected experiences.
And so, I face this: I’m crumbling.
LOSER
Dr. Kleifield’s voice shoots into my brain from out of nowhere:
“Check your motivation.”
She halts the sensation of Mr. Meet-Cute’s lips dragging against mine.
This does not make me happy.
Well, I am happy about one thing.
His hands are running up my trimmed waistline.
It’s Day Fourteen, and I’ve lost seven pounds.
I haven’t been cooking much since my (failed) RoboWriter seduction dinner. I’m eating my first meal later every day, surviving Lorelai-like on “Coffee! Coffee! Coffee!” and handfuls of cashews. I down chicken broth for sustenance and maybe grab potato chips between subway platforms if lightheaded in transit. But overwhelming hunger has fled. I suspect the loss comes more from an overall drop in calories than sugar absence. Or that it’s not real weight loss, and it’ll come back when this Challenge or mood or whatever ends. I don’t care. After weathering RoboWriter’s rejection, no-strings sex with an acquaintance technically scratched an itch but was so boringly bad I immediately questioned that motivation, indeed. Then Mr. Meet-Cute reached out, confessing he was more forlorn by my walking away than he’d originally let on. Like a proper balm for my crumbling self-worth, I hope kismet forgives my having chosen wrong.
I’d flushed with minxy-smug satisfaction at his eyes taking in my thinner frame as we walked into the dive bar. Now he’s drinking solo and kissing away all my melodramatic mental woe.
Who needs food? Who needs booze?
I allow myself to feel hot for a hot second.
Again, Dr. Kleifield: “Where is this voice coming from?”
Dammit! It’s not her voice she’s referring to.
Meet-Cute goes for another beer.
I reapply gloss and check in with my subconscious.
Back in that interview, I’d asked her how to identify when you’re dieting for better health versus solely to get thin: “This is where you ask your intuitive self: ‘Where is this coming from?’” she’d coached. “Is it punishing or is it a voice that wants to help you? Only you can tell what that voice is.”
I’ve carried body loathing for quite a while, and with so much about my life I can’t control at present, now might be the time when I’d let this No Sugar Challenge give me an excuse to jump down an unhealthy rabbit hole. Am I telling myself I’m not hungry? I . . . don’t know. So far, no danger signs flash. But to be safe, I decide to monitor my appetite and pump in healthier things than coffee and potato chips. And as I steer Meet-Cute and me toward food, I commend myself at least for not spending another night crying in the shower.
As time passes, I eat a little more and continue to lose weight.
I sleep more soundly at night, but tack that to a lack of booze haze.
Nothing else changes.
My skin isn’t clearer. My headaches don’t ebb. My body pain remains.
Curiosity has me seeking out Dr. Thomas Brunoski, whom Mom found a few months after my initial Lyme diagnosis. As I navigate Lil’ Blue up the eerily familiar office drive, childhood memories lost to waiting room chairs, IV needles, and ceaseless pain flood in. I remember paddling YMCA pools with senior citizens while friends navigated seventh grade. And long hours in bed, staring through the window at trees, waiting for Dad to come home and carry me to the television. This mild PTSD clouds memories of even the best doctor ghosts of treatments past.
Back then, Dr. B immediately took me off a torturously endless list of foods believed to cause inflammation, pumped me full of vitamins, and I credit his building up my immune system as to why I could eventually walk again. (Yeah, it was that bad.)
He helped “cure” me.
Yet here I am: twenty-plus years later, still searching for answers.
But Dr. B smiles wide as we settle into his comfortably aged office. “It is wonderful to see you again!” he starts. “You live life and wonder, and then you see someone from years ago. It’s like family returning! It’s great.”
Without hesitation, he jumps into how healthful eating isn’t a mysterious, complicated construct the wellness world muddles today. “Our bodies are made of three things: water, protein, and fat,” he explains. “We’ve got to supply them, and the rest are optional. What we’re not made out of are sugar and other carbohydrates.”
To oversimplify: sugar—including any sweet, starchy, or dairy-full food—breaks down in the blood to glucose, which is what we commonly hear called our “blood sugar levels.” As blood sugar levels rise, the pancreas secretes insulin to drop the blood sugar levels back down again. Insulin is called the “master controlling hormone” because it raises inflammatory hormones like leukotriene and eicosanoids, which trigger cortisol (the lovely stress hormone). These further prompt inflammation and weight gain. So the more you give insulin a chance to play in your body, the more inflammation and weight you struggle to manage.
On top of this, there’s the hypoglycemia I’ve struggled with since my first diagnosis. Hypoglycemia is called “insulin resistance” or “low blood sugar.” The converse of diabetes (where the pancreas doesn’t secrete insulin), with hypoglycemia the pancreas puts out too much insulin, causing blood sugar levels to drop too low. We feel a blood sugar crash, our bodies signal us to eat (something sugary) to bring levels back up, and the cycle repeats. “Your appetite surges, you get shaky, adrenaline surges,” Dr. B describes. “It’s like a vicious machine. It just keeps going.” So all of this insulin stuff is especially bad news bears for people with both hypoglycemia and inflammatory conditions like mine. Dr. B suspects if I restart the Challenge, removing all starchy foods completely, and go at it for a longer amount of time, I’ll see reduced inflammation in my joint pain and mild rosacea.
I leave his office energized and ready to rumble!
Then I remind myself: I’ve done such promising diets before. My Year is about taking out, taking off, and lightening the load. I’m removing habits on a scale I can dissect and marking changes. That’s all. I have to keep on point.
A few days later, I’m still chewing on this insulin stuff (and Cape Cod 40% Reduced Fat Potato Chips). So: I’ve cut out sugar and fruit, but not starchy foods. A doctor I was with for many years said test results consistently suggest I have a “lazy liver,” where fructose is largely digested. I have celiac disease—an autoimmune disorder triggered when gluten hits the intestines (another organ essential for digesting fructose)—and other intestinal issues.
Do I have a problem digesting fructose more than glucose?
How touchy is this whole system?
I get Gary Taubes on the phone. He’s a science journalist who tracks sugar in articles and his books, Good Calories, Bad Calories and Why We Get Fat. Like Dr. Avena, he stresses that we’re just hypothesizing; science only gets us so far. (I get it, you guys!) He reiterates Dr. Brunoski’s assertion about insulin; as the hormone most directly related to fat, it plays into my scenario no matter the instigator. Then, because I ask him to, he Blood Sugar for Dummies what I’ve read in his books.
All sugar converts into triglycerides: they get stored in fat cells while the pancreas secretes insulin and starts knocking blood sugar levels down. Once the blood sugar level gets to a “trigger point,” some of those triglycerides break down into fatty acids and go back into the bloodstream, where they burn as energy. The unused remain indefinitely in the fat cells. “Endocrinologists who study this refer to your fat tissue as being exquisitely sensitive to insulin,” Taubes explains. “A tiny bit of insulin holds on to fat; below that bit, it doesn’t.”
The turn of the screw is that there is no definition for “tiny bit.” “Tiny bit” changes from person to person. “Tiny bit” is why I eat two dark chocolate peanut butter cups and look like a squirrel because my insulin goes haywire and why a member of the Sell family across the street eats the same and loses weight.
“The average person, making an effort, burns about thirty to fifty grams of carbs per day,” Dr. Brunoski had told me. “That’s making an effort, going to the gym. That’s one or two thin slices of bread or a small potato. That’s it—for the day.”
As someone who does not make an effort, I probably handle a minuscule bit of insulin before the triglycerides in my fat cells stay there indefinitely. Toss hypoglycemia in the mix and who knows how low the threshold? But I eat at least thirty-six grams of carbohydrates via my potato chips!38 I ask Taubes: Could removing only fructose chill my system out? He reiterates that the studies behind sugar aren’t specific enough to give me an answer. Or, as proven by the JAMA reveal, they’re often too skewed to be trusted.
I yearn for specifics. But in the wake of superior science, my supersmart experts say self-improvement is for the individual to figure out.
That’s what I’m doing, this Year, Without.
SOBERED
Meet-Cute drops whiskey into a glass for himself.
With only a few days to go before this Challenge ends, I again don’t have alcohol to soften my edges and am still not feeling “right.” But we just shared a lovely dinner, then walked to his apartment with arms linked. Now, he grabs his drink and slowly shows me around. First, his music collection, his art. His space is so clean and curated—so unlike RoboWriter’s nerdy gruff—and I wonder if we try on relationships like Happy-Home Rebecca costumes too? He shows me his bedroom. I let out a relieved breath when he doesn’t protest my walking back out again.
I pull a blanket to his couch, cold in my dress and tights, and settle in.
We watch a movie. I pretend not to notice how often he gets up to refill. Or how he doesn’t ask if I need anything. Or how close he puts his body next to mine when he returns. (I want him close . . . right?) As soon as credits roll, he starts kissing me, hard. His body feels overwarm against mine. His breath mingles beer, whiskey, and salt. I kiss back out of . . . politeness? I’m holding him off more than inviting him in, and I’m not sure why. (Do I even like him?) It’s after midnight, I’m tired and sore, and I’m trying to decide which way I should move this from the haze of my brain when he mumbles, wetly, directly into my mouth:
“So can Lyme disease be spread sexually?”
I pull back, confused.
I haven’t told him about my health issues.
He sees my shock, explains he read it in one of my articles.
I shouldn’t be surprised—it happens frequently. Designer-Amber points out that our cyborgs live available to all, at any time, without our knowledge or approval. But I’m sort of pissed he brought it up in this moment, when I’m in his apartment and couldn’t be more vulnerable.
(Or relieved for an excuse to pull my lips from his.)
I stay for what feels like a socially appropriate amount of unemotional conversation on my part and a kind but somewhat drunkenly inarticulate response on his. Then it’s time to go. I refuse the car he offers. Ever polite, he insists on walking me to the subway. He asks me out again before a final kiss. I say yes, so I can make this night end. But something in me knows I want this date to be our last. I ride an almost-empty subway car, pondering thanks for self-enforced sobriety.
Would tonight have ended differently if I had been drinking too?
I carry this Challenge past the thirty-day finish line, overlapping the next and into the holidays. Day Thirty-Seven, festively celebrating with my Photographer Friend Brent, the first sip of Vermentino rushes pleasure to every nerve. I savor the rounded palate and bouquet of the first glass; the second lasts even longer and the dark alleyway bar falls into a soft blur. I accept a sip of Brent’s red, then return to water and small bites of food.
I get home early, walk Mitra, fall into bed.
What fun! What friendship! Hi-ho for holidays! No harm done!
I sleep hard.
3:00 a.m.—bang!—and I awake to a cymbal crash of migraine and fever.
My joints beg to be ripped from their sockets.
I strip naked, chug water, and writhe.
My head pounds, my body burns. I watch the clock tick.
The next day, head and bed distract at every turn.
Is this all from two glasses of white wine?
“It’s sugar and alcohol and no doubt a toxic reaction to the so-called congeners in the wine,” Dr. Brunoski lectures. Despite my title as “food writer,” I’ve never heard of these “congeners,” and I immediately despise them. Evidently, they’re biologically active byproducts of the fermentation process; the tannins that come from grape skins and give wine much of its complexity and antioxidants. White wine has fewer congeners than red, but is not entirely innocent. “You get to the point when you ask yourself an objective question,” Dr. B says. “Are we having fun yet? You get pleasure out of many other things. You don’t have to intoxicate yourself.”
I’m only thirty-five. I don’t want to stop drinking entirely. I tell him so.
He patiently advises then that I try high-quality vodka, which has the fewest congeners and lowest sugar out of most tested forms of alcohol. I pocket the suggestion and continue my search for answers.
Dr. Avena and Taubes also can’t differentiate if sugar or alcohol was the main culprit. Taubes says scientists don’t even agree as to if they metabolize the same way in the liver. Both conclude my reaction was most likely a matter of acclimation; I was out of practice metabolizing and reintroduced at a high volume. “I bet if you had two glasses the next day, you wouldn’t have had the same effect,” Dr. Avena ponders.
I’m so afraid to try that it’s two weeks before I make a second attempt.
I have a first date with a guy so handsome and boring we’ll call him Clark Kent. I show up first to a French jazz club in the East Village, take a banquette, and ask for their best vodka in a martini. They only serve French wine and beer. Of course. I order a French Chardonnay. Clark arrives. He’s charming. I’m charming. We eat a little. He moves next to me on the banquette to “see the music.” We talk with fingers entwined. I order a second glass. He orders a beer. He kisses me. I like it. I stop drinking. He holds my umbrella above us as we walk up 1st Avenue, tight under rain that bounces off the concrete. We kiss by the subway. Clark heads east to Brooklyn, I to the West Side.
I sleep fully. I wake rested.
Drinking feels like a game of Russian roulette.
And a new voice echoing in my head: “Are we having fun yet?”
On our second date, Clark drinks, I don’t, we make out, and I think he’s . . . fine? Making out on the sidewalk, he makes his blatant desire known and invites me to a third date of dinner at his place. I fake confirmations of enthusiasm back. But find myself entirely disinterested in seeing him again too.
Sobered in a new sense of the word, I see my situation clearly.
You might think, after fifty-plus Love Bites episodes exploring the intricacies of dating, I’d have a long list of needs in a partner. But studying humanity’s complexity has helped me whittle to only three vital character traits: curiosity, passion, and goodness. If Curious, he’ll seek to understand experiences outside his own and look to books, podcasts, newspapers, film, or music; he’ll want to know as much about my mind as I’ll want to know about his. If Passionate, he’ll embrace his capabilities and curiosities, do more than “work to live,” and support my passion for living. And if Good, he’ll strive for kindness and compassion toward himself and others.
All other details are negotiable.
But alcohol tricks my mind into patching personality black holes in potential Mr. CPGs. It blurs lines and rose-colors my glasses. It highlights admirable qualities and softens my instinct screaming no. “Alcohol tends to put me on a kind of vixen autopilot in situations like that,” writes Julia Bainbridge in an essay.39 Recently, I’ve vixen autopiloted through a man who didn’t ask me a single question about myself after hours together. One who didn’t seek a cultural perspective outside his own. One who loved to touch my body but couldn’t hold a candle to my mind. One who celebrated violence. One who turned dark after one too many polite rejections. One who just couldn’t see me at all in his quest to show himself. “I know that’s why I seized up when someone whose lips I wasn’t so sure about letting touch mine advanced toward them,” Julia then reflects of a sober date.
I decide: I will stop dating until I’m ready for you, Mr. CPG.
Because when things in my life are going well, I don’t date men with hues of sexism, racism, machismo, and weakness hiding underneath the surface of only . . . fine. I don’t obsess over numbers on a scale. I don’t overanalyze my drinking. I don’t kiss out of politeness. I don’t wait for an excuse to exit.
When things are going well, I eat, drink, date, and move on.
And so when all is well within again, I’ll see you clearly.
No matter what might be happening without.
PHYSICAL HEALTH: I’m nine pounds down and counting. I’m sleeping a little better. I don’t want a drink. I don’t want a brownie. I can’t deny it; my body has changed. I began this Challenge confessing “every failed attempt scars against future hope” fears. But secretly, I wanted this Challenge to fail. Because if it succeeded, I knew I’d keep at it, losing another pleasure for the sake of my body. “At least sugar is easy to identify,” Ben said in support. True. But it’s hard to hear such advice from friends not contemplating indefinite loss. I don’t know how long I’ll keep this up. But I’m not hopping off the wagon just yet.
SOCIAL INTERACTIONS: Real friends don’t stop liking you when you don’t eat sugar or drink alcohol. Emma, Max, Rebecca, Polly, Emily, Erika, Meg, Janet, Paul, Vinay, Robbie, Abigail, Brent, Ben, and Deanna ate and drank with me during this Challenge. Some consumed things I couldn’t, others let my abstinence give them an excuse not to drink. None guilted me for my choices. My family didn’t either. We spent Thanksgiving with Nana in the rehab center where she was recouping from her fall. I made a pie I could not eat, slept on Nana’s bed when too sick to stay awake, Lil’ Sis drove me home in my car, and I was thankful. And men? Love bites right now. And I’m okay with that.
SENSE OF SELF: Dr. Kleifield once suggested my struggle with weight gain might be more correlated to mourning over my physical limitation than superficial angst; I exercise and eat robustly when healthy, and so being over- or underweight is my inability reflected back to me daily. Without “little indulgences” of brownies in bed or wine at work, nothing rose-colors this self-reflection either. The loneliness I thought conquered during the No Social Media Challenge? The fog obscuring why my life doesn’t have momentum, clarity, or actionable joy? I now feel open wounds of anger, frustration, and despair.
***
In Stumbling on Happiness, psychologist and Harvard professor Daniel Gilbert defines experience versus awareness. He explains that the Latin origin of the word experience means “to try”: experience is active. The Greek origin of the word aware means “to see”: awareness is observational. “In fact, awareness can be thought of as a kind of experience of our own experience,” Gilbert says.40
One hundred and sixty-eight days into this Year, I’m acutely observant.
Life without social media, shopping, and sugar have morphed into something more than a mere recording of individual parts—they’ve merged into a sum stage of something new and unexpected.
I’m experiencing my own experience.
I’m not sure what it means yet.
I’m not sure I like it.
Late on the final night of the Challenge, a wave of overwhelming panic hits. (They’ve been coming rather frequently of late.) As I lie in the darkness, the single-sick-broke burden crashes down in a rush of sweat-inducing, heart-palpitating anxiety. I’m paralyzed by fright until I think:
I can get my stashed brownies from the freezer!
I can make a martini or crack open a bottle of wine!
But I don’t do any of those things.
I have to keep ripping off Band-Aids until absolutely sure I’m not the one keeping myself from the things I truly want.
At the end of this No Sugar Challenge, I feel no closer to happy. period days. But Gilbert says humans are horrible at conceptualizing time. We can easily visualize space—just shut your eyes and imagine a Frisbee flying toward your head. But because our brains compute sensory stimulation from the here and now, we imagine the future by visualizing pages flipping on a calendar or leaves coloring on trees. We have to see now change to then. “Because we naturally use our present feelings as a starting point when we attempt to predict our future feelings,” Gilbert says, “we expect our future to feel a bit more like our present than it actually will.”41
I cling to this concept like a lifeline.
Because almost halfway through my Year, I’m slimmer, sober, and standing with wounds gaping wide. This is all I know. All I feel.
Just in time for the ho-ho-holidays.