How Sweet It Is

 

Today I was watching TV and it sparked an idea for my blog today. The commercial was about Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and all the different flavors that they now have available. It isn't all about just the simple Reese's Peanut Butter Cups we have all grown up to love. However, it reminded me that I needed to share about my addiction -- not one that I'm proud of, but should be included as part of my testimony because after all, it is about my story. I thought of my title for today's blog as being "Ain't She Sweet?", but that really isn't funny and you'll find out why as you read this blog.

You see, it all started out when I was a child. Remember for the longest time (in previous blogs), my family was dirt poor. Treats were an absolute rarity in our house. When my Dad finally started earning a decent income, we moved into our own home that they bought. It was actually one block from Pacific Coast Highway. On the corner of our street and PCH was a little liquor store along with a general store. In the late 1960's to early 1970's that little corner store was the go to place for our family outside of our major grocery shopping experience.  My parents always sent my brother or myself or both of us to run their errand for a small item run. Most of the time, my Mom wanted a loaf of bread or milk. There was one time I experienced her not having enough money to pay for her groceries, so I got psyched out about not having enough to pay for items she would request me to buy. I NEVER wanted to suffer the embarrassment she suffered when she couldn't pay for all her groceries and had to put some items back. I wanted to crawl under a rock. So back to the story about me running an errand to the corner store. She would ask me to buy her a loaf of bread. At that time it was probably 50 cents for a loaf of bread, but I made her give me a $5 bill, because I did not want to be left with not having enough money to pay for her item. Oh and heaven forbid if she gave me a list, because the amount of money that I required for the errand was usually 5 to 10 times more than I needed. 

There was always an incentive along with giving me an exuberant amount of money I didn't need. They would tell me for going I could have a dollar. A dollar back in those days was like A LOT of money. In my day, we had penny candy and nickel candy. Penny candies were substantial, but for a nickel you could buy whole big candy bars. My go to candies were Big Hunks, Chunky Bars, Chick O Sticks, and Abba Zabbas and the rest would be penny candies -- usually about 80 penny candies. Sometimes I would purchase just one big candy bar and then the rest would be penny candies. Can you guess how long it took me to eat all that candy? Not even an hour. I would devour every single piece of candy I bought. My parents and brother had their own requests and I didn't have to use my money to subsidize their sweet tooth. When I think of it now -- HOW DISGUSTING to consume so much candy in such a short amount of time.

My favorites: (ALL CANDY IN GENERAL)

Three Musketeers Bar, Abba Zabba, Big Hunks, Milky Way Bars, Chunky Bars, Chic O Sticks, Hershey Bars, Almond Joys, Mounds, New York Peppermint Patties, Baby Ruth Bars,  M & M's (Plain & Peanut), Pay Days -- when I ate a Pay Day, I'd convince myself that it was pretty healthy because of all the nuts.

Then when you get into fine chocolates -- my favorite all time is See's Candies, but I've never said no to Godiva Chocolates or Whitman's Samplers.

I am confessing, my addiction is eating candy. Let's not even talk about Halloween -- but since we are on the topic. My brother and I would go out and gather candy on that night and bringing back a whole pillow case each full of candy. Of course, my parents would have to do the ceremonial pre inspection (we knew they were getting out their favorites), then hand us our slew of SAFE candies back. My brother and I would consume the whole enormous bags of candy in less than a week. He had his favorites and I had mine. We would quite often trade our favorite candies with each other. Sometimes, I would discover that the thief would steal large amounts of my candy once his was consumed. My candy was like the "Ring" in the movie Lord of the Rings -- I would get in my curled up position and just sit looking out like Gollum and consuming my precious candy.

Unfortunately this horrible addiction to candy followed me into my adulthood. I didn't consume as much as I did when I was a kid, but when I got a hold of candy, I thoroughly enjoyed every single bite. Halloween was always a horrific of consumption of candy. So along with not helping my weight issues, my health took a turn for the worse. In my 50's I discovered I was diabetic -- imagine the horror of being told I could no longer consume my precious sweets. Thus the term "Ain't She Sweet?" not being funny. I had to establish healthy eating habits that were low carb and low sugar. All sugar that I ate needed to be natural and not processed. Of course there are ways around the love of sugar without eating processed, by eating the sugar free substitutes, but you need to be careful to not consume too much of that stuff either.

I know my weakness, so now my candy consumption is very limited. My companion is just as horrible with candy as I am, so I have some fat free candies in the house and some high protein Adkins Bars -- that are limited for consumption. There was a time when candy did not last in my house. Now a days, if I see that we have candies that have been sitting for a month, I make sure I take it to the boys (my twins) for their snacking. I just don't need the temptation and it is good that we have a pantry where I can't see them, so I forget they are there. We love ice cream too, but I've managed to cut us back on ice cream as well and select sorbets that are lower in sugar and fat.

Because I finally got a brain in my 60's, my health is much better and I haven't been diabetic or pre diabetic in four years now. If you have read my previous blogs, you read I initially lost 60 plus pounds, gained some back and now maintain a healthy weight (I am not skinny by any means) by using Ozempic for the fluctuation of weight between 10-15 lbs.  As the result of the weight loss, my body is much healthier than ten years ago. Thank you, Jesus!!

Philippians 3:19 -- "Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things."

2 Timothy 2:7 --  "For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control."