Overzealous

When you decide to fight the Standard American Diet, you have to be constantly vigilant about what you eat and don't eat and it's not only difficult but requires a healthy level of anxiety to keep you on your guard. This type of "anxious engagement" can resemble an eating disorder type mentality in some ways, and can be mistaken as such. I get lots of comments about "how skinny" I am, and it's not meant as a compliment, it's a genuine concern. Again, I understand, because when I see people who look too thin the first thing that pops in my head is "uh oh, they look anorexic, not good!" Yet my own body on no sugar looks starved and wasting away, and it is very likely that others perceive that I am being overzealous in my efforts, and I need to "eat some sugar" so I can get back to a "healthy" weight.

First, let me lay to rest any concerns on my behalf that I may be starving. I eat A LOT of food. Calorie restriction is not part of my regime, and even though I am very selective about where those calories come from, I get plenty of them. A typical day looks like this:
6:00 AM  eat a handful of almonds
water
7:30 AM breakfast-meat and veggie, occasional gluten free grain
water
10:00 AM snack of yogurt and fruit
water
12:30 lunch of soup, salad, meat or veggie, corn tortilla quesadilla or leftovers
water
3:30 snack of beef jerky or cheese
water
6:00 dinner of meat, veggie, fruit, potato or brown rice
water
8:00 non sweet smoothie or on special occasions healthy treat
more water
Of course it varies day by day, but keeping my blood sugar regulated is extremely important to me so I eat small amounts all day long, sometimes overfilling myself , but since that causes me discomfort I try not to eat too much at once.  Contrast this to a typical anorexic diet:
7:00 skip breakfast
12:00 granola bar for lunch
5:00 starving! eat hamburger and fries and 4 cookies, and throw it up after
There is no similarity whatsoever in what I am doing and what a person who is compelled to starve themselves due to paranoia about weight gain. There are reasons why I am thin, but calorie restriction is not one of them. I know the dangers of putting that kind of strain on my body, I know what it does to a person physically and mentally, and I urge anyone who does not eat regularly to get help. 

Second, allow me to defend myself for being overzealous. Since banning all sugary processed and refined foods I have never had one headache, dizzy spell, or "brain fog" which before occurred regularly for several years. I could barely use 3 or 5 pound weights when working out just 2 years ago and now I'm using 8 pounds twice a week in addition to my running two miles twice a week. I feel smarter and have a clear intellect, whereas before I felt I was losing my mind.  I still have struggles feeling depressed during my menstruation because of the ovarian cyst pain, but it doesn't last for more than a day, and its magical how I will wake up in the morning feeling excited about life instead of weighed down by it no matter how hard the day before was. My anxiety levels are down 90% and my sleeping is more consistently good than it has been since before I was married. Weight loss has never been my goal, but I did discover I was carrying around 20 lbs extra weight and its gone, all the visceral and subcutaneous fat cells went away with no sugar fueling them. I have always had small muscle mass and small bones, my parents used to call me "starving african child" when I was little because I had such small limbs and a pot belly, and they had to reassure people that they were feeding me, so the fact I look so thin has more to do with genetic makeup than intake.  Interestingly enough, when I was heavier was when I felt I was wasting away, and now my strength is back and my "youth renewed like an eagle" (Psalm 103). 
When I was eating sugar I was doing a similar thing as someone with an eating disorder and didn't know it. Even though I carried more weight, I was constantly depleting my system by overworking my pancreas, liver, and heart in the processing, burning, and storing too much sugar and then feeling a crash and going into starvation mode when my blood sugar got too low, desperately craving any food I could get my hands on and then starting the whole thing over again. Sugar/refined foods taxes your whole body!

Not everyone is as sugar sensitive as myself, but for me, I have experienced a profound positive life-giving change in being overzealous in keeping refined foods and sugar out of my diet, and I will continue to demonize sugar for the rest of my life, which I firmly believe will extend my life.

  PSALM 103

 2 Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits:

 3 Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases;

 4 Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies;

 5 Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle’s.