Trying to change my life.

I am a self proclaimed sugar addict, my husband will attest to it, my parents will attest to it, well pretty much anyone who really knows me can attest to it. I have been living on a high sugar diet for years now and I think its time to make some big changes. My regular diet has consisted of high-sugar processed foods such as sugary cold cereals, white bread, pastas, candy, fast food, desserts, all dairy products, and the occasional homemade healthy meal (something with a vegetable in it). What can I say, I live on carbs. I have never been a big meat eater, and vegetables and fresh fruit are something I partake of sparingly. To say I have my food pyramid upside down is an understatement.

How did I get this way, well its probably a long story but I will try to keep it within reason. I have always been a very picky eater. As a child my parents struggled to try and get me to eat my vegetable but nothing could make me budge. I'm pretty sure a combination of two major factors lead to this behavior. I have a very poor, close to non-existent sense of smell, which messes with my ability to taste food flavors. Sweet is a flavor that has always come through loud and clear for me. Also I have texture sensitivities with regards to food, and other things like fabrics. Certain foods will simply make me gag, and give me the most unpleasant shivers as if someone had just run their fingers down the chalk board. As a child I did not understand this about myself and ate what felt good for me, rather then what was good for me. Hence the beginning of some very bad eating habits.

This brings us to today, I'm 29 years old, the mother of three girls and I eat a diet that consists well over 50% sugar and white flour in some form or another. Why change my habits? I'm generally in good health, only slightly overweight, and I love to eat what I want. Why would I want to even consider cutting out sugar? This epiphany came to me as a result of the last few months struggle I have been having with yeast infections. I'm still breast-feeding my youngest who just turned 12 months and have been struggling with yeast infections in my breasts, and also in the other area where most women get yeast infections. It has been most unpleasant to continue breast-feeding my baby. When I'm having a flare up it can be very painful. My baby refused to take a bottle so I pretty much had no other choice but to continue. And each time I get a infection in my breast, I simultaneously get one down below. Is there a connection? Of course. My body is having a serious yeast outbreak and its making me miserable.

I have been to my doctor's office a few times over the past few months and never really got to the bottom of it. I got ointments, antibiotics, and prescriptions for diflucan and these things did help momentarily. But it kept coming back and it felt worse each time. This lead me to reading and researching online for any information that might help me with my problem. The information I found clearly pointed to one thing, my high sugar diet. I've always known that the way I was eating wasn't good for me, but its never really been a big deal health wise. I suppose being on the verge of my 30th birthday, my choices are finally starting to catch up with me. What I'm planning to do is try and cut sugar from my diet. This includes all processed sugar and refined white flour, which I discovered in my reading basically turns to sugar in your body as soon as you ingest it. I want to go hardcore-cold turkey on this, at least until I can get the yeast outbreak under control. I really have no idea how I'm going to do this, but I'm very determined. Like Yoda said, "Try not. Do, or do not. There is no try." I know I can do this.