The Dark Side of the Cookie Jar

My mom made the best oatmeal chocolate chip cookies in the world. 
Anyone who ever had the pleasure to indulge in them would tell you I am not exaggerating.  
Someone once joked that they were as addictive as "crack", 
and it turns out they weren't far from the truth. 

When her grandchildren visited, after getting a big hug from grandma, 
they would head straight for her cookie jar, hoping for to see those decadent
morsels of goodness. They were never disappointed. 

Few came close, but no one could ever make those cookies as good as my mom.  I always thought it was because, like everything else she did for her family, she put so much love into them
--and that only made us enjoy them that much more.

But those fabulous cookies had a dark side.  

The Dark Side of the Cookie Jar

The once-in-a-while indulgence,
became a three-batches-in-one-week-for-two-people addiction, for my mom and dad. This shocked us when we learned that was happening.   

You see, my parents had discovered the value of eating clean and supplementing with high quality nutrition when they were in their late 40's.  They completely turned her declining health around.
By living a healthy lifestyle, which included getting rid of their sugar addiction, eating clean and supplementing their diet with Shaklee's high quality products, they eliminated nagging symptoms like migraines,  sinus headaches, hypertension, high cholesterol, and atherosclerosis. They enjoyed 30+ years of excellent health with the help of no prescription drugs.  They traveled all over the world and were loving life.

My mom's 83-year-old body still reflects the healthy lifestyle choices she made all those years ago.  She is stronger than many people half her age.  
I'm not kidding. This woman is strong.
More than one of her physicians have remarked that they've only seen a handful of people in their whole career who have such excellent physical health at her age. She even has a beautiful complexion. When we took her to the dermatologist for her annual check-up recently, the physician called a university student intern into the room to take a look and marvel.  

That's why this disease is so brutal. 
It is taking a very physically sound woman and making her weak.  

My dad would ask my mom to make those cookies 'just for him' and of course she would. 
They would tell themselves they deserved a little treat.
But the more they ate, the more they wanted and soon it was an unhealthy daily habit---and they became addicted to sugar once again. Because like with any addiction, a little bit is never, ever enough.

You see, she doesn't remember my name, but my mother will ask if we could go out for ice cream.  Sugar has a stronger hold on her that any memory of her children or grandchildren.  

Just think about that for a moment. Think about the power that sugar craving has over her. It's scary, really.  Especially when so many people view sugar as a reward for themselves and their children.  Studies show that sugar and cocaine have a similar hold on our brain, and it's so very easy to become addicted to that white wickedness.

If you think you may be heading down
that sugar addiction rabbit hole,
you might want to do this NO Sugar for 10 Day Challenge.

Not giving in to my mom's request for sugary treats sure isn't easy.
She asks so sweetly (pun intended) and with such enthusiasm and it's so hard to refuse her.  You think things like "let her enjoy herself" and "she's in her 80's, so what the heck". 

And our heart wants to make her happy. But...we know that giving in to that craving will only make her happy for a moment. And we have come to learn that it will not only feed her addition and for that moment of happiness, and we will all pay dearly the next day.  She will wake up introverted, sleepy, confused and, once again, in the stranglehold of this disease. We call it a sugar hangover and it just pulls her 2 steps back in her progress. 

So knowing what we now know, we no longer give in to that request.
She doesn't realize the damage it is doing to her brain, but we do.  

And I'm not going to let sugar hurt my mom any more than it already has.

The good news is that, now that her addiction has been broken, those requests become less frequent and she can be satiated with a bowl of fresh fruit, if necessary.

Our diet is one of the main reasons symptoms occur in the first place.
That old adage, "you are what you eat" has never been more true than it is today.  
Diet plays a huge role in the development (and the fight against) all degenerative diseases--- and I discovered dementia is no exception. 
Health and disease depend both on what you put in your shopping cart.

Inflammation is the enemy of brain health, so this seemed like the best place to start. Alzheimer's is referred to as Type 3 Diabetes for a reason.

My dad is slowly learning that giving her (and himself) sugar as a treat deserves a paradigm shift. He's starting to realize the correlation between sugar, my mom's brain health and the inflammation in his own body, and he's slowly starting to view sugar as the enemy. It's that change in mindset that helps people to truly change their lifestyle.

And since sugar is the ammunition for inflammation and dementia, we cut off its supply to my mom's brain.  

We're gaining ground on this disease and we're digging in.

Be well, my friends,
~Anne