How Sweet it Isn't

Can you imagine stopping at 7-11 or Cumberland Farms or Turkey Hill or Wawa or [insert convenience store chain name here] every single day to buy the biggest, baddest Mountain Dew you can find?

That was me. And I was doing it TWICE a day. 

See, I was working two jobs, both of which involved more sitting on my ass than anything but I was putting in a LOT of hours. 

Like, 12, 14 or 16 hours every day including Saturday. 

To say that I was burning the candle at both ends would be an understatement. 

Basically I was using sugar and caffeine to keep going. Sometimes I would make an energy boilermaker by dropping a 5-Hour Energy (extra strength) into my Mountain Dew. 

Sometimes I would mix Dew with Redbull.

I'm going to go off on a tangent for a second and tell you a thing or two about Red Bull. 

I used to teach Driver's Ed so I was a round a LOT of teenagers. 

I met at least five boys who got kidney stones before the age of 17 and all of them were avid Red Bull drinkers. 

Does Red Bull cause kidney stones? There's no clinical evidence but the anecdotal evidence speaks for itself.

And it tastes dog nasty until you add some vodka. Even then it doesn't taste that great.

So there I was living a practically zombified existence and never EVER feeling totally awake. I gained 50 pounds as a Driver's Ed instructor because all I was doing was sitting, for sometimes 10 hours a day. 

Sometimes more. 

But dammit if I didn't stop to grab that Mountain Dew. 

So my body reacted to this, thankfully not with Diabetes. 

I still don't know how I've dodged that bullet.

But even though I shook that habit ages ago the sugar addiction was still alive and well. 

Ever stop at the convenience store just to get a piece of cake? 

Ever roll through the drive-thru and only order dessert? 

Ever made a donut run because you just couldn't shake the craving?

Once your body gets used to being pumped full of sugar and carbs, those are the ONLY things that will satisfy it. 

And we understand that sugar and carbs are synonymous, right?

It's an addiction, plain and simple. 

And that's why you need to detox. 

This is not entirely our fault. We're bombarded with this crap all the time. 

And without getting off the junk first, no diet will work well for us. 

All diets work, don't get me wrong....

But if the cravings outweigh the desire to stay on the diet, you're screwed.

I was 365 pounds when I started on my low carb diet. 

Without getting off the sugar I would NEVER have stayed on it. 

That's the key. 

Ditch the sugar, you ditch a CRAPLOAD of carbs. 

Ditch the sugar and you stop craving carbs. 

You will get the right amounts of carbs from your veggies.

Your body doesn't NEED more than that. 

But unless you commit to breaking your sugar habit, your chances of success are really slim. 

More on that later...