Day 23 Fruit Phobia and Other Psychosis

You may not realize this, I hadn't even realized this until I entered into this, but most people are fruit phobic. Don't think so? Okay, how much fruit did you eat today? One piece? None? Do you rarely eat fruit? Why is that? It's because we've all been conditioned that it's too much SUGAR. Even the food pyramid doesn't allow for much fruit. But I bet you'll freely eat a donut - heck the grain section of the pyramid is way bigger! And you may regularly eat dessert at a restaurant if not after dinner at home frequently as well and if you're me - you want (wanted) dessert after every meal. That's right, breakfast, lunch, dinner and even snacks.

Well gosh, you've just got to get a grip and have more willpower! Don't you? But day after day we sadly fail. We can't help ourselves. We crave sweets like they're going out of style and as of 1999 Americans consume a little over 158 lbs of sugar a year, and the number increases every year. Even more interesting is that fruit is not part of this tally.

So, we eagerly consume 158 lbs of sugar a year - that's 13 pounds of the stuff a month or almost a half a pound a day yet I bet very few people reading my blog eat 13 lbs of fruit in a month.

The reason you crave SO MUCH sugar is we're designed to eat sweet fruit and lots of it. But, we don't allow ourselves to, so instead we consume 13 lbs a month of other sugar to try to fill the genetic need. I mean, you can't be going eating 6 bananas a day and 4 oranges and several apples and who knows what else! Who does that? That's NOT okay in our society. I've had people write me and say 6 bananas a day are waaaay too much and I'm going to do bad things to my blood sugar and become very sick. People get really passionate about it, nearly as passionate as the protein issue, which is coming up tomorrow, but no one says a word if I consume 13 lbs a month of sugar in the form of cane, beet, or corn, now do they? No, they don't.

Couple this with being a woman, and if you're a woman in this society you come up against the fact that we can never eat what we want or as much as we want or we'll be fat and to be fat in this society is the social and often professional death knell. Most women fall into this category. Yes, there are the skinny girls who can eat anything and everything and never gain and we hate you. Okay, not really - LOL - but most of us fall into the other category and my point is that we are always restricting our food in some way, all the while being out of our minds with cravings. If we don't, we weigh ungodly amounts and we suffer atrocities at every level - personal, professional, you name it. We're treated differently by men, women, doctors, lawyers - everyone - including ourselves. So, even if you refuse to 'play the game' and don't restrict yourself, most people still feel it and it's ugly.

So, here I am, able to eat as much fruit as I want and I'm having trouble with it. Why? Because of the whole frickin' paragraph above! I'm conditioned by society to NOT EAT and in particular, not eat FRUIT.

I know I'm not eating enough everyday and so I have to work at it. Imagine that! I've spent years restricting all my food but especially fruit! I'm having to work at eating all I want. Maybe Lori would say this is another one of my non-problems and she may be right as she usually is, but it's something to witness.

I know my weight stands still when I don't eat enough and I know the fact I was tired the last few days is because I haven't eaten enough, coupled with a lot of stress. I have to wrap my head around the fact I get to shed a lifetime of ugly and unfair rules about food, except I feel ill-equipped! You'd think I'd dive right in.

Conditioning runs deep so I'll have to keep working on it. I have all year to 'get it right' but hope to arrive there a little sooner than 12/31!