Article Club

 Hello. Hello. Welcome to Article Club.

 Hi Allison. Hello. This is

 a show where we pick an article. We read that article and we talk about it. So, uh. What are we talking about today? What, what's the point? What we're talking

 about today? This is our first dipping our toe into, uh, a little bit more of a personal memoir.

Mm-hmm. Um, but also still has and a funny one. Yeah. A funny one. Mm-hmm. Also still has a lot of science and fun facts in there because you gotta be learning. And fruit rollups and fruit rollups, which you love. We love, I'm a gusher, I'm a fruit roll girl. Oh my God. We'll get there. This really hit close to home.

So this article is by Katie Weaver in The New York Times about how my trip to quit sugar became a journey into hell. Uh, and sort of like the ification of, of taking ification sugar out. I mean, everything's getting ified these days. Oh my God. I know. Uh, for those unfamiliar with the woo, that's like sort of the, um, goopy.

Yeah, goopy. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Uh, but I a life fame. Of Gwyneth theme, I, um, related deeply to this author because I, every January do sugar free January.

 Oh, I didn't know you do this every year. Uhhuh. Yeah. For

 the last like three or four years. Okay. My mom and I cut sugar this year. I, we also loop my boyfriend in, we loop my boyfriend's mom in, although she only came, joined us halfway through through the month.

Okay. Um, and it's

 so, it is

 so

 hard. Okay. So, okay. I've never done this. I can't even imagine how you do it. Um, has reading this article made you think about. Entering an institution to support you in January, we'll get, we'll get into the details of the article, but get into No, it hasn't, but it's, she basically goes to a detox center of sorts.

Yeah.

 Like the Canyon Ranch of Austria. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Is what I would, yeah, I would probably call it. Um, yeah. So this, the South Arcade Weaver is. Sugar addict. She's like talking about how she like, just fricking loves sugar. Real addicts like hide, like, like, like addictive, addicted behavior where she like, you know, like addicts are like hiding their stash all over their house.

Mm-hmm. Like she is hiding her gushers

 and she even says, thank God I don't have a predisposition to narcotics or drugs. Right. Or whatever, because that that addictive. Diviv behavior might be misguided. Totally. If it weren't gushers, what would it be? Right, exactly. Or strawberry for rollups. Yeah.

 Strawberry sensation for rollups tongue tattoos. It's very specific.

 Also, can we, yeah. With the tongue tattoos. Can we just say how I love her?

 Yeah. She's funny.

 She's

 very funny

 question. Did you look her up? I

 did.

 Okay. I. I, I actually did not, but I, but I had the urge to a few times and then kind of forgot, like I, I, I, and Okay.

Was part of it? Was part of it to see what she looked like?

 Oh, I actually didn't look her up. Oh, I did look her up to see what she looked like. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Because she talks about, yeah, basically, I think a lot of people, you know, there's, there's the sort of sugar and diabetes correlation and like how we have the growing obesity epidemic.

We got the GLP ones, we've got all these different things, but you know, most of the time people who consume as much sugar, she talks about people who, yeah. Eat as much sugar as she does often have other problems. Right. And she is sort of like, I don't really seem to have any problems. In fact, I'm a healthy weight.

She's like

 a specimen. Yeah. You know, goes to this place, they take all these whatever crazy measurements and things and things are in the green.

 Yeah. This is, she like, so she go, so the, the, that premise of this article is that she like decides, okay, maybe my sugar addiction is not great for me and I'm sure the New York Times paid for her to go to this place, um, in this Austrian wellness retreat called Viva Meyer.

Oof. I'm sure I'm not pronouncing it correctly. It just makes me think

 of Veep like Selena Meyer, Viva

 Meyer. Yeah. Oh totally. It's so, and it's like, you know, like I said, the Canyon Ranch of Austria where you have this intake and they, you know, they tell you even like before you come, don't, um, like, you know, start, start like basically restricting your eating uhhuh, prepare when you walk in a be had

 water bottle with stones in it Exactly.

That have

 minerals. Talk about woowoo. Yeah. Um, and she, like, there's all these strict rules about like, you know, you can't have water while you're, you get like less than a cup of water while you're eating your food because you're to like chew. I mean, water's bad. I know who knew. Um, and that you only con consume easily digestible foods and you avoid.

All, all forms of raw fruit and vegetables, which is fascinating to me. Um, but they're basically telling you to like, you know, prepare your body for this like challenge uhhuh. And I think there's like also this, this, uh, assumption that like, if it, this is gonna be hard and so you need to, it's. Gonna be challenging and difficult and so you have to prepare for this thing.

 Okay. Did you, did you fully understand her motivation for going, it's interesting that you said, I'm sure the New York Times paid for it. Yeah. 'cause she glosses over. She has, she knows she has this sugar addiction. Exactly. She knows she has this sugar addiction. She knows it's probably not good. She has never had a health.

You know, scare or reason to think that it's affecting her. And I had the same. Okay. Does she pitch this as a story Right. Time? You know? Totally. Totally. Because it didn't seem like she wanted to make a change actively, it was almost, I don't know, almost will this experience force me to want to make a change.

 Right. Let's so, so, because so many

 people go when they're in the depths of need. Right? Totally. Wasn't her like

 wanting to lose weight or like make this huge lifestyle change? She talks about she didn't

 wanna, she wasn't necessarily trying to lose weight.

 Um, well. I think, I think some of it's like, it seems like a curiosity.

I think some of it is just like probably for like for the broader public curiosity of like, if I have this problem, is there a silver bullet that, or if I have this quote unquote, is it a problem is for debate? Mm-hmm. But is there a silver bullet? Is there some way I can like wellness or woowoo myself into being a good mm-hmm.

Person who doesn't eat sugar because eating sugar is bad. The

 tone of the piece makes it so clear to me though, that there was never a. Like it was always gonna be a humorous or she's a funny person. Yeah. And she, she was never taking it so like the woowoo. So seriously and maybe rightly so. Yeah. I think there's some,

 I think there's some curiosity on her side of like, is sugar bad if I am quote unquote healthy otherwise, right.

Oh, that's a

 huge question.

 And um, and I think that's a broad like question in the zeitgeist right now. Like, because so many people do like, okay, so for example, with my boyfriend and I, we both quit sugar. And then we both had sugar the weekend after, you know, after Jan, sugar free jam. Can we first

 ask, how does one quit sugar?

What did your, like how Basically we both ate, ate a lot of desserts. Okay. So I get not having dessert. That's, but that was a big thing to cut. But what about like, there's sugar and bread. There's sugar. Sure. We weren't cutting, it was basically added

 sugar. We were cutting out. So

 soda dessert,

 soda, dessert.

Like, you know, if you have like a. Like a match, latte it in the morning that has sugar in it, or like things that are obvious sources, like okay. We were sort of checking labels. You know, if your tomato sauce Yes. Had like two grams of sugar. Yes. We're not like cutting that out. Okay. But like for the most part, trying to cut out any, any added sugar.

Got it. Like still eating fruit

 and things like that. And then you have a big wham bam dessert like. Binge situation? Or was it like, I'm just gonna have a supervising, he

 went, he had pancakes. Was his like, with like whipped cream and syrup and all that? That's cute. I, um, I was at a wedding, so I had like, my friend had gotten candy from this like bon bon like Swedish candy place in New York.

I had a fro, I got froyo with mochi. Topping, yes. Then I had dessert at the wedding, so I had to big rainbow mochi. Uh, no, it was just the plain white one, but I had, you know, multiple desserts the same anyway. It

 just feels

 fun when

 it's

 rainbow. Exactly.

 Okay. Okay.

 Okay. And he even the next day was like, oh, oh my God, the headache.

Mm-hmm. I got post sugar, blah, blah. And I was like, I felt nothing. And so then I, and so then we were joking, like, oh, is this just psychosomatic? Have you like, told yourself that now that you have, every time you have sugar, you get a headache. Right, right. And he keeps bringing it up. I'm like, I don't freaking know.

 She doesn't get into that at all. Really? No, she's, she talks about how. She's just sort of mopey and grumpy and like a horrible version of herself when she doesn't have the sugar. Exactly, and then cut to spoiler, she ends up ruining the detox with like one cinnamon bun or something from the local town.

And she's happy again. But yeah, but there's no,

 this gets to like, I think some of the, so there's like the science, right? So it's like, is sugar bad? Um, and like, why do we, why do we crave sugar so much? So she talks about, uh, like this mammals basically, like not all mammals, but, but humans love sugar dogs.

Like sugar cats don't like sugar bears. Like sugar doesn't surprise me. Bears like sugar, obviously. Like Winnie the Pooh and Honey. Yeah. Um, but seals don't. And so every human is born liking it. And there seems like, um, they talk, she talks about these. I'm like gonna butcher this. Kim OENs researchers, which is a cool word.

Um, who. Who basically said that like sugar, the reason we like sugar, that us like that apes all that like sugar is because it was like signified calories. Yeah. So it was just like a good way to know. I never knew that

 that sweet equaled calorie. Yeah. To whatever biology. Yeah. High calor. And 80% of you know, an apes diet was fruity.

Sugar is fruity, sugary things. And that's where most of our genetic makeup comes from. And children like sugar more than adults. Oh my God. Okay, so this gave me a little bit of hope. Uh, I didn't realize that there was a connection between the hypergrowth phase of children and the liking of sugar Uhhuh.

My kid, if you, you know, would just eat through walls of sugar if she could. And it's alarming. Yeah, it's alarming. And then it becomes it, and everyone, everyone tells

 you like, oh, you know, you gotta set these behaviors young. So like, yeah.

 But. Yeah. And yeah, and I, I mean of course I know parents who do a, do a really good job of trying to avoid it and some parents who are very anti it.

Um, but I just dunno how you can avoid it.

 I know it's everywhere. And, and then she, so children like sugar more and then typically it tends to drop around pub. That, that's what the

 part that gave

 me help. And so she's like, well, maybe my puberty like just never, never waned. Like maybe I just have the, the sugar addiction of a child.

'cause she's like, I still deeply, deeply want it. And even so, even where she goes at Viva Ma, um, there's no fruit because it's got sugar in it. Yes. Crazy. They're like restricting that. She

 Okay. Que question for you. Um, based on something that she said, she said she watches other adults eat things like broccolini and drink a beer or red wine or whatever, uhhuh.

And to her it tastes like. Tree bark or something like, she just has to pretend she likes all these adult things. Are there things like that in your adult life that you feel like are accepted as adult that you don't actually like?

 Like are there foods that I eat that like I'm supposed to like as an adult?

Yeah, whether you

 eat them or not. Like are there things that adults you're supposed to, like as an adult that you're just sort of like, uh, the way she is. Uh,

 like only thing I can think of is like a gin and tonic. I like, think they're disgusting. Um, yeah. But no, nothing, nothing.

 What? What's it for you? It, it's not food related.

I was trying, I knew you were gonna ask me too, but um, I was just thinking about driving. Oh, like adults are supposed to like driving and I don't Yeah, yeah,

 yeah, yeah. A good whip around that you can always ask is like, what's something that most people like that you hate? Mine's chocolate. Even though I'm addicted to sugar, I'm not with a capital H.

 Wait. Whoa, whoa, whoa. You're addicted to sugar.

 After reading

 this article, do you really think you're taking sugar? I like sugar a lot. This girl is not playing game, but I,

 but I, well, I'm like given my affinity for sweets. It's affinity. Yeah. It's interesting that I don't like chocolate. I mean I just, I would never choose it

 Interesting.

 Like a chocolate mal lava cake.

 Uh, mine. I don't have a good answer to that. I'm like, oh, licoricey things, but who likes this? I love licorice. You do. Which, that's my,

 that's the flip question, which might be, which was something that you love that everyone else hates and it's licoricey. Yeah, licorice. And that might

 be my one.

That might be like a mark against you. There aren't very many, but

 I mean, just, I, I still, I think I do have, or, you know, I think I've tempered it now, but the sugar addiction side of things, like when I, when I go off it, I do find that like every night I was like craving a hit. So interesting. And I've tried to pair it back since my, since.

Uh, going off of it in January, but like last night for example, I was like, fisting, raisins

 after dinner. Raisins are delicious. No shade on that. I sorry. I was

 like, he was like, um, he's like, Ali, those have a lot of sugar in them. And like, I was like little sugar bottle, whatever.

 So did you, did part of you think and hope that there was an answer to her sugar addiction that might.

Relate to your affinity to sugar when they start doing some. Well, so what's, what was so interesting was they, so like

 at this, at this woowoo place, they start, um, who are we to say? But they do all these battery of tests. Yes. And I think, I think probably most people that come to this place have some things that wrong with them or that could be improved, whatever.

And they're doing all these tests, like they're doing this one test where they're like moving her legs. Yes. And then like. Give. Exposing her to like things like yeast or whatever. Yes. And then seeing how hard she can push back against them. And that's when they're saying like, oh, maybe you've got a yeast imbalance.

Or like, this is where your sugar addiction's really playing in. But basically all of the battery of tests that they run in her are like, clean bill of health. You are a perfect specimen. Yes.

 But that one that said, oh, there's a fungal infection in your intestine. Obviously you're feeding it with sugar and it just makes you crave sugar.

I was like, wow. Fascinating. Maybe that's an answer. Could be except, and then debunked, she talks to an expert who's like. Cool, cool. You can't really tell if you have a fungo infection in your stomach based on how your own muscles respond. Someone pushing, pushing your muscles while giving you like crumbs on your tongue.

But he does say you could do a fecal sample, so I, I kind of want her to do that. Like I want that resolution. Yeah. Why didn't we get that fecal? Whatever done? I

 don't know. Dunno, I guess

 it's not the point. Searching for answers is not the point of the piece.

 Yeah. Necessarily. Well, for sure. But I think it's, it's sort of like everyone's on their own journey and I mean, I think this, this article brought from me too of like the question of like, why do we always feel like there's something wrong with us?

Like she's, he's, she's basically searching like, okay, everyone tells me that this sugar thing is bad. Mm-hmm. There must be something wrong with me. She goes to this vi mar, they like run all this better test. They, she's on this restrictive diet. She sort of was just like, yeah, I can. I can eat. She, she finds herself, I mean, at one point she's eating like probably less than, I don't know, a thousand calories a day.

I mean, the stuff they're feeding, they're feeding them

 all Viscous.

 Yeah. All viscous things that are easily digestible and like

 these little, like, and you need to chew 40 times. How do you chew soup 40 times? Jaw. GMJ,

 baby. I don't know. But then she, uh, and she's like, oh, I'm actually like less, I'm not as hungry as I thought it would be and blah, blah, blah.

But, but sort of like a. Just because I can do this, like should, again, back to the idea of like, are is being good. Just like meaning that you're going through that it's like hard and difficult and Right. You couldn't possibly enjoy your life and Right. Be healthy. Right. Like those are, those are right.

Diametrically opposed Totally.

 I, I want the, the takeaway to be live your own life. It doesn't matter if you have too much sugar or not. Sometimes you know, this, this person does seem like a biological specimen. She's able to handle the sugar quite well. I laughed out loud when she was considering herself, like, maybe I'm a medical miracle.

Maybe I should teach this doctor, like what to eat and what to do or whatever. And she called herself, she said, maybe I'm like, the mushrooms at Chernobyl that ate the radiation or something. So funny.

 Well, I loved the, I loved. The part, so she talks about, she's again, meeting with this nutritionist and um, and the nutritionist is like, oh, you have to stop drinking Diet Coke.

And she was like, aspartame is poison. It'll kill you in Europe. Over here we use aspartame to destroy ants. And she's, and she's just sort of like actually curious and she's like, well, how do you kill ants with it? And she, instead of being like, oh, well we extract whatever the woman's like, it's just poison.

Yes, totally. Like everyone And the average person would just be like, okay, you are telling me what to do. Yes. It's poison. And so I guess I have to stop doing this and like I have to give up something I love. And again, I'm not like saying you should be, you know, double fisting diet Cokes every day, but, but like, it's

 as my mom would say, everything in moderation.

Exactly. There's, there's one thing in here. She, she repeats that is hilarious and also brings up a lot of questions. It is. Um, I go with what, what the will of God or how does she put it? She's like, whatever God, what, whatever hap, whatever God tells me to do. And at one point she's like, God told me in the Atlanta airport to get fried chicken and cobbler and bring it on the plane or whatever.

Yeah.

 God is just like her inner God, her inner, inner, whatever God

 tells me to do, and I know it's in. Yeah, it's just for like her inner monologue. But it did bring up this question for me of, you know, what? What does living a joyful, meaningful life mean? This is coming up a lot in a lot of the po, in a lot of the pods and is just going with the flow, like the will of God.

It. Is it like actually harnessing some control so that then you can navigate in a way that makes you happy? It kind of felt to me like, you know, just whatever happens, happens is not, isn't the way, isn't what would make me happy. Going through life like sometimes. Sometimes, like not having a treat. Makes the treat better when you have it.

 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like,

 or doing, if you give

 yourself

 trying a new sport, if you have dessert every

 night, new, she seems a

 very fixed mindset. Yeah. You know, he asked her, he's like, you should do the doctors like at the woo woo place, to be fair. It's like, you should do more sports. She's like, I don't like sports.

And he lists off all these sports and she's kinda like, Nope, nope, nope, nope. You know? Yeah. I, I just wonder And, and you know, the way the will of God, you know, like her just like go with the flowness. Is that for her? The joy maybe?

 Yeah.

 I know for me, like. It's gotta be a little bit of a, I need to feel like I'm in control.

I would hate feeling out of control.

 Yeah. But I don't think she feels out of control.

 I don't know. She's like, like she's flipping furiously through a book of ice cream, like at the hiking place and people are like pulling her away from it and like, I don't know. Yeah, basically

 the, the, so you know, she's at this store for a couple of days that feels outta control of losing her mind of wanting, she's like a deeply craving sugar.

She's sort of like. Going through all these tests being told there's nothing wrong with her. And I think she's sort of being like, well, do I need to bol? And then she's on a hike with her friend who's another patient there who's diabetic and they stumble, you know, they sort of go off book and stumble upon this bakery and they order pastries and basically like, you know, should we do it?

I love this. And just like, and just totally uh, give up on all things. Yeah. She says Wipe five days of detoxing. Exactly. Literally two seconds. Yes. Um, and then head back. And then she sort of, the end of the article is, uh, when she goes home, she's like. She's like, sort of like reflecting this and she's like, well, is anything actually wrong with me?

Like, I couldn't, I couldn't last five days without sugar. Um, and so she starts talking to some other experts, talk this guy Dr. Ian Slack, who's like an allergist to be like, does this diagnosis actually make sense? Yeah. Um, that I have this gut resistant thing that's causing this steep sugar addiction.

He's basically like, you'd have to do other tests as we talked about. None of these are what you're talking about. So, um. Uh, so I think that was sort of an interesting of like, yeah, again, is something wrong with me? What do I need to change? Like yeah, it's, she sort of seems to want to answer that question, but to your point, not necessarily want to actually make the be any behavioral changes, which

 is also fine.

Totally. And it seems like her body's telling her it's fine. Yeah. Um. A couple of things. A couple of thing other things that made me just laugh out loud. The, she's trying to, the doctor in this clinic is trying to ask her like, you eat a lot of sugar. What do you eat? Chocolate? And she's like, no. She's like, fruit roll up.

Fruit by the foot, Gus, whatever. He has no idea. He's like jelly beans or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. And she calls them depraved COEs balls or whatever like that we have in this country, which is like, is wild. I did want a side note ask you like, what is your favorite deprive. Ible, like, I mean, I, I was

 a big gushers my dad.

Yeah. So growing up my dad did all of our grocery shopping so we could put whatever we wanted on the list and he would get it 'cause he just like wasn't actually discerning. And so, um, so we got a lot of gushers. Okay. Gushers. But I don't, I don't think gushers like would do it for now nowadays. I love, as you know, I love stale.

Stale gummies. Oh, right. So that could be stale licorice. It could be stale, like fruity sour gummies. Okay. But you're a

 gummy gal?

 I'm a gummy gal.

 The, the, she brought up dunkers. I haven't thought about them in a long time, but like, yeah, don't do it for me. Oh my God. A frosting, a cookie and a frosting. Like really?

No. My mom would go to Costco and would buy a big tub of chocolate chip cookie dough, like, you know, to make cookies every once in a while. And I would like put a spoon in the chocolate chip cookie dough. I've always liked, like cookie dough, cookie, like almost like savory stuff. The baked goods more than the.

More than the sweet, um, gummy stuff. Although every single day in high school I would go to, they had a school store. Why the hell would a school store sell Candy? Dunno. Um, the nineties. The nineties, the two thousands. Yeah. Uh, high school. Um, and I would get a pack of watermelon Sour Patch and I would like roll them out with a pen.

You know, you do like weird stuff with your food. Totally. Like in class. Oh, totally. I used to like

 smash my, um,

 yeah.

 Oh. Like I eat my Kit Kats really weak. Like Yes. You know, I have a way. I eat my Reese Cups away. I eat my Kit Kats. Yes.

 Which brings me. To another point that she talks about, which is that loving sugar became part of her personality.

 Yeah.

 Like everyone who knows her knows she's got a sweet tooth. It's just part of her totally perky, silly, fun way She looks at life and. I was trying to think, you know, like, do I, do I have that? Do people, am I known for certain things? And, and I am. Um, when I was a kid, when I was a kid, I remember my family.

I probably said like, we, we lived in Spain for a period of time. I had che a little like rice pudding at one point, and I liked it. And then it became, I'm obsessed with rice pudding and then birthday cake. You know, you always get, I got the red velvet birthday cake. Delicious. Delicious. But in college, that's where it really became, like in the dining hall, what you do was Uhhuh like really became who you were.

Yeah, and I would do, you know, I would do like peanut butter and jelly rice cakes and cut them into little pieces and I wouldn't leave the cafeteria without a cinnamon toast crunch. Like just like, yeah. Weird stuff like that. And like littles mix of little things. What about now? You know, less of that now.

Still love a good little, a lits as we say, which is like frozen blueberries with some, like a little, like some like yogurt covered almonds and some, you know, plantain chips or something in a bowl. Okay, okay. Yeah. Okay. What's your, so what's your personality mean? I know

 people know about candy for me. Okay.

 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like

 licorice, like my whole family buys licorice for me. Um, when I've lived with roommates, they always would buy licorice for me. So that's definitely, that's probably my candy. Is probably my Okay. Candy's

 your personality. Yeah.

 Yeah. If I had to pick a food, uh, yeah, probably candy.

 Mm-hmm.

 Oh, like, uh, yeah,

 you're much more than licorice if you're wondering love licorice, because she does ask that question.

 Well, so then I think the other, the other piece, so I also sent you, um, as we were thinking about this piece, sort of the, the flip side of this, which is like the immense privilege of this whole piece and, and like the questioning of like, okay, because Katie Weaver is a seemingly, you know, thin white.

Seemingly affluent woman. Like what? Like what if this was written by someone else? Like what if this was written by like a fat person? Like we'd have, we would've so much different judgment too on this article. We would've so much different judgment on like, well that's

 also what makes it so interesting.

Totally. 'cause we hear these journeys of people who are ill or you know, like striving for a very specific end result. And she's really not. She's just kind of like. Going in open-minded, trying to explore the ins and outs of it.

 Totally. And not, yeah, doesn't, doesn't really. I think it's, it's interesting. I think it's more of a curiosity versus a goal.

Like I don't think she actually, I dunno that she actually wanted to break her sugar addiction. Right. Because she didn't have to, like, there's no, there's no consequences for her right now other than like hiding, feeling like she's hiding shit from her husband.

 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And it does, there is a really beautiful tie to, she talks about how her mother also had sort of a similar sweet tooth and she has these really nice memories of it and she really appreciated, appreciated how, um, and she talks about the dining hall in college.

I feel like that's formative. The dining hall, I don't know. Listeners let us know. But she had all these friends who would skip by the desserts or like calories were a thing or whatever, and it was just this joyful part of life that she was always encouraged to participate in, which feels very healthy.

 Totally. I think about my, my grandmother, my mom. You make sugar

 isn't healthy, but that feels like the healthiest.

 Yeah. My grandmother and mom eat ice cream every night after dinner. Amazing. So I'm like, again, maybe this is genetic. Yeah, we all do. My grandmother doesn't do sugar for January 'cause she's like 95.

Yeah. But my mom, my mom and I both do. And then I think she, she did say, she called me, um, uh, like early Feb and was like, oh, I. My, my like arthritis and my thumb is acting up uhhuh and I've had sugar like the last couple of nights. But again, are we like, wait,

 post the dry post, the, yeah, like she, when she

 returned back to sugar, her arthritis was worth and I'm, I'm sure like there's some inflammation, whatever, maybe,

 but who knows?

I, I truly, if I have like ice cream, like I have like a good amount of ice cream or like, like two, a couple cookies or something after dinner late, I will sweat. I wake up like sweaty. Really? Yeah. I have a sweat thing. And that, I think that started with pregnancy Uhhuh. It like something hormonal happens with sugar overnight for me.

 Interesting. Yeah.

 Not really headaches, but sweat. So do you do anything about

 it? Do you just not

 No, I'm just like, I know I'm gonna be, I mean, when I wanna have re I do it, but I just know it's probably I'm gonna be sweaty.

 Yeah. Yeah. Well, and this also reminded me there was like whole book in the early two thousands, I think Sugar busters, like the Sugar Busters diet, like sugar's been demon.

I feel like, you know, it was like fat was like, everyone was fat free. And then then sugar has been demonized, the last bit of things. But like also let's, sugar can be very positive. Like sugar cruel releases dopamine, which you know, so does cocaine, but like also, so does like holding a puppy or like hugging a loved one.

Yeah.

 Yeah, I'm just thinking about, um, sugar as a punishment with my toddler. Like not being able to have a treat becomes the worst thing of all time. And I know that that's not a good thing to hold over a toddler, but there's very few things in their life that have the draw that they want as much Yeah.

That they want, and very few things you can take away. It's a struggle. So I wonder how, I wonder how other people are dealing with that.

 Yeah. Like is this a restrict, like is a restriction inherently. Is the restriction of food inherently bad? Right. Right. Is it just diet culture, like, and it

 sounds like you never had a re restrictions on food growing up.

Neither did I Ever. No. Ever, ever. But then I think

 about like all of our, I mean, it's like all the friends who became c like gluten-free in the mm-hmm. 2010s because they suddenly developed a gluten allergy, but mm-hmm. Which is really just like an eating disorder and masquerade.

 Yeah. Well.

 For some and like it's now, it's like, is this is sugar?

 Yeah. Well, she talk and she talks about, um, she's actually looking for, she's not necessarily looking for exactly what, what this Vienna Detox Center is offering. They're offering like this holistic, like whatever. And she was looking for a like, where can I go? That helps. Me want this food less place.

 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And

 she says something along the lines of, oh, I'm not surprised that doesn't exist. 'cause that feels like branded eating disorder, you know, totally. Places where could you go to not want food.

 Right.

 Um, so I mean, it's a, it's an interesting question, like the guise of the holistic health with, and it doesn't seem like they give her any data.

No. Like any research, any,

 you know. Yeah. I'd be so curious to see the ViiV Mars retaliation to this article. Yeah.

 Oh my gosh. Yeah. Yeah. I know. I like, how are

 they justifying it? Exactly. We should have gone to their website and there's one

 paragraph where they're like, okay, in the morning you're gonna take like a scoop of this whatever, citrate, something oxide.

Then you're gonna swish, swish this mouth oil. Then you're gonna like, whatever, whatever.

 Right. And

 lemme tell you like. Like I've taken one supplement and gotten blood work. That's like, huh, your liver doesn't like this. Like, how are we supposed to know when we take one sort of institution's opinion that it's not messing up another part of our bodies?

Totally. We don't know. And guess what?

 Neither do they. Yeah, totally. Totally.

 We dunno what happens to this, our bodies over time with stuff like this. Yeah. And truly we don't really know with ultra processed food what happens over time.

 Yeah.

 Do we probably

 al mean somebody out there is like, we know exactly what happens and it's not good.

 You don't know what happens.

 Lady the other day, uh, I was eating, we got some not good. Mario, my boyfriend was trying not to eat like fried foods and so we got these like baked shrimp trips from a bodega.

 Wait, was that, was that related to the sugar? No, he is just on a, he's just trying to,

 he's trying to, he wants to get asked.

He's

 boys.

 And, um,

 so cut to my husband. Went to, went to this workout class at 5:00 AM this morning. I'm still sleeping. By the time he gets back he's like fully showered back, wakes up our children like, I'm like, okay.

 Yeah. So he is trying to do no fried food, Feb. And so he gets these baked shrimp chips at a Bodega corner store and um, 'cause they're sounds he for you I know.

And we're eating them. And I was like, I, the first chip, I was like, this is, I was like, oh, I don't really like it. But then I like, like had another or two or three and then I was like, oh, there's something about this that I just like can't stop eating it. And then I look at the back of the bag because I'm like, wonder like what the heck is in these things?

And I'm like, oh Mona. So Ggl Tomate, which is MSG. Which it makes food addictive. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, oh, of course.

 Okay. I've have you had this experience where, yeah, you, you take something as health food. I think granola is a great example. Something like that. Totally. It's like, oh, this is better than having a cookie.

Whatever. You eat the entire box of granola. Exactly. There's no, yeah,

 yeah. No added benefit there. There's

 no added benefit there.

 But yes, I, well, in college I used to, um, the Tostitos hint of lime chips. Yes. And I used to have MSG in them. Oh. And maybe still do. It was truly

 my favorite thing of, so, um, uh, we did have an episode about sleep.

Who knows if this is coming before or after that, but listen to it if you haven't listened to it. And, um. My mindset on the sugar thing very much parallels the mindset on the sleep thing. Thinking about it too much in any direction is never really good for me. Yeah, like whenever I'm the most flexible, like just like go for the things that feel good.

Is like the best. Yeah. And overthinking it. I don't know. I almost don't want anyone to tell me how much I should really have or not have or whatever. Um, well it's so interesting how feel bad all

 these, uh, people talk about like GLP ones, like Ozempic and things like that and how they like quiet the food noise.

So like Yes. I wonder they change

 the way you taste things. Yeah. So,

 and they like, they're like, I don't mean, again, this is early, but like. Can help some people with addictive behavior. So then I'm like, is that, are people gonna take those and then be like, I don't like the sugar anymore. I don't like coffee, I don't like whatever.

These food

 rollups wouldn't taste as good. Right? Isn't that crazy? Yeah. It can change your brain to not like artificial flavors.

 Amazing.

 That's wild. Mm-hmm.

 So it

 could be that. Yeah. Could be that. All right. Any last words on the sugar? Wait, what's your, what's your takeaway from your month and did it change year to year?

 My takeaway from my month, uh, is I'm still trying to eat less sugar. 'cause I think I just like am consum, like I often am just giving myself a treat for empty calories. So basically I'm trying to not. I'm trying to only have sugar on quote unquote special occasions. So like if I'm at a dinner and people wanna dessert, great uhhuh, but if I, it's like after lunch on a Tuesday.

Yeah. I don't need a treat. Yeah, yeah.

 Like a, like an insert. She and she talks about, you know, I think I was having a treat when I was bored. Totally. Or like to fill the, yeah. To fill the timer space or what have you. Oh, one thing we didn't talk about was how sweet it was when her mom passed away.

 Uhhuh,

 her husband, who seems very sweet, so

 sweet.

 Um, ask, you know, what do you want to eat tonight? Or whatever, Uhhuh. And she's like, truly Just

 cake. Yeah.

 Which is so cute. And he gets her this like bounty of desserts, like excessive amount of dessert and she just thinks, oh, my mom would love this. Like, yeah, so sweet. It was really sweet. So.

 Yeah, so my takeaway is, we'll, you know, we'll, we'll try to keep it, you know, just any, again, everything in moderation.

I think I was like not in a moderation mindset before. Yeah, yeah,

 yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I do hope, I do hope there continue to be better options. Like we just, I ate like garbage when I was a kid. 'cause nobody knew how bad sugar was and the, that's what the food was. Yeah. Right. Like that's what you were offered.

 Oh yeah. Oreo's, Vening

 machine. Like

 chips, a hoy, everything flowing out. Your children in

 this growth phase, like we're acting like apes trying to get fruit. Of course we're going to eat a ton of sugar.

 Yeah.

 So,

 exactly.

 All right, well now it's time for our very official segment. It's called What's blowing up the group chat.

And to be perfectly honest with you, I completely forgot it and I've been like thinking in real time what mine's gonna be. So you're gonna go first.

 Okay. Okay. I always go first. Oh, do you? Oh, yeah. Well, it's time for you to go first again. Okay. What's blowing up the group chat?

 Yeah. Oh, well this is our segment where we, you know.

Just talk about what's blowing up the group chat, what's on, what's on the text thread? What are friends talking about?

 Yeah. Blown up. What's the chitter to the chatter? Blown up the group chat. Uh, for me on my end I'm, so I'm getting ready to go, uh, to Japan. And so blowing up the group chat has actually been talking about all of the things we're gonna get at seven 11.

Because Japanese seven 11 is like,

 been there.

 The had it, yeah. You know, seven 11 here. Overwhelming. Yeah, exactly. So we're, we're blowing up what we're gonna get the seven. It's that you have a game plan. Apparently they're like the number one selling item at um, at seven 11 of these chocolate covered muscat grape gummies, which sounds disgusting.

No, it sounds good. But there apparently, except you hate chocolate. Amazing. I know. But I'm gonna give him a go. So I'm gonna get that. And then also apparently the egg salad sandwiches.

 Yeah. The like no crust white. Is white bread in the little like plastic. Yeah. Milk bread. Those are the ones with the milk bread.

That's what I remember the most. Yeah. I don't remember anything else but, so I can't help you. But I like that you guys are planning, it's like aisle by aisle. Oh, yeah. Where we got a snack. Oh yeah. We're we

 get the vending machines. Yeah. I was say vending machines, food relief. The vending

 machines. I remember too, like you could get full meals out of vending machines, which is so cool.

Insane.

 How do they keep it hot? I don't know.

 I don't know. They're, it's, uh, I'm jealous. We'll

 never

 know. We must go back together. We'll make a pact. Yeah. Um, I just thought of it while you were talking to me earlier. Great. Um, this one is from the mom group chat, actually. Um, you know, there's segments of a woman's life.

Some have to do with motherhood. Um, and it's about postpartum periods and PMS, um, I don't know if anybody out there after having a child or like months after having a child, um, goes into a rage around their period like crazy. This happened to me like the first couple of periods after having my son, which who is now nine months old.

Um. And I didn't know what was happening. Never had pain mass, never had bad periods. It's crazy. It's like your body just like readjusting or something or what? Yeah, like, I mean, how annoying is it that all we get, all the info we get is like, oh, you're just readjusting. It's just hormones, whatever. What, yeah, what is it?

What this like first shattering thing, hormones just happens to your body and every time your body menstruates now it's just kind of like adjusting itself. So, um, I actually like, here's all the team. I ended up just like getting an IUD again, and that's. Feel felt better. So obviously, but everyone seems

 to experience this like, like wave.

Oh, it's been wave.

 It's throwing up the, not necessarily that's why it's going up. The group chat. It's like, is anybody else having this? It's actually somebody else brought it up and I was like, yeah, me like totally me. And then another person jumped in and was like, I thought I was just being a huge bitch.

Fascinating. And like, and I'm gonna like go tell my husband because of this or whatever. Um, but yeah, it's just another, yeah. You know, I know a lot about women's health, done a lot of women's health things, but lemme tell you, there are still surprises. One side

 effect that just

 many surprises no

 one warned you about.

It's exciting. Tales it time.

 Yeah, exactly. All right, well sugar. Japan

 Sugar, TBD on If it's, if it's ps if good or bad or indifferent, we can't tell you. Yeah, we're not the scientists

 here. You're still gonna get those chocolate covered. Whatever. Muscat, Greek, Muscat gummies. Great gummies. That sounds amazing.

Bring me some, bring me one. Okay. Yeah,

 yeah.

 Great treats. Okay. Until next time. See ya. All right. Bye.