Sugar Plums and Protein
I must be getting old.
I used to be able eat a candy bar for breakfast and wash it down with a Coke. I would then repeat the process at lunch time. At dinnertime, (or suppertime as we call it southern Iowa) I would eat something like a hamburger and greasy fries that I once again washed down with Coke. Before bed I would drink chocolate milk and the next day I would get up and, with a few variations, do it again. (Sure, I admit it wasn’t exactly the healthiest of lifestyles, but I was a young adult and immortality was mine!) I guess I had a high metabolism, because I never had a problem with my weight. Sugar and caffeine naturally flowed in my blood stream and never kept me awake.
Even as recently as a few years ago I could consume more sugar and caffeine than your average person and it never had any side effects. (Well, maybe it did… I finally did gain some weight, which I have now lost.) But now days, it seems sugar is not as good as a friend to me as it once was. These days, if I eat nothing else but things with a high sugar content, I just don’t feel so good anymore.
Take this evening for example: I had milk and cookies for brunch (we didn’t get up until noonish today… A. is still on holiday) and by the time dinner rolled around, though I wasn’t particularly hungry, I felt woozy. I think my body was literally crying out for protein. Instead of visions of sugar plums dancing through my head, I envisioned a fat pita bread stuffed with a tasty Gyro meat, dripping with tzaziki, and smothered in raw onions. After we ate a “sensible” dinner, I felt better. But I have begun to notice that while I still like my sweets, more and more often I just don’t want any.
I am sad, for indeed it will be a dark day for me if one day I have give up the sweetness of my youth for the balanced diet of middle age.
