On Life, Death, and Fighting Food Cravings
June 21, 2008 – 6:58 amMy father has been on my mind a lot this week in conjunction with this blog. He passed away a week ago Monday, and so it has been a rough two weeks. In addition, his major ailment was diabetes; otherwise know as the food addiction disease.
In the days of my childhood my dad and I had a great time together, and our time always included goodies. Ice cream, donuts, and candy bars were among our favorites. We laughed and sang and ate in a fairy tale world where I had never even heard of food addiction or cravings.
In short my dad loved to eat and so did I. It was one of the many levels upon which we met. We were very connected and we loved each other a lot.
But as I watched my dad in the last years of his life, I remember thinking so frequently “What a price pleasure in food can exact.” As time went by my father could hardly walk due to his diabetes. He couldn’t see very well. Food began to have no flavor at all and he had a hard time swallowing. He spent his days dozing listlessly in a chair, and was sad beyond measure at the loss of all that he had ever enjoyed in life.
And the odd irony was that toward the end my father couldn’t even eat from the havoc to his body. And one might even say that in the end he died of starvation.
So what does this say to us, the masses of us, as we go about our lives? The pat and easy answer would be “just don’t eat so many complex carbohydrates.” But with food cravings, and nearly every label on every food container in the grocery store having some sort of sugar or flour product listed in the ingredients- and usually high up- this seems nearly impossible. I know it took me nearly seven years of eating absolutely no trace of sugar, wheat or flour to feel that such things no longer had a draw for me. Oddly enough, this is about the same amount of time it takes for the body to regenerate all of its cells- and I have often pondered that perhaps I am now literally ‘a whole new me’ with mo more cells that are addicted to foods.
During the week of my dad’s death, I played in the arena of eating some no-no foods. In some ways I think it was a last and feeble attempt to connect with my dad, who was gone by then. But I can tell you that I don’t suggest this as a good idea. I have had my days of intense and unmanageable cravings, and it’s not fun. So I know that seven years or no seven years, it is best for me to stay on the straight and narrow.
So where does this whole conversation leave us. For me it leaves me with a stark reality. I feel healthy, vibrant, and fully alive these days, and I want to honor my father’s love by not following him down the path to self destruction. He could not avoid it, but I can. So I will stick to the foods that keep me feeling great. And I will try to educate others on the same issue. And I will hope that the manufacturers and food stores eventually start to provide us with foods that we can eat. And knowing my father and his loving nature, his spirit will be happy if I follow this path.
Tags: Diabetes
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