My First Sugar Intervention

Food is one of the best ways to see how your choices can effect your body. And none more so than beets, right? IYKYK 😂

I first discovered the (other!) immediate effect of foods on my body during recovery from brain surgery in 2010. I had had tennis ball sized brain tumor successfully removed!

The steroids I was taking to reduce the inflammation in my brain put me on pre-diabetic watch in the ward. Any meal or snack that had too much sugar would register an alarm and nurses would come running. It meant my white coat fever was actually triggered by sugar! It was kinda frightening at first but then I decided to turn my fear of those alarms into a game. Shortbread? Alarm. Chocolate? Alarm. Mango? Alarm. Mango and coconut oil? No! Wait, what?

When I came home I received notification I’d qualified for the NYC marathon the following November, a year to the day exactly(!) of my surgery and survival! But call me crazy I also decided to run the New York marathon as testimony to my recovery - without sugar – which to almost all marathoners was the far craziest part! Actually I’d like to extend that to all processed food because alongside simple and refined carbs, they all turn into sugar in your body. But carbo-loading is the norm right, for running a marathon? Well, my husband, Tim,and I both did the NYC marathon, and without sugar (and in 3.34, qualifying for Boston!). Then we went ice skating in Central Park after haha. No, we seriously did. Yay!

The following year I studied with the Nutritional Therapy Association and through my course project, The Sugar Intervention was born. Oh and we ran the NYC marathon again that year and the next (and would’ve run it for a four year but I discovered I was pregnant, 5 months actually, but that’s a whole other post!).

Join us for food hacks like beets as well as other magic 9-16 October (that’s next week!)

Read more about the Sugar Intervention program here.