I think it's safe to say I've broken free of my sugar addiction. It was difficult the first few days, and I felt urgent cravings that lasted for an hour or more. But now it's easy. I don't really think about sugary foods or this sugarfree experiment.
In the first week, I spent 10+ hours watching videos about the history of sugar. The British created colonies and enslaved Caribbean people on cruel sugarcane plantations. That has evolved today into the descendants working in indentured servitude on sugarcane farms, only earning enough money to eat one meal per day. They can only get medical care from the sugar company, which charges them hyperbolic fees.
Up until recently, marketing led me to associate sugary desserts with celebration and self-pampering. You can't have a birthday party without a cake. Or a wedding without one. There's no funeral cake though. People celebrate team milestones with Krispy Kreme donuts or Sprinkles cupcakes, not with a veggie platter. The marketing for sugar is impressive.
I've eaten two sugary items in the past 1.5 months. The first was a slice of key lime pie with friends. Before eating it, I was worried that a single bite could send me on a sugar binge, like how a sip of alcohol will cause some ex-alcoholics on a bender until they hit rock bottom again. Luckily, that did not happen.
The second sugary item was a crème brûlée at a restaurant. The first few bites were great. But after I finished eating it, my heart started beating so fast, and it was physically uncomfortable. I felt ill. Sugar is poison.
My plan is to keep eating like this henceforth. I haven't yet been confronted with difficult tests like a dessert buffet. Hopefully by the time those happen, my body will be even more recovered from my sugar addiction, and I will be able to stay on the wagon.
I read Matthew Perry's memoir a couple weeks ago. It's about his addiction to alcohol and opiates. He went to rehab 10+ times. His withdrawal symptoms were worst on days 3 and 4.
Even after 14 surgeries from drug effects, he still broke his sobriety and sneaked opiates when cravings hit.
After reading the book, I realized I probably have a sugar addiction. If I don't eat sugar for a day, I experience intense cravings. For an hour, it is hard to focus on anything except eating a dessert. I thought it was emotional eating and a stress response and lack of willpower, but now I realize it is probably a physical addiction.
I have three new goals on my bucket list.
1. Walk the Camino de Santiago, Portuguese Central route.
I'm playing "A Short Hike", made by a solo developer. You play as a bird that's hiking and flying up a mountain. There's fall foliage, streams, and trees. It's cute.
After reading "Better Living Through Birding", I've started identifying birds via the Merlin app!
There's a concept of the "spark bird", the first bird that gets you excited about birding. The first bird I identified was the Great Egret, but I don't think it was my spark bird.
The author Christian Cooper points out how birding leads to an increased desire to protect the birds' habitat. Birding creates quiet communion with the outdoors. It's similar to bicycling in terms of being a gateway to increased social awareness.
Me: "Wow, I would never have started birding without Christian Cooper."
Aff: "He's your spark birder."
I did the Camino Portuguese last month, 180 miles.
I met pilgrims from many countries. One Italian man, in his 60s, has walked several Caminos in the two years after retiring. Next he will do the Via Francigena trail (2000 kilometers) from Canterbury, England to Rome.
In one coastal section in Spain, the trail was 80% Germans.
Me: [to one young German] "Why are there so many Germans in this section?"
Him: "Because Germans are everywhere. Everyone thinks we are working so hard, but instead we are just making vacation all over the place."
One American woman was on her fifth Camino. She's planning to move to Spain and open a Camino guesthouse. She's currently a doctor and is disillusioned at the profit-driven nature of US hospitals.
At a break, two college-aged guys were laughing over viral meme videos. Later, I encountered them on the trail and met their group leader, who is the grandmother of one of them. She told us about thru-hiking the Appalachian trail for 3 months, camping with snorers.
Today I took my mom to get a brain MRI. She's been walking slower, and a neurologist ordered a MRI to check out her brain. It could just be age-related (she's 73), but we're verifying to be sure.
I sat in the corner during the 35-minute process. No electronics are allowed, so I wasn't able to use a phone or kindle. I just sat there and thought.
Strangely, I felt really happy during the MRI process! It was probably the happiest I've felt this week. I listened to the MRI machine noises, and felt satisfied that I was taking good care of my mom. It was a relief to get this errand crossed off the list, and be able to look forward to answers from the neurologist.
I would not have expected "waiting for MRI" to be the highlight of my week, but strangely it was!
I was touched by this book, by a mom who develops ALS at age 44. Upon her diagnosis, she knew that she had around 3 years to live, and would progressively lose the ability to walk, type, feed herself, and speak.
I really like this Wired article about Marcus Hutchins, who saved the world from the WannaCry virus by registering its sinkhole domain.
He comes across as very moral! He made mistakes as a teenager when he tried too hard to impress his peers. They asked him to write sketchy code, and he did it. Then he paid for it with years of anxiety, and now he is wiser and thoughtful.
He is Ged from the Wizard of Earthsea.
I'm very impressed by people who can do interior design. I've read many books and watched videos, and I'm still unable to do it.
I did figure out that my preferred style is the Zen style.
I've been talking a lot about the Camino. Finally I decided to do it.
I bought plane tickets to walk the Camino Portuguese this May. Hopefully there will be wildflowers. I'll be walking 173 miles from Porto, Portugal to Santiago de Compostela, Spain. Aff will walk the final 63 miles with me.
I hope it will be meditative, with trees and ocean and port wine and audiobooks.
During the pandemic, I read "Class Acts: Service and Inequality in Luxury Hotels". The author went undercover and worked at two luxury hotels for a year, to assess how workers felt about customers spending $500 or $800 per night on a room. This book is from the mid 90s, so it would be equivalent to something like $1000 per night nowadays.
The workers were earning around $20 per hour. They used mental techniques to deal with witnessing the wealth differential up-close every day. Some workers looked down on the customers for being uncouth or being unable to endure any hardship due to lifelong pampering. They passive aggressively left rude customers on hold for 15 minutes, and then apologized profusely when taking them off hold. This made the customers frustrated and helpless. Other workers identified with the wealthiest customers and saw them as buddies.
The customers wanted approval from the workers. These 5-star hotels cultivated an extremely complex and undocumented set of etiquette, to create insecurity in their rich customers. If you don't tip your bellhop, you're a jerk. If you try to tip the receptionist, you're also a jerk. If you tip too little, you're a jerk. How much is the right amount to tip? That depends on many variables and is not posted anywhere, but if you get it wrong, you're a jerk.
The customers end up in a state of insecurity, hoping they don't breach etiquette. They probably also sense that some workers may look down on them secretly. The hotels serve as a finishing school for the rich, teaching them the arbitrary rules. Customers sent flowers to the workers, brought them gifts, and remembered their names. The workers served as judges of who is exuding upper-class behavior and who is an impostor.
I like reading about manipulative systems, to give myself some defenses against manipulative tactics.
I listened to an audiobook "The History of Sugar". I had no idea that sugar plantations were even crueler than cotton and tobacco plantations. The average life span of a slave on a sugar plantation was 10 years. It was so hard on the women's bodies that it made them infertile.
Sugar led to the creation of sugar bowls, for rich Europeans to show off. They whitewashed the ways in which the sugar was produced.
This audiobook actually led me to have less desire to eat sugary foods.
Also, these old-timey sugar advertisements are evil.
Aff: Stupid meat. [looking up at the sky] Why me...at??
One unexpected cool thing about Antarctica is knowing there are almost no other humans around, as far as the eye can see.
It is quiet. There are no sounds of traffic. Just penguin noises and ice breaking off.
We passed another ship yesterday and it was shocking to see another sign of human life!
It is also interesting to look out and see vast mountains that probably no human has set foot on.
