Here is your weekly copy of our new online newsletter. I think you will be pleased.
Warmly,

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November 10, 2003

** Quote From Kathleen **

Think of your food journal as your body's book. Your body needs a place to tell its own story

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** Testimonial for the Week**

I was just in the shower (great place to think) and I was struck by something important. I guess I have known it all along, but today, the day after Halloween, I think it really hit me. The fact that I am doing this program has changed me completely. I am a better teacher and person because of it. I am able to be focused and caring way more than I ever could have been before when I was eating sugar. Since starting this program in February of 2000, I have had several classes and my attitude toward how I handle the children and their eating has progressed and been honed since the first class when I started. I was still allowing sugary things. Hey, this was MY thing, not theirs, but over the years, I have seen how sugar not only effects me but the children that I teach and many other people too. I don't force my beliefs on people but I do enforce the no sugar thing in my classroom. It works. The children are calmer and they are teaching their parents about healthy snacks. Of course, they still eat sugary things at home (some anyway)...I can't change that but I can change the thinking, if just a little bit.

I had a conference with some parents yesterday. We started talking about this. They don't let their children eat sweets. They, too, have seen what it does to their daughter (who is in my class). This child is always alert and ready to learn. She isn't one of the ones that is constantly lieing on the floor. I love it when parents can see this and acknowledge it.

I have spoken to other teachers about this. At my old school, we all (the four kinder teachers) got together and didn't allow unhealthy snacks in school. When we came to this school (2 of us from the other school), we talked to the two other kinder teachers about this and they are now enforcing this too. The idea is growing and spreading.

This all brings my main WOW to light. I wonder how many families I have touched and changed since I started this program. It is growing by leaps and bounds. It isn't just one child, it's 20, then 80, then who knows. Maybe one day we won't be the minority and people won't look at us like we have two heads when we pass up that chocolate cake or whatever. Big thoughts for a Saturday morning!

Elaine

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** Your Last Diet: More Than What You Think**

I was walking on the treadmill tonight. All of sudden I had this amazing feeling, like I was releasing my fat. I just went with the feeling and told my fat how grateful I am that it protected me all these years and I said "goodbye." I told my fat that I didn't need it around anymore. I know this sounds totally crazy, but it was really inspiring. Naomi

http://www.radiantrecovery.com/YLD

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** Featured Product **

Are you getting your Thanksgiving plans all settled? Traveling to see family? Give yourself a BIG support and send a *care package* for yourself. I am sending George's Shake, a mixer and some ProEPA out to my daughter's house so it will be there for my visit. Hmm, maybe I will add in some cheesies (smile). I am going store shopping! Wanna come?

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** Science Tip **

The Neurochemical Control of Crying
by Kathleen DesMaisons, Ph.D.

This is an old article, but it remains one of my favorites. In 1979, a group at the University of NC had the idea that there might be a connection between the crying (distress vocalizations or DV) of chicks and narcotic addiction. They made this connection because opiate drugs are very potent in reducing distress vocalizations. This may seem self-evident on one level. Give the little one a painkiller, and they will stop crying. But remember they were not measuring physical pain. This was the emotional pain of separation. Yah, you say, “knock em out,” and of course they will feel no pain.

Very Low Dosage

But they and I were intrigued that the DV reduction occurred at very low dosage of the drugs - long before any sedative effects were observed. And my hunch is when you are talking about “very low dosage”, we can infer a similarity with the pain killing effects of sugar. But let's go on with the experiment.

The scientists took 5-day-old chicks and measured the number of times they cried when taken away from mama chick. They gave some chicks saline. The salt-water chicks cried 821 times in 10 minutes. They gave the chicks a low dose of morphine. They cried 115 times in 10 minutes. If they gave the chicks a morphine blocker, the crying went right back up. Their scientific conclusion after a whole number of complex experiments was “the opioid system may have considerable neurochemical specificity in the control of distress vocalizations.”1

Opioids Block Isolation Distress

Opioids block isolation distress. What does this mean for us? Opioids sit in beta-endorphin receptor sites. Low beta-endorphin means greater vulnerability to separation pain. Low beta-endorphin means greater vulnerability to isolation distress. We feel ourselves “outside the circle,” “not a part of,” “not good enough, valued or wanted.” We feel isolated, alone and alien.

And when we use alcohol, sugar or drugs, we feel like we belong. We feel connected, loved, a part of the group, and valued. Until the drug effect wears off. Then, it's worse. And we don't generally make the connection to feeling worse in withdrawal from things like sugar. We only make the connection that if we eat sweet stuff, bread or pasta, life is manageable. These foods are called “comfort foods” because the comfort is real. On a cellular level, the beta-endorphin response makes us feel loved, and makes us feel safe.

Tolerance

Because of our biochemistry, if we use these (alcohol, drugs or sugars) all the time, we will develop tolerance. We will need “more” to feel better. If we stop using for a while and then go back, we get a bigger hit of comfort. Our non-sugar sensitive friends have no clue of the power of that first “comfort” running after warm bread or a hit of fudge sundae.

Our food recovery can bring an intriguing dilemma. If we are diligent about staying away from sweet foods and white things, our cravings drop, but our sense of isolation may emerge. Our food is good, but we feel disconnected and out of sorts. It makes no sense. There should be no reason for feeling his way.

Beta-Endorphin Needs Cranking Up

But there is a reason. The old beta-endorphin needs cranking up. We have to “add in” something to the equation. Exercise, music, meditation, dance, laughter, sex, inspirational talks, meditation, yoga all raise beta-endorphin. Raise beta-endorphin and you will feel connected and cared for. Simple chemistry.

1Panksepp, J et al. The Neurochemical Control of Crying, Pharmacology Biochemistry & Behavior, Vol. 12, pp.437-443.
Panksepp, J et al ., Endogenous opioids and social behavior. Neuroscience Biobehavior Rev. 1980 Winter;4(4):473-87.
Panksepp, J et al ., Brain opioids and mother-infant social motivation. Acta Paediatr Suppl. 1994 Jun;397:40-6. Review.

.

You can read any of these articles by going to PubMed.
Do a search by author by putting in the last name and initial like this - Panksepp, J

. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed/

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** Featured Topic

Take Some Time With Your Program**
by Kathleen DesMaisons, Ph.D.

Let your program settle in some. Now, think about where you are in the process. Have you been rigorous, detailed and persistent? Have you dallied, played or poked with the steps? Are you weighing yourself all the time? Are you being attentive to how you feel? Have you kept a journal? As you go through this process, notice how you criticize or judge yourself. Do you ascribe "good" to rigor and "bad" to dabbling? Listen to your inner judge carefully and discover if she or he is an ally or a saboteur.

Work with the inner voices. They are crucial to your long-term success. This process may not work the way you might expect. Sometimes diligence is less useful than dalliance. For many, many years you have demanded that you be self-disciplined. You have pushed yourself and felt guilty when you couldn't do what you demanded of yourself. Perhaps there is a different way of doing this work. Perhaps we can change your relationship to your body and your way of making change.

When I first started doing my own plan, I thought that "getting" the program meant doing it fully, being diligent, following the instructions and not "poking around." I still held the belief that being disciplined and focused were the only ways to go. Now, I am not so sure that these are the criteria for succeeding with the program.

Now, I am convinced that something else is operating, something a little more subtle and unexpected. I believe that showing up and being in relationship to your body will help you more than being tough on yourself. Let me outline how I got to thinking this way.

I used to lead a ten-week guided imagery series called Finding Healing From Within. Each week, we would do a guided meditation. After the meditation, the participants would draw what they experienced and the group would share their feelings. Sometimes a group member would sleep through every single meditation and "make up" a drawing because they had no memory of anything in the meditation. This made me really uncomfortable. Was I failing these people? Were they failing the group? Were they in denial? How could they sleep through my wonderful imagery?

At the end of ten weeks, we reviewed the progress of everyone in the group. How had they changed? How did they feel? Surprisingly, time and time again, the "sleepers" would have as remarkable a change as the "doers." Not once, not twice, but every single time. Ten weeks of sleeping through and they would report a profound sense of inner healing. They didn't "work it." They slept through the meditations on a conscious level. But they were there. They showed up and they drew the pictures and they talked about their process.

This experience taught me something. The act of showing up creates change. It creates powerful change even if on the outside it may not seem so. Making a commitment to healing starts a process - a chain of events that is much deeper than we may think. When you say, "I will get better," when you begin to hold the idea of "Whatever it takes" something starts to shift.

Given this, I looked again at the effect dalliance and diligence might have on the 7 steps of healing sugar sensitivity. I started looking at my own process of doing the steps. What was happening when I was playing around? Could those times be like the sleeping times in my guided imagery class? Could change be happening in spite of what seemed to be inattention? I looked in my journal. I discovered something astounding. When I was there attending to the steps, listening to my body, writing in my journal, even if I wasn't doing it perfectly, change was happening. I was making progress even when I was being kinda sloppy.

Think of the sleepers. The sleepers were there in the room with the group. Every week. They woke up, colored with the group, and talked about sleeping. So when I showed up and kept the journal and wrote about sleeping through my food plan, I was still engaged with my body and working the steps. I was talking with myself about what was happening. I was not criticizing myself for food sleeping, I was simply watching. And I kept coming back to the journal. I kept coming back to my body and my healing.

The nature of the sugar sensitive person is to give when things get difficult. Like the C57 mice, you crouch in the corner and think you can't stick to your plan. Your biochemistry supports learned helplessness. You feel inadequate, overwhelmed and unable to follow through the way you hoped. A thousand failed diets from the past reinforced these feelings. As soon as you "sleep", you say "Yah, see you did it again!" So you run away from the program, run away from yourself.

This time it will be different, because knowing your are sugar sensitive lets you finally, finally understand the nature of who you are. Knowing you are sugar sensitive lets you shift the perspective from worrying about a thousand "failed" diets to being open to a solution. Think of that. You are tenacious. You keep going, you search and continue. You may be impulsive and impatient, but you can be and are committed to finding a solution. This program helps you use your tenacity in a new way. Because you now finally understand why other diets haven't worked, you can start to make choices. You can change the voices that say, "I know this won't really work" into "hmmmm, let's sort this out." "Why am I bored?" "Why don't I like the journal?" "Why do I sabotage my efforts?" These questions become a part of our healing. They are not the old tapes of inadequacy. They may be the same questions, but they are asked from a different perspective.

Say to yourself, "I will do whatever it takes to heal this. I will give it time, money, energy, whatever it takes. Taking care of my food will be at the TOP of my list. Not after my job, or after my family or maybe when I get to it. But every day." You have made these affirmations a thousand times. But generally, you make them in your head. You "think" about your affirmations. But mostly you do not actually put the affirmations into practice. What would it mean, really mean to "do whatever it takes?"

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