Penhoat Gun - Sugar Detox

Translation copyright 2017 by Skyhorse Publishing

Originally published as Socker-detox by Bonnier Fakta, Sweden.

Copyright 2015 by Filippa Salomonsson. Published by agreement with Bonnier Fakta.

Recipe photos () by Ulrika Pousette. All other photographs by Karla Garcia.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Interior design by Sanna Sporrong
Swedish edition editor: Linna von Zweigbergk
Repro by Italgraf Media
US edition cover design: Jane Sheppard

Print ISBN: 978-1-5107-1388-8
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-5107-1389-5

Printed in China

Let go of your sugar dependency and create a healthy relationship with sugar!

Contents

======== CHAPTER 1 ========

MY Journey with Sugar

MY JOURNEY WITH SUGAR HAS NOT BEEN EASY. I ALWAYS THOUGHT I NEEDED A DAILY DOSE OF SUGAR TO FUNCTION. SUGAR WAS KIND OF LIKE A FLAKY FRIENDALWAYS THERE WHEN I NEEDED IT, BUT NEVER REALLY USEFUL. THIS IS MY PATH TOWARD ACHIEVING A HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP WITH SUGAR.

IVE GONE THROUGH STRETCHES OF TIME WHEN I felt completely helpless in the face of sweets. I relied on sugar for a long time to satisfy my cravings, to cope with stress, and to feel joy and support. However, I never found what I was really looking for in sugar; instead, I uncovered it once sugar disappeared from my life. Thats what it took for me to see the light! I realized Id been using sugar as a tool for avoiding my emotions; it had become a handy crutch for not dealing with situations that required my attention and presence. Today, Im free of sugars stranglehold, and can enjoy treats without an anxiety-ridden debate raging in the back of my mind.

My journey with sugar has taken me far, and its a wonderful feeling! I often wonder what made me put up with my dependency on it, but as I sit here writing this, Ive come to understand why. I had to help myself so that I would be able to help others later on. Today Im a holistic health coach for women of all ages. The word holistic highlights the fact that my take on health comes from a broad perspective. I want to understand and take into consideration all aspects of daily living and their effects on us.

In spite of my earlier reliance on sugar, Ive always had a keen interest in whole foods and health; I became a vegetarian at age fifteen. A few years ago, once Id decided to adopt a completely healthy lifestyle, it wasnt hard to sell my PR firm in Manhattan and come back to Sweden, my accrued knowledge and experience in tow. Long before my return to Stockholm, I had decided that my lifes work was in finding a way back to natural nutrition, both for myself and for others.

But this has not been an easy task, since sugar was my drug of choice. My addiction to the sweet white substance was both conscious and subconscious, and I needed my daily dose to function. I turned to sugar for lots of reasons, and sugar was always at hand.

Sugar was my sneaky accomplicealways good to me, but never good for me. It offered me temporary solace, but I always felt let down afterward. Nevertheless, I held on to my sugar pal for almost eighteen years. Looking back, I sometimes wonder how my body has been affected all the sugar I ingested over what amounts to a total of 6,570 days. I might not have indulged in sweets every single day, but it was close enough, and certainly in sufficient quantities to create an addiction to them.

Some of my childhood memories consist of my brothers and I getting off the school bus, running toward our front door, ditching our backpacks in the hallway, and rushing into the kitchen to look for treats. My mother never let us have a lot of unhealthy food, so we had to uncover her hiding spots when she wasnt looking. Afterward, I would immediately head to my room to scarf down what I had managed to sneak away in my pocket. This is where my unhealthy relationship with sugar began to take root. I always thought I had things under control, when in fact it was sugar that had me under its spell.

A candy-filled childhood

When I was seven, my parents decided to move the family from Kungsbacka, on the west coast of Sweden, to New York. My Swedish teacher had warned me about the city before we crossed the Atlantic. According to her, everything was much larger in the US, and there was so much more of everything. She was indeed correct. There was no comparison to what you could get in Kungsbacka. As if that werent enough, access to everything was much easier, toothere seemed to be twice the choice, and all the stores were open at least one hour past my regular bedtime.

It didnt take long for me to realize that the contents of my school friends lunch boxes were different from mine. They had treats such as Fruit Roll-Ups, cookies, sodas, and chips. My cheese sandwiches and sliced apples were boring, and embarrassed me in front of my new friends, so unbeknownst to my mother, I began to trade her carefully wrapped lunches for my schools processed sugar bombs. After all, these options were cheapeverything cost less than a dollaran easy amount of money to come by for a seven-year-old, as there were always a couple of quarters rolling around in the bottom of my backpack. My friends werent aware of the Swedish concept of Saturday sweets, and naturally I found every day sweets a far more attractive concept than our familys once-a-week pick n mix. Furthermore, in those days our traditional Saturday sweets were, for instance, two round salty S coins, a Snuff lollipop filled with licorice powder, and a licorice rope, all contained within a bag no bigger than the size of my palm.

I NEEDED MY DAILY DOSE TO FUNCTION

AT TIMES IN LARGER AMOUNTS,

SOMETIMES LESSER.

As I mentioned earlier, there was just so much more of everything in the States, including television programs. I went from watching the Swedish show Bolibompa a few times a week to constantly surfing between the twenty-five American channels aimed at kids. Between animated cartoons, Kelloggs held me rapt with their ads for Frosted Flakes, Pop-Tarts, and Eggos. Swedish laws restrict multinational corporations from influencing children with direct advertising, but in the States an anything goes mantra reigns, so children tend to be swayed from a very early age.

I was oblivious to my addiction to sugar, but I remember constantly searching for something sweet to eat. It wasnt merely a physiological need that I sought to placate, but an emotional one, as well. I grew up with three siblings, and while we were deeply loved by our parents, we werent always given the time and encouragement we needed. I often found comfort in food rather than from my parents. I used food to suppress what I didnt want, or lacked the fortitude, to deal with. This was the start of a long and complicated journey.