I used to love girl scout cookies.
In the beginning, I started off eating a reasonable amount. TWO, maybe FOUR of the thin mints.
Then I started eating the whole sleeve.
Then I started eating the whole box.
It progressed to say the least.
I listened to Kim Barnouin MS., talk about her Skinny Girl Diet, a vegan diet, (which I would not encourage being vegan.) She states that there are 92 side effects from Artificial Sweeteners, listed from the FDA that includes memory loss, nerve cell damage, Alzheimer’s, migraines, reproductive disorders, brain lesions, food cravings, and weight gain. As she is going on and on, I open up the box of Lemonade flavored Girl Scout cookies, which has ARTIFICIAL SWEETENERS, ARTIFICIAL FLAVORS, FLAVOR YELLOW #4. [i]
RED ALERT!!! DON’T EAT IT!!!
They don't even taste good, and knowing the 92 side effects it kinda ruined it for me, but I still managed to eat the whole bag, leaving ONE cookie to spare.
Sugar is the devil. It is so addictive. It releases opioids and dopamine, which is pleasure...and as humans, we seek pleasure. And then go crazy and break into the cupboard for more cookies... because the opioids and dopamine in our brain is telling us it is making us feel good!!!!
But really then you feel sluggish or fatigued. At least I do, from my experience.
Sugar is just as addictive or even more addictive than cocaine. Mark Hyman, MD., goes into a whole study of the brain and shows scans of the brain neutral, on sugar, and on cocaine. On sugar the brain is in worse shape than coked out. Also, it is funny…you go to an AA meeting and they always have sweets, or bagels, donuts, oh, sweet junk food! You get off one addiction and then on to the next. And these things are not good for the brain. They leave you depressed, anxious, and then soon you have Alzheimer’s disease and all the donuts you had in your 20’s and 30’s it’s too late to fix it. Alzheimer’s starts on the brain 40 to 50 years prior to the time you get it. And 50 million Americans at some point are effected by Alzheimer’s. Crazy. [ii]
It is important to act on this now!!!
Daniel Amen, MD., states that we obsess over the fat on our body, because we see it. We obsess over our wrinkles, because we see it. Because we can’t see the brain, sometimes we neglect it. He also states how obesity, depression, and Alzheimer’s are all interrelated. And obesity is a serious national crisis, 2/3 of Americans are overweight, and 1/3 obese. One of my favorite, yet alarming facts Amen shares is, “As your weight goes up, the physical size of your brain goes down. This should scare the fat out of you… and then I lost 20 lbs.” [iii]
Don’t self-sabotage!!!!! And if you do, don’t ruminate on it, keep going, to the next thing right.
When you make poor eating choices it effects your prefrontal cortex, which is the part of the brain that makes you human. If you make bad health decisions, it affects your humanism.
In Aman’s lecture he discusses sports, how the NFL and boxing particularly had hard on the brain due to any brain trauma. Athletes have to make healthy choices in order to make good choices on the field, in the ring.
He makes a joke about all the pregnant men in our society…
The fat on their belly takes testosterone, which makes men men!!! Vital and happy and, it turns into estrogen and now they are crying over Hallmark commercials.
“It’s time to deliver the baby.”
Healing the hardware of the soul = your brain, and if it is damaged then you won’t work right. [iv]
Healthy brain= you are happy
Unhealthy brain = you aren't happy
Happy = successful
Don’t fall for the food pushers!!! Do you want more wine? Do you want more bread? All you can eat buffets? All these advertisements for more more more. And then advertisements with our size 0 models on them. Advertisements about diets, can’t lose weight?... then take this supplement! Or get liposuction!
It's wild.
This world is wild. It’s crazy!!!!!!
It’s funny, this one kid in Philly ran up to my friend and I screaming, “it’s crazzzzyyyyyy.”
He is on to it. He knows. He knows that gluten should not be the largest part on the food pyramid… 6-11 servings of pasta, rice, cereal, recommended in a day. CRAZY! Yeah, he knows cause he is feelin crazy from all those carbs. Crazy brain fog. Take a look at the American food pyramid, of what is suggested in gluten…cornflakes… cereals?! There are the same paint pigments in your child’s paint as there are in Fruit Loops. Petroleum. Not good. i
Again, crazy.
You think you’re doing good, being healthy, and then HEY they getcha in another spot, turns out gluten free is a 15-billion-dollar industry and has worse ingredients than gluten! WOW! LOOK OUT!
What ingredients are used in gluten free foods to mimic the taste and texture:
Cornstarch
Rice Flour
Tapioca Starch
Potato Flour
Wheat raises blood sugar. These ingredients raise blood sugar even higher than gluten.
Look out.
Also, look out for hidden names for wheat:
Spelt, kamut, emmer, einkorn
Hydrolyzed vegetable protein
Panko
Seitan
Bran
Rusk
Roux
Unknown names from corn:
Maize
Zea mays
Corn meal
Cornstartch
Grits
High-fructose corn syrup
Maltodextrin, mannitol
And, FYI, there is wheat in Twizzles. i
Again, look out.
I love Daniel Amen’s 4 circles. Biology, psychology, spirit, and connections.
They are all connected. Definitely recommend checking out his program and his work. I can absolutely say that the 4 circles are key to happiness, which is success. iv
In this last year and a half for me, I have really gone through a transformation. I have experienced how biology—your genes, diet, exercise, sleep, health, toxins, what you take in to your body makes up what you are, how you act, how you feel. I feel a HUGE difference from when I would drink, eat poorly, stay out until the sun rises, and now, not drink alcohol, eat clean, (for the most part, I clearly still have my sugar intake on occation), and get 8 hours at least of sleep. Already, huge. The feeling of freshness is invigorating.
Through changing my biology, my psychology, comes up. How I think, body image, upbringing, developmental events. Now that I am putting in brain food I think start to see clearly, be in my own body. Which is when I experienced a new awareness to my soul and the need to take care of it.
This brings me to sprit, the purpose of life, why are we all here? I was raised Catholic and really didn’t get it. Didn’t ever consider God. Then that turned into just not believing anything. Feeling like okay, I am just here, who cares what I do, nothing really matters in the end. This led me to dark places. As I changed my biology, I was able to see more clearly, that there is something greater than myself, and I want to channel that great good through my actions as much as I can.
The last circle Daniel Amen speaks about is connections. Relationships. Humans are social and need connection to feel good. It it is key to longevity. There are quite a few case studies of this!—The Italians from Roseto who moved to Pennsylvania. They ate lard and smoked cigarettes but since they lived in multigenerational households and had purpose in life and love; they lived into their 100’s.[v] I know, the eating lard and smoking cigarettes goes against ingesting toxins, but the most important is our relationships. This is what they teach at The Institute for Integrative Nutrition. Your primary foods, relationships, career, spirituality, exercise are all more important than the foods on your plate. Very similar to Daniel Amen’s 4 Circles. Love makes you live longer. Personally, I can isolate myself and get totally lost in my mind, in the negative thinking. But when I get myself out to see friends, family, talk to other people, help someone out, those feelings go away. Sometimes it takes longer than other times, but it always works. “In self-forgetting one finds,” one of my favorite lines from the Saint Francis prayer. And it is true.
I realize this was a bit of a tangent, I was feeling resentful about my own sugar intake. How it takes over. I become powerless. Yes, insanity, knowing the result, expecting something new to happen... No more crazy nights with the girl scout cookies.
Gotta look out for the artificial sweeteners, moderation, if you can do it… or just say, no thank you!
"Your yes has no value if you can't say no!"
[i] Kim Boudain MS. Skinny Bitch: A No-Nonsense, Tough-Love Guide for Savvy Girls Who Want To Stop Eating Crap and Start Looking Fabulous! December 27, 2005.
[ii] Mark Hyman, MD.
Alzheimer’s Association. (2019). 2019 Alzheimer’s disease facts and figures.
