The Daniel Plan - Sugar Shock

Being a long time Weight Watcher Fan, I know the evils of sugar, so I substituted it with the pink stuff in my coffee.  I also drank a little coffee with my flavored creamers.  I LOVE my flavor creamers but after reading some sugar facts and trying to follow the Daniel Plan guidelines I learned a lot more that I bargained for.

Some sugar facts - The hunter-gatherer population ate about 22 teaspoons of sugar a year.  Now the average American consumes that in a day.  In the 1800's we ate about 5 pounds per year.  Now we average 152 pounds a year.

In the section entitled the Four Hormones of the Apocalypse the first two items  to cut were sugar and white flour. Go cold Turkey, and cut out all artificial sweeteners.  They key word is artificial.  Stevia is okay.  So what do  I go out and purchase - Pure Via Stevia, WRONG, guess what the ingredients in PURE Via are - first thing, ready, dextrose,  ummmmm, that's SUGAR.  Next ingredient-Reb A, what is Reb A you ask?

Rebaudioside A has the least bitterness of all the steviol glycosides in the stevia plant. To produce rebaudioside A commercially, stevia plants are dried and subjected to a water extraction process. This crude extract contains about 50% rebaudioside A; its various glycoside molecules are separated via crystallization techniques, typically using ethanol or methanol as solvent. This allows the manufacturer to isolate pure rebaudioside A 

<sup>Don't you love the ethanol or methanol as a solvent part.!  Next is cellulose powder - which from their site states:  cellulose fibers are extracted from wood and refined through multiple mechanical and chemical processes involving acids and bleaching agents.  So let me get this straight - my Pure Via Stevia is actually sugar with a chemically produced extract of the Stevia plant along with wood chips.  

So for now I am skipping the wood chips and drinking my coffee black, just wait until I tell you next time what I learned was in my creamers.

Genesis 1:  29</sup> 
And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food.

The Daniel Plan - 40 Days

Right before Christmas I got an email from God that said...Wait - you don't believe me?  Okay, so it wasn't directly from God - but it was from Hackman's, close enough.  Here is what happened.

Before Christmas I received a lovely Christmas card with a gift card in it for Hackman's.  My mind suddenly raced to the gifts that I wanted to get for other people at Hackman's but there was a note in the card that said, "make sure to spend it on yourself". Oh, alright.  Then the very next day the first email I received was from Hackman's about the new book from Rick Warren entitled, "The Daniel Plan", 40 days to a Healthier Life.  

So now you see what I mean by a email from God.  I have been trying over the years to get healthier, but I seem not to make much headway.  I joined Weight Watchers.  I had success about 30 years ago on the plan loosing almost all the weight getting down to 142 pounds only to gain it back. I rejoined about 10 years ago and lost 20 pounds and have kept it off, but got stuck.  So was this Divine Intervention?  Was this book going to be what I needed?

Rick Warren is a pastor, author, etc. who wrote the popular bestselling The Purpose Driven Life, which I enjoyed doing with my book club, so this immediately peaked my interest.  Also contributing to the Daniel Plan are Dr. Daniel Amen and Dr. Mark Hyman.  So I decided to go get the book.  I walked into Hackman's, I picked it up.  Looked at it.  Put it down.  I thought maybe this isn't the book for me.  I walked around, looking for something else and there was ANOTHER display with the book in the back of the store, looked at it again, flipped through the pages, put it down. BUT a nagging thought in my head said BUY THE BOOK DARN IT!   So I did.

Once I actually sat down and started to read the book I immediately liked it.  How can you not love a book that starts out,  Chapter 1, page 1 - "Wow! Everybody's Fat!  That was Rick Warren's thought as he baptized 827 adults by immersion, which meant lowering people under the water and then lifting them back up.  He realized that not only was his congregation carrying extra baggage but he thought "But I am fat too!"  and that's what led him to do this book.    Well darn it,  I am fat to.  My knee hurts, I have high blood pressure controlled with medication,  and I suffer from brain fog.  This book celebrates the 5 F's.  FAITH - FOOD - FITNESS - FOCUS and FRIENDS.

I  am going to share what I learn from the book and my challenges along with hopefully some successes.  I am starting slow, and I will share that  tomorrow if I get a chance to blog.  So far it has certainly opened my eyes.  One thing I know, I can't do this alone, and in life we never have to do it alone, we always have God.

Food for thought:

Proverbs 16:9 says:  "We plan the way we want to live, but only God makes us able to live it." (MSG)  

In the Beginning - did I really want to know this?

I am a big fan of Joyce Meyer.  She says whenever you want to learn something you need to study it.  She suggests taking the Bible and a good concordance and look up the word you want to study.  And not just study it for a day or so, but dig deep.  I decided to take a break from Weight Watchers, because I have been stalled at my current weight forever.  I did loose, 30 pounds, but thanks to M & M's and way too many afternoon snacks I've been stuck.

So I decided to start this series like anything I want to study in the Bible - looking up the word that I want to study. In the case of this blog series - "food". But did I really want to know the following?

Genesis 1: 29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.

SO God gave us seeds, plants, fruit. Oh oh, where's the beef?

Now we all know - fruit, veggies and grains are all good for us and they should be the major part of our diet. I learned that at Weight Watchers, their new program has zero points for veggies and fruits. Let's face it people, we did not get overweight by eating too many bananas or carrots. But now I need to do some serious rethinking.

I promised myself that I was going to do some serious study and get guidance from the Bible on eating. I know there are Bible based weightloss programs out there but I wanted to do this first hand. I wanted to dig deep and learn it first hand, then maybe, just maybe it will stick with me. So what does this mean for me.

Well, today I had whole wheat toast with pb and jelly - I guess that is okay. For lunch I have a salad and lean hot pocket....with turkey....hmmm.    But I don't know if God intended for us to be vegetarians, or did He? I need to do more study on this. But in the meantime, I am upping the grains, veggies and fruit more seriously.

In the meantime, I have a more serious question, is a pop-tart considered a grain?