The Derrière or The Face?

[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent="no" equal_height_columns="no" menu_anchor="" hide_on_mobile="small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility" class="" id="" background_color="" background_image="" background_position="center center" background_repeat="no-repeat" fade="no" background_parallax="none" parallax_speed="0.3" video_mp4="" video_webm="" video_ogv="" video_url="" video_aspect_ratio="16:9" video_loop="yes" video_mute="yes" overlay_color="" video_preview_image="" border_size="" border_color="" border_style="solid" padding_top="" padding_bottom="" padding_left="" padding_right=""][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type="1_1" layout="1_1" background_position="left top" background_color="" border_size="" border_color="" border_style="solid" border_position="all" spacing="yes" background_image="" background_repeat="no-repeat" padding="" margin_top="0px" margin_bottom="0px" class="" id="" animation_type="" animation_speed="0.3" animation_direction="left" hide_on_mobile="small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility" center_content="no" last="no" min_height="" hover_type="none" link=""][fusion_text]In the summer of 2016 I wrote a blog post on my decision to completely give up sugar, entitled "Sugar The Sweet Poison of All."  With the exception of fruit and my Sugar Polish I was pretty much committed. I thought I had found one of the most elusive secrets of life. Well as the ole saying goes, “When you get older, you have to be ready to trade your ass for your face" ~ a comment made by French actress Catherine Deneuve, turns out to be quite true.Seems there's a flip side to every dang thang, including giving up sugar! Geez Louise, can a woman get a break?  Apparently not! What I hadn't anticipated was the amount of weight I would loose and the impact this would have.  When I began removing sugar from my diet, I was at a comfortable weight and was not looking to loose weight, just maintain where I was. But as the weeks and months rolled by the pounds began to shed.Initially I didn’t think much of it, but seven months later I came to realize, the lack of sugar has caused a slimness in my face that made me understand why Hollywood types resort to Botox. It’s to plump things up. At a certain age in a woman’s life (50 and above) the decision to try to attain a weight too low for her, will cause a sacrifice of a pleasing plumpness, particularly in the face. This plumpness offers a more youthful appearance. As per usual, Mother Nature knows best.  She (your female reproductive system) has women gaining weight at this stage for a number of reasons.Many women experience an increase and or a redistribution of weight once they begin menopause. At this phase in a woman's life she needs to have a certain amount of fat on her bones, literally.  This not only to look good, but because this fat is filled with estrogen, replacing the estrogen that is no longer being produced by ovulation. This new fat is literally protecting our bones, providing a cushion for the increased fragility of bones at this chapter of womanhood.I had gained a considerable amount of weight when I first started menopause, but then rapidly lost it due to stress; which is the worse way to loose weight. It’s not a good look. The lack of sugar did not help matters. That is why when I arrived in Dubai one of the first things I told my hosts, was that I wanted to gain weight. And they fed me well!!! It’s also easier to gain weight on vacation because we’re not as busy and less likely to skip meals.When I spoke with my massage therapist, Ajah Wolfe, who is also a licensed acupuncturist and herbalist about this loss of weight, he shared that not only does sugar have a warming affect on the body, but it naturally plumps things up. The warming affect is what causes all kinds of inflammation. I hadn’t given up fruits and never will, but I had given up most every other kind of sweet including most fruit juices. The great thing about fruit is that it is comprised of both sugar and fiber.  The fiber assists with the natural breakdown and processing of the sugar.In the case of refined sugar, there is no fiber so the sugar goes directly into the blood stream causing a number of negative side affects. Ajah shared that sugar damages the spleen and causes dampness and phlegm in the body– dampness obstructs natural flood of energy, of blood (the elixir of life) and of circulation. Other serious dampness related maladies include muddy thoughts that lead to depression and insanity, edema, and diabetics problems are associated with dampness accumulation. Cataracts, is an accumulation of phlegm on the eyes. Chinese Medicine is deep and I won’t go further with this but hopefully you get the picture.So I asked him then what is the answer if eating sugar is bad and not eating sugar is not good either. He replied that things change and that is the problem with Western Medicine, it just lumps things in large categories, without the nuances being considered. In Chinese Medicine, the whole person is taken into account with a realization that we are constantly changing and so should remedies be adjusted and changed. A remedy that is working for you may only be good for only a few weeks or few months, not indefinitely. In the end you get to decide whether to allow your derrière to grow, which allows that natural plumpness, which has its own kind of beauty, or to work off all that fat and lose face. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying not to work out, just no extremes, everything in moderation, more strength building and stretching, less aerobics. That's a note to self.  And you can never say, I didn’t tell you. I just wish someone had warned me. [/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]