Am approaching launch on a web project that’s been a bit of a distraction to the AI efforts; but things are moving forward slowly.
The truth is, I’ve been tired for the last month or so. I’ve really upped my output. But I’ve come up against my own energy levels. I’ve known for a while that I’ve needed to look at my diet and have made some good inroads in it.
Last winter I removed caffeine from my life. No coffee, no tea. Five years ago I stopped drinking alcohol.
Almost all major changes in life come about through fundamental paradigm changes.
The past week my paradigm change has been around sugar. What’s this got to do with building an AI startup? To simplify the answer I would say it’s about energy. I’ve noticed how tired I’ve been getting – mostly mentally – over last month.
This led me to point of realisation where I actually genuinely want to change what I eat. When you hit your 40s, your body starts slowing down if you haven’t looked after it.
What is sugar?
Coming from the sugar cane plant … the plant is then refined – stripped of all original fibre, minerals and vitamins – leaving a white crystalline structure that is very sweet and most importantly, soluble – which means it can be added to almost anything.
Our bodies love the taste of sugar
In some grand form of intelligent design, nature made fruits that are good for us, taste good. Natural sugar. So we like the taste.
Big food industries realised they can hijack our natural taste for good natural sugar… with refined sugar … which became the trojan horse that allows it into our life.
When you eat it, what happens?
So, you get a high, followed by a low. You ingest something which has zero nutritional value and it completely disrupts your sugar levels. It’s high carb level means you probably won’t burn it off and it just gets stored as fat.
… and that just leads to diabetes, heart disease and in general a life of lower vitality.
The crazy thing that I’ve realised in the last week is how much bad sugar is in everything I’ve been eating my entire life. It’s not just the junk food; it’s any processed food, bread, rice, wheat, pastries … literally everything.
Triggers
It’s really useful to know what triggers cause you to reach for any sugary stuff:
- boredom
- sadness
- stress
- routine
- reward
The brainwashing
What I’ve learnt this week, which seems obvious now, is that
- anything with bad sugar in, is pretty much tainted with poison.
- most of the food i’ve been eating, isn’t even food
So, it’s no wonder that my body has started to ache and slow down; I am just eating actual food. It’s a wonder my body has managed to last this long. But it’s time to sort it out.
So … a sandwich.
Popular snack right? Often pushed as a lunch for busy people. Throw a bit of meat in there and a salad and you get a nice sandwich. But the bread isn’t really food. What sort of nutrition do you actually think the bread has? It has sugar in it, so it’s somewhat poisonous.
Most will totally disagree. I would try to justify the bread. But anything with sugar in, by it’s very nature is going to damaging to your system. IT’S NOT FOOD!
Absence of willpower
There is a well known method of removing addictions that relies on changing perception rather than using willpower to stay away from the thing that is damaging you.
I am talking about the unnatural sugar – the refined sugar that is present in everything. It messes seriously with your body to the point that it is responsible for killing millions of people every year. It is one of the things that we don’t talk about as a society, probably because most of us are unaware.
We think we get pleasure from some foods mainly because of the high that we get immediately from foods with sugar in. So it fools us.
It’s exactly the same as other addictions:
Caffeine
The main lie about caffeine is that it gives you energy and that it’s non-addictive. Caffeine has zero nutrients in it, and stresses your body out to produce an anxiety that feels like energy but actually frazzles you.
Alcohol
Alcohol is lied about too. The wonderful social aspect of alcohol is is a lie – it takes the credit for the endorphins that get released when humans socialise. But alcohol is an empty, meaningless liquid that has zero benefits.
So what’s the lie about sugar:
- We generally don’t consider it addictive
- We know it’s ‘bad’, but we don’t realise HOW bad
- We accept it’s added to foods, but don’t really pay attention
- We accept it’s added for taste
- The pleasure that we supposedly get from anything sugary is false – it’s just the food industry hijacks your natural taste buds for foods that are actually good for you
- Also it raises sugar levels and gives you a brief high and then a crash …
- We dont realise we develop a tolerance for it
The big thing with sugar is that it creates its own demand. It leaves that anxiety that only it can fill. But the only solution is to remove that ongoing source.
Enough for now.
Leave a Reply