• health
• Nutrition and diet

50 pages into this book I decided I would not touch chocolate anymore

At Walla! Health landed a month ago Alan Carr's new book that promises easy sugar withdrawal. To see if it really works, let the sweetest person we know read it. We are still in the market from the result

• chocolate
• Sugar weaning
• Sugar
• Carbohydrates
• Alan Carr

David Rosenthal

What did you do on July 5th? It was Sunday, and that's probably the only thing you remember or know right now about that date. After all, you are not in an epidemiological investigation, and even if you were, most of the information would probably not have been stored in your memory. I know very well what I did on July 5th: I ate the last chocolate cube of my life, at least as of this current point in time.

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Time is a relative matter. Only a month has passed since then, and no one promises to break that fast in a year, two weeks or tomorrow, but until July 4th (coincidentally or not, Independence Day of the world's largest obesity nation) a month without chocolate for me was a completely imaginary concept. 3-4 snacks a day, at best, were a matter of routine. In the eyes of the environment, I was synonymous with candy and soda machines. Sugar would manage my agenda, I lived from snack to snack, from Mecca and Dr. Pepper to Magnum. So suddenly everything went down in the dark. I see a cake and refuse indifferently, skipping the shelves of the cow's favorite cow chocolate, not loading Milky from the dairy wing. It all happened in an instant And particularly randomly.

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It started when an editor of this section threw me next to Alan Carr's "Good Sugar and Bad Sugar." "Read and write if it affected you," she said, recognizing the dying soul immediately "and I know there is no chance." I also knew there was no chance. In fact, at that point in time I was betting on all my property that it would not happen. Luckily no one suggested intervention. Before we continue, I will post the proper discovery: I have not completely stopped with sugar, but I do consume it to the extent that a normal person is supposed to consume it. Yes noticeable effect, no detox. About that later.

Before I knew "Good Sugar Bad Sugar" I heard about people who quit smoking thanks to "The Easy Way to Quit Smoking" written by Carr. That sounds absurd to me. After all, from the point of view of a non-smoker, what should be done to quit? Decide to stop, exercise willpower, swim slowly under the whirlpool and exit it to a safe shore. My wife told me she was quit smoking at the time for nine months thanks to the book (she came back later and 4 years ago was completely quit, but that's a different story). Such a sweeping and unequivocal break through a book sounds at the conceptual level like something that just shouldn’t happen. But it happened.

So what's so special about "good sugar and bad sugar"? The answer to that is easy: the fact that it just works from the first moment. Carr sets conditions for readers. One is to not stop with chocolate and other sweets before you finish reading the book. Surprisingly, this was the first condition I broke. Already after 50 pages I decided I was out. After 70 I realized that.

Carr's method is very uncomplicated, and what is surprising is that it involves a great many things, but not the concept of "willpower," which as mentioned was the first thing that came to my mind in the context of rehab. In fact, Carr opposes the use of willpower, because this concept involves, he claims and also in practice, a lot of suffering, which ultimately causes a person to return to the crime scene. People who lost weight due to willpower went back up and sometimes even doubled it. Most diets end in failure in the long run. According to studies, 70-80 percent of people who try to quit alcohol or drugs abandon the program after 3 to 6 months. No, willpower has no interest here. So why yes?

For decisions. For independence. For personal choice. Recognizing that you are addicted as a heroin addict and not having fun looking in the mirror with that thought. Yes, that's how simple it is. Carr tells us what bad sugar is, why we consume it and what damage it causes. All this is not new, after all most of us have come across articles about the silent killer and the names he makes in our body, and yet it does not bother us to consume it in quantities and console it. So it is, that he is not comforting and Carr makes all the logical inferences that are detailed on our capillaries: the habit of our parents and preparing the ground for addiction, the fact that throughout life we ​​have been brainwashed with sugar and made us feel the constant hunger it produces. You read it and say: Wow, that's exactly what my life looks like. I am always hungry, feeling I have not found the comfort I was looking for, full of guilt and especially trapped within a world of decisions I have not made. I was trapped in the shackles of the external and emotional environment and lo and behold, I suddenly have the choice.

Truth be told, scary how fast it was. When you suddenly realize that your destiny is in your hands, free from prejudice and habits, you see the world a little differently. Carr claims that all life has brainwashed us. He's right, but is not what he is doing brainwashing in itself? It can be argued that, although on a philosophical level it can be replied that when you wash your brain you are actually doing anti-rinsing and detoxification. In fact, it's true.

After all that has been written here, as I admitted earlier, I have not been completely weaned. I mean, chocolate and pastries yes (how weird it was to sit with friends in the yard, see the cheerful alfalfa box and ignore it like it's a repulsive avocado bowl), but I still eat rolls here and there, put some fries in the shawarma dish, I also got to eat Pasta - These are all foods that Carr includes on the banned list. According to him, before you put something in your mouth, you should think about whether you would eat it please. In a potato, for example, you will not bite when it is alive. He thinks we should live like the collectors, but it was already hard for me to agree to that. I have always loved to eat and always love, I will not give up all the delicious food in the world.

In the end, even though it is not a net detox, this change is gratifying. I lost almost four pounds during this month and I feel healthier. However, be sober and realistic - it is clear that one month is not an indication and this process should be examined over time. Meanwhile, if I needed more proof of the madness provided by 2020, it boils down to one seven-word sentence: Chocolate no longer does it for me.

Babel Publishing, 244 pages. Translation: Dafna Levy