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January 30, 2012 Hi {!firstname_fix} I am bringing back a class on one of my most favorites topics in the world - the secret of what else is embedded in the steps. I am doing this because I have noticed on the forum that we have a lot of new people who are thinking that the food is all there is (smile)....so they are missing out on the joy of the *what else*. When I first wrote the steps, I actually did not know the code that was written under the food. As I listened to people and observed, I realized that we were giving you way more than just the brain healing. We were actually offering a PROCESS that shifted addictive thinking and behavior. So this is what we are going to work with in the class. We are also going to be revising our whole class process over the next week or so. Make sure to catch next week's newsletter for a full rundown of my new philosophy to doing classes. Finally, I want you to know that we have set up a new system for our voice mail at the office. We will be receiving an email text message for any voice mail you leave. Speak clearly and slowly, so the voice recognition can grab your words. I am very excited about this. It means that we can get back to you so much more quickly and that we will have a written record of what you are asking for. I sure love technology! These classes will begin Wednesday, February 1, 2012. Please click on the name of the class and it will take you to the registration page:
The class schedule is online. Click here to see what is planned. A number of you have asked me how the classes work. Check the class list page for more information on this. And please go read the questions and answers before you write to me. If you have trouble getting through the process, write the tech forum. Be sure to visit our Radiant Recovery website and Community Forum regularly. Warmly, Kathleen **********************************************************************
** Quote From Kathleen ** You don't have to work through your self-esteem and take care of feelings your whole life. You just do the food and the feelings will take care of themselves. **********************************************************************
** Testimonial of the Week ** It took a while before my husband got on board. When I started working on the food with Anna, my husband was fed up with her out-of-control behavior and wanted her to go on medication. I simply asked for time. I wanted to try doing the food with her. He was skeptical because he wanted some sort of analytical proof. I was listening to the messages here, and heard that others before me had found healing for their children. So we started step one. Breakfast started to make her a little more even-keeled throughout the day. And I started treating her rages as blood sugar crashes, and feeding her when she would start getting angry. And the most startling thing started to happen. Often, she would eat, calm down, and go play! To say that this was shocking would be an understatement LOL. After a while, my husband started noticing too, and looking at me like...did that really just happen?! Did she just calm down?! Fast forward a few years and my husband is 100% behind this program. He attributes it to healing our family in ways he could never have imagined. He's helpful with making sure kids gets snacks and meals when they are just with him. When they get cranky his first thought is, they must need to eat! ....But when we were starting out, I needed to lead the way. Angela **********************************************************************
** Radiant Ambassadors ** 
Does anyone use "Google Alerts"?I've found it's a great tool for being able to keep track of what is being said about a particular topic on the internet! You can input a search category such as *sugar addiction* and Google checks everything that is posted on a daily basis with sugar addiction in it. Daily I'm sent details of several stories that are in the current press about sugar addiction and a handful of blogs too. I've also set up a search for Potatoes not Prozac. You can access the site at Google.com/Alerts. If anyone wants to set up a search for Radiant Recovery feel free - or anything else you can think of! I'm going to go have a look at the news items and blogs that I've been sent today. It looks like a good way to stay on top of what's happening out there! Selena selenas@blueyonder.co.uk Come join us if you are excited about spreading the news. **********************************************************************
** How I Found Radiant Recovery ** I found out about RR from a therapist I had been seeing for 5 years. I think that she had seen over the years that the anti-depressants weren't quite doing the trick and she knew about Kathleen's work so she suggested I go to the website and take a look. I think without the trust that had been established between us I never would have checked it out but she was a wonderful guide. It didn't take me long to start reading Kathleen's book, The Sugar Addicts' Total Recovery Program, and start with breakfast. I feel very fortunate that my therapist was so open-minded and wise and that also goes for Kathleen and her books. John **********************************************************************
** Radiant Recovery® Store ** David manages the Radiant Recovery® Store. He is also Kathleen's oldest son. For any of you making travel plans, here are two great suggestions.
Please send questions and suggestions. I love hearing from you and truly want to help you do your program better. **********************************************************************
** Radiant Kitchen ** Strawberry Soup
Notes: If you use frozen strawberries, be sure to purchase unsweetened brands. You may wish to slightly thaw berries to make processing easier. This soup can be served as a refreshing appetizer or as a light dessert. The addition of black pepper may seem odd to you, but it is an old culinary trick which greatly enhances the fruitiness of the strawberries. Do give it a try! For more great program-friendly recipes, check out our cookbook in the store and visit our online Radiant Recipes site. **********************************************************************
** Radiant YLD ** We had the most amazing conversation about how Blood Sugar, Serotonin and Beta Endorphin affect moods. We did ranking of before and after the steps. Man, was that fascinating to hear the change being quantified. I LOVE that we are reading the book together. It is so interesting to do it this way. What a way to connect with the power of weight loss for sugar sensitives. If you would like to join, come find us here **********************************************************************
** Radiant Conversations ** We have a new portal for the Conversations program. Come check it out here. I keep telling you how much fun we are having in the conversations chat. I hope it doesn't get boring. This week will be particularly fun because we are following the newsletter articles and I LOVE the C57 story. I want to share a little more about what Dr. Gianoulakis is writing about these days. She was my dissertation advisor, so I have special fond feelings for her and her work. If you would like to join us, you can do that below. Join YLD Weight Loss Now: click here - $99 Join Conversations 2011 Now: click here - $99 Join Both YLD and Conversations Now: click here - $149 Current YLD members wish to Upgrade to Both, click here - $49 Current YLD members who wish to Transfer to Conversations 2011 Only can do so for a $14.99 admin fee: click here If you are not a member, come and join us if you want to be a part of the latest and greatest or just have some plain ol' fun! **********************************************************************
** Our Online Groups ** The Radiant Step Two list is a source of helpful information and support with journaling. On this list we talk about how to get started with the journal, how to start listening to our body and why giving it a voice is so important. We also discuss how to use the journal for detective work in our program and, of course, how to make journaling fun! Right now the list is rockin' with people supporting each other and making big discoveries with their journal. So whether you are just starting out or are looking for a recharge in your journaling, come on over and join in the fun! **********************************************************************
**Those Mice Again ** Kathleen DesMaisons, Ph.D.
Science has a lot to learn about sugar sensitivity. We can't just go to PubMEd, put "sugar sensitivity" in the search field and find hundreds or thousands of citations telling us all about our unique bodies and behaviors. But the story is there in the science writings, encoded in unexpected places and in unexpected ways. If we listen and watch our own stories, we can go back to the literature and better understand the whys of what we are living. I thought it would be fun to share with you some of my recent exploration. I continue to be intrigued by beta-endorphin and its relationship to the story of sugar sensitivity. I began my relationship with beta-endorphin when I learned two intriguing themes. The first came from the work of Dr. Christine Gianoulakis at McGill University. She noticed that two different strains of mice responded to the effects of alcohol in very different ways. The C57GL/6 mice had a far more potent reaction than their "dry" brothers and sisters, the DBA/2 mice. Because of this intensity of the response, they really go for the booze. C57s are called alcohol-preferring mice and DBAs are called alcohol-avoiding mice. As an aside, many other studies have shown that not only do the C57s have a high preference for alcohol, they also love sweet things. In fact, some scientists are working with the concept that a preference for sweet may be an indicator of a risk for alcoholism. Dr. Gianoulakis and her colleagues have worked with these mice for a long time. They discovered that the C57's and the DBA have very different levels of beta-endorphin. The C57's are born with much lower levels of beta endorphin in their brains, so their brains increase the number of receptor sites to try to catch more of the beta endorphin molecules. This is called upregulation. Because they have more places to catch the beta-endorphin, they get a bigger response to things that evoke beta-endorphin. Dr. Gianoulakis extended her study to people and examined a whole group of people who are known to be genetically predisposed to alcohol addiction, the children and grandchildren of alcoholics. Children and grandchildren of alcoholics seem to be the human equivalent of the C57 mice. They, like the mice, have lowered levels of beta-endorphin and a heightened response to things that evoke beta-endorphin like alcohol and sugars. As Dr. Gianoulakis was publishing her work, a number of other scientists were noticing that that sucrose quieted pain. They discovered that not only does sucrose quiet physical pain, but also it quiets the pain of loss or social isolation. When a group of baby chicks were taken from their mama, they peeped and peeped. When they were given sugar water, they stopped crying for mama chicken. Sugar as a Drug Dr. Elliott Blass, then at Cornell, wanted to understand how this happens. How could sugar act like a drug? He did some experiments and showed that sucrose cut physical and emotional pain by evoking the brain's own beta-endorphin. Beta-endorphin is the body's natural painkiller. It is called an endogenous opioid or internal painkiller. Morphine and heroine are opiate drugs, which mean they go and sit in the brain's beta-endorphin receptor sites and get the brain to block pain signals. Sucrose acts like an opioid drug such as morphine or heroin. Not as intensely, but on the same beta-endorphin system. And, if we return to our friends the C57 and the DBA mice, we discover that the C57s have a 35 times more powerful reaction to morphine than do the DBAs. Think of that. Insert sugar in the place of morphine, and we begin to see why some body and brain types seek it, love it and get addicted to it. Now the sugar story and the connection to C57's is well researched throughout the scientific literature. But no one in the science lab is yet making this leap from the C57 profile to the sugar sensitivity profile in people. But the "match" is extraordinary. How We Are Like Those C57 Mice If we start thinking of ourselves as little C57 mice, we can have LOTS of clues about why we act the way we do. And we can start understanding why our DBA friends cannot in any way understand why we keeping going back when they are able to just say no. As we continue this discussion, let's stop for a moment and take one cautionary note about our attitudes towards the different types of mice (or people). Scientists do not look down upon the little C57s. Nor do they laud the DBA. They simply know that they are two very distinct strains with different body chemistries. If they wish to look at the effect of a given intervention and want to see the differences in different body types, they order both kinds of mice. Getting Rid of the Negative Spin So, we can work on taking the negative judgment and shame off of the C57 way of life. Our first step is understanding. As we get how this works, we can start making choices for healing. And then TURN US LOOSE! Let me list some of the C57 "facts" I have found with my own research. I can then reflect with you on what it might mean for our healing.
Let's Apply the Science to Ourselves Let's translate these and play a little. Replace the word C57 with a sugar sensitive person and replace the word morphine with sugars. Let's go through the list again.
The Patterns Are Powerful Pretty interesting isn't it. For many years we have struggled with learned helplessness, with self-esteem that fades in a moment. We vacillate between hyperactive clarity and lying on the couch in a stupor. The Dr. Jeykll/Ms.Hyde syndrome is very close to home. Beyond Mood Swings But now, I am pushing us beyond the idea of mood swings. I am inviting you think of yourself as a big C57 and to connect with the enormity of what these mouse studies mean for us. Those things which we have considered "character flaws" for all this time are a function of your sugar sensitive biochemistry. Our alcohol, sugar, fat, white things literally get us mobilized, make us brave, funny, self confident for a little. But we only remember the feeling okay, feeling brave. It's why so many people who come to the forum lament that they cannot imagine giving up the sugar. It's the "only" thing that makes life worth living. This is addiction. This is being caught in a place that kills us. But we don't see it. The Power and the Disappointment of Beta Endorphin The beta-endorphin hit wears off and we crash. Then it's horrible. And we become more immobile, hopeless, demoralized, overwhelmed and tearful. But we do not make the connection to withdrawal. What we remember is that when we "use" we feel okay. And so we are willing to trade 30 minutes, then ten minutes, of feeling okay for the rest being horrible because we are so desperate to feel okay. We will do ANYTHING not to experience the horror of the withdrawal. Ironically, many sugar sensitive people are very intolerant of alcoholics and drug addicts. But alcoholism and drug addiction are only the more intense forms of what we ourselves experience - a life driven to feeling better, terror of the withdrawal, and a life centered around getting our "fix." Putting the Story Together And along comes the Potatoes Not Prozac food plan. Suddenly things start to make sense. The vague "knowing" we have had for a while (and we are intuitive people!) gets a name, It makes sense. We don't have to think of ourselves as hopeless, depressed and out of control. We are sugar sensitive. But Potatoes Not Prozac is only the beginning of the story. We create stability. We heal the brain. We take out the foods like sugar and white things that prime us. Sometimes this spooks us because when we take out the stuff that has made us feel "good" in the past, we enter an uneasy space. We feel better overall, but hardly confident. After all, our core brain is a C57, not a DBA. Raising Beta Endorphin Naturally This is the magic of all those things we affectionately refer to on the www.radiantrecovery.com forum as BE raising activities. Mozart, laughter, exercise, yoga, meditation, prayer, pups, babies, grandbabies, good sex, rollerblading, and great movies. What is not to like in the list? Do these things and create beta-endorphin. Slow and steady beta-endorphin. They wash us with feeling self-confident. And it grows on us. The more we feel it, the more we want to do these things. Many of us have been listening to the voices on the forum. We can see these patterns as our friends in the sugar sensitive community make changes with the food. The voices of our "newbies" are very different from the voices of the "old-timers." When our food wobbles, we wobble. We whine, we munch, we get cranky. We go into beta-endorphin crash. We retreat, we isolate, and we crouch, get defensive and withdraw. Beta-endorphin crash. Claiming Our Birthright And miracle of miracles, when the food is steady, we are steady. We are funny, compassionate, tolerate, patient, resourceful and willing to hang in there and find solutions. Same bodies, same brains, same biochemistry. But under the influence of a different way of eating. Balance brings our birthright home. Here are the folks who are helping put the newsletter together:
Gretel, our webmaster, puts it all together. David runs the Radiant Recovery® Store. Selena provides the weekly Ambassadors column. ©2012 Kathleen DesMaisons. All rights reserved. You are free to use or transmit this article to your ezine or website as long as you leave the content unaltered, use this attribution: "By Kathleen DesMaisons, Ph.D. of Radiant Recovery®", and notify kathleen@radiantrecovery.com of the location. Please visit the Radiant Recovery® website at http://www.radiantrecovery.com for additional resources on sugar sensitivity and healing addiction. You are getting the weekly newsletter from Radiant Recovery® in response to your signup. A copy of this newsletter may also be found posted on the web at http://www. radiantrecovery.com/ |
