Method on Sugar reduction and Self love

After my history of sugar addiction, it feels delightful to be free of sugar. At first, after my last post when I threw out the sugary crap in my house, sugar was hyperalert on the brain and I was on the hunt. The opposite of my intention took over, and I was obsessed. For three days, around 4pm, I would rummage through closets,  pockets and bags for chocolate! I would eat handfulls!!! After the third day, there was no more candy to be found. The jar of choco-dream was finished.

I started to buy twice as much fruit as compared to before. I ate pears, apples, tangerines, strawberries, melons and bananas. I longed for sugar, but it got easier with each day. I felt freer--I forgave myself for my chocolate binge and accepted it as something I needed to do to let go of this loss--after all, sugar had been my companion for a long time.

What really helped curb my sugar cravings was twofold: starting the day with protein and taking omega 3 supplements. I had a bottle of Carlson's fish oil and I started to take two tablespoons. The bottle itself had been in the fridge for months untouched. It worked great. I also took a little bit (1 teaspoon) of sea buckthorn oil.

Since starting my protein and oil habit, I've been eating a lot less fruit. And miraculously, I can say no to my husband's pancakes, instead of getting mad at him for making them and blaming him for my sugar addiction. My sugar addiction is my pattern--not someone else's.

Some positive outcomes of removing sugar and adding fish oil: 1) my sleepless leg syndrome has diminished!!! 2) my face looks less puffy!!! 3) I feel less cranky and angry!

Give this little method a try!

1. Ruthlessly remove all the sugary crap in your home. 
2. Expect and accept that you will be in withdrawal for a few days. Forgive yourself and be kind if you start craving sugar. If you find sugary crap, it's okay to eat it. Allow yourself to feel a sense of loss of your old pattern.
3. Bring twice as much fruit as usual into your home. Dont' buy anything sugary. Eat the fruit without worrying about the glycemic index of bananas or whatever. Fruit from the farmer's market tastes a lot better!
4. Start the day with protein and omega three supplements. 

Remember that sugar is as addictive as heroin. The problem of sugar addiction hides and distracts from other covert discomfort. Sugar addiction is physical and psychological. It's a historical addiction going back to childhood. Modern life is flooded with sugar. Unfortunately, you have to be on guard because crapitalism is pushing you to become addicted to its chemical, nonfood crap. Protect yourself from commercial culture--love yourself! Sugar feeds inflammation, cancer, bad health. Love yourself--it's hard at first. It will pass, and get easier.

Have you seen the youtube lecture "Sugar, the Bitter Truth?" with Robert Lustig?
Or the TV show 60 Minutes' coverage on toxic sugar?

Here's the sugary poisons I got rid of... (with a heavy addict's heart)

1. Almost full jars of: Strawberry jam, Cherry jam, 2 kinds of Lemon curd & TJ's speculoos cookie butter 
2. Holiday candy from Easter, Valentine's & Halloween. Threw out a chocolate bunny. These were all 'gifts.'!
3. New Bags of Chips for baking: white and dark chocolate and "sugar melts"
4. Dates
5. Tea mixes with sugar (the Korean teas I like are filled with sugar, and have wasteful packaging)

What I need to get rid of...

1. Actual sugars!: white, brown, cane
2. white flour 
3. go through all processed foods (bread loaf, jars, cans, boxes)

We never buy juice, thank goodness! That $hit is basically $oda.  And even though I always, always want to buy ramen type packages, I don't. That's poison.

I can believe that like the average American, I eat half a pound of sugar a day. That's 150 pounds of sugar a year!!! F_#@K! 

I need to be honest with myself. Stop eating sugar. That's deadly poison -- not feeding my kids or my self love, but hate--death--pain--suffering by feeding self/family sugary crap!

What the hell is my problem? Born into sugar-capitalist system. Most mystifying food in the world.

Recap of how I got more space in a few days

I'm hauling out. With every post-shopping haul out, I feel freer, less attached to crap. I can walk around without cringing while passing the hall closet. I feel proud.

I made space by letting go of...

4 Kids DVDs, 1 cd, 2 box sets of tv shows DVDs
a black metal magazine holder and matching card holder from anthropologie
An old umbrella that has no hole for hanging and is too enormous
​organizers from ikea, target and the container store
​big blue swiss ball, dh was relieved
​comfort u pillow, blankets
​clothes from j crew, Jeremy's, and anthropologie. Pricier things I'd been hoarding that I finally let go.
3 porcelain vases
1 branch
Kitchen crap: Ikea spice organizer, cake pans for 'tier' cakes
1 crate and barrel two tiered fruit basket that was way too big
cook books to pastry chef friend: lauduree, momofuku milk bar (I'm not a pastry chef)
40 books to the Los Angeles Public Library, including Martha Stewart's craft encyclopedia
Kids stuff: 1 walker toy, 1 kids carseat organizer, 1 rocking horse
1 radio Sony
1 clock white crate and barrel
stash of foam for felt crafting
2 dolls ayumi uyama styled vintage made in Japan, kids didn't want it either

I didn't sell these things. I just let them go to be resold elsewhere. The money earned is not worth my time.  I'm making value by saving time and future effort from handling these things.

Update on the compact:
I haven't bought anything for myself. Haven't felt the need to. But I will re-sign up for "pop physique" monthly unlimited classes as soon as my jury duty next week is over. And there are a few digital books on minimalism I want to get. I really enjoy reading other people's perspectives on losing their crap.

For my daughter's birthday, I bought dresses from second-hand consignment stores in Los Angeles: Blue Bird, The Green Bean and Grow Kid Grow. I found high end designer clothes made not in china but the u.s., france and denmark for the same price I'd pay for new clothes from Target made in who knows where sweatshop. I didn't buy her a toy, but my husband got her a small mirror that she wanted.

shopping is a burden

I've been letting go of a ton of stuff thanks to this blog! Blogging galvanizes my decluttering, materializing my dream of minimalism.

Shopping is a burden.
Shopping can get addictive as an escape mechanism. But escape is temporary and home awaits.
Decluttering will not change the problem if the underlying behavior is not challenged.

The supposition of the American crapitalist system is that shopping is recreation and relaxation. But that is wrong. Shopping is a burden. It causes a financial deficit by definition. It creates debt. It creates shame.

If you buy "it!" and you bring it home, you might:

• remove it from its shopping bag.
• throw away or recycle your shopping bag, raising eco guilt.
• remove it's packaging.
• throw away or recycle it's packaging, raising eco guilt. 
• wash it if it's a textile or kitchen item
• give it a place, otherwise it is clutter.
• contain it. it may require a larger container--a piece of furniture.
• use it or use it up
• get rid of it eventually 

Or you might not. When you watch Hoarders, you see piles of unidentifiable shopping bags with unidentifiable stuff. And new things in boxes. It is too burdensome to open the object. The piles are preferable.

The hunting and gathering done, the shopped for object has lost its value. It sits useless as clutter at home.

Many hoarders try so hard to save everything. Yet they are so wasteful. Shopping is not saving. Shopping is wasting.

Letting go of containers

Since I've been vigilant and diligent about removing crap, I have much less need to contain my world. In the past few days, I've let go of a hundred containers--various vessels from vases and trays to acrylic cosmetic cases, plastic ikea boxes and aluminum tin trays. I can't even remember what I got rid of--and it was only hours ago I let them go! I took the time to wash each item in hot sudsy water. Now that I'm exclusively buying used items, I want the items from my home to recirculate in the world in their best condition for all those other like-minded people who are buying used.

Containers are not the solution. Containers contribute to the problem by giving a false solution that mystifies the real problem. The real problem is you have too much and you need to remove that stuff from your house! Containers enable middle-class approved hoarding--all those neat boxes with labels, just like Martha! But the dread of having too much crap remains, enervating you of hope for a truly clean home.

Containers can multiply with their sly appearance of usefulness, cluttering up pantries, closets and garages waiting to be used 'someday.' But this is precisely their menacing power. They beckon us to fill them with crap, to buy duplicates, and to store unloved things that might help someone else if we'd only free up the contained.

Containers waste your time. You sort your crap into different containers, label them, put them away. But then, you have more crap that you want to hide in the back closet, so you open, close and shift your containers, re-shifting them here to there to another there in a perpetual search for more space.

You can have more space. Get rid of the things you're hiding. If whatever's in the container is for 'someday,' that is a clue it needs to be removed immediately. If it's for some concrete date in the calendar system (the turkey roaster for thanksgiving, for instance), then it has dignity and reason to take up room in your home. Chances are, you can replace what you are storing/hiding easily when 'someday' actually materializes.

By removing the someday clutter, you are learning to redeem yourself of your crapitalist shopping habits. We have been taught to experience shopping as a leisure activity, as if browsing in stores was a fulfilling mode of being. No--browsing is for ghosts, alienated people disconnected from nature and community who embalm their loneliness with lifeless things, while pretending buying something equals an accomplishment. It does not. Sorry. I was there. I purchased many a stupid things and wasted thousands of dollars. Removing these poor judgment purchases is what finally revealed to me I have been a thoughtless and wretched accumulator of crap in the service of corporate global crapitalism. I was suckered by false desires.

I'm by no means perfect now. But I feel so much lighter and happier without the stuff it's like a miracle!

I no longer feel compelled to house and protect things useless to me now.

There's no little voice demanding: clean, organize, clean, organize. Without the crap, the chatter has dissipated. This is such an empowering feeling--I would like everyone to feel it.