Sarah in the clinic

I experienced dramatic cases of sugar effecting people in my clinic. When someone came in for a consultation (where I decided if they could become a client), I required them to fill out a medical background form. There was a section to list mental illnesses. In twenty years, I saw this section actually filled in twice. Sometimes they would mark through it and say it was non-applicable. One evening a woman came in to seek help for her weight. I remember the day she joined vividly because it was dark outside. Being a winter day, when daylight is short, the office help had gone home and I was alone.. She was young, early thirties. As I began reviewing her medical history, I was shocked to see the mental illness section filled out. The lines were crammed full of words describing the insanity she suffered. Apparantly, there was not enough room for all of it, because she turned the paper sideways and continued. As I flipped the consultation form over, I noticed the back was completely filled too. I would like to say I was so professional, that it did not bother me. In all honestly, I was spooked. It was dark and dreary out. I was alone, and an obvious “crazy lady” was in my office. While trying to absorb all the detailed information, I could feel her staring at me. She looked at me across the desk said, ‘You are looking at my mental illness aren’t you?” I thought, “Uh, oh, she caught me. What am I going to do?” I did not want to hurt her feelings looking shocked, so I decided to put down the paper. I looked at her, and I said, “Why don’t you just tell me about it? Tell me what’s going on.” She burst into tears. She explained to me that her mother had died in a mental institution. He mom was a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic with depression. It upset her when they put her sister in a mental institution as well. Her sister was hospitalized because of manic depression and showing signs of schizophrenia. Obviously, mental illness ran in her family. She was frightened.

Her fear was intensified because
 because the psychiatrist had recently diagnosed her as “manic depressive”. Being fearful of spending her days in a mental institution (like her mother and her sister), she decided to be proactive in her treatment. She said to me, “I know that my weight is depressing me. I have to do all that I can do to help this. I just cannot end up in a mental institution. I have children. I have a husband.” Then she burst into more tears.

As the consultation progressed, my heart went out to her. I agreed, if losing weight would help alleviate even a small bi of depression, she had to try it. That night,. She joined my program, and we collaborated to help her find happiness in her body image. I immediately discovered she was on mass quantities of medication. There were tranquilizers, anti-depressants, and Thorazine. She was doing (what I call) the Thorazine shuffle. If you happened to see “One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, you might remember when they shuffle up to get their medicine very slowly in a zombie- like trance. It zombie’s you out to nothing. Most of the medications she was on are very strong. If someone wants to stop taking them, they have to be careful. They have to wean off of them gradually. However, discontinuing is rare. Usually, dosage is increased over time.

As she began my program, and discontinued all known forms of sugar, her psychiatrist removed her from medication. Within thirty days after beginning the weight loss plan, she was free from all medication. In the remaining days I saw her, she never suffered another day of depression. She had a lot of weight to lose, so she stayed with me for a few months. She finally reached her goal of 105 lbs. That sounds small, but she was tiny. That weight was healthy for her frame. More than once, a new client would come in and think she was the counselor and I was the client. That was depressing for me! I wish you could know her. Her eyes lost the dull overlay and became bright. She was happy and bouncy. A completely different woman than the once who originally joined my clinic.

Then, as she reached her goal, I placed her on a maintenance program. On maintenance - you can actually eat anything you want to eat and not gain your weight back. It is all in the balancing. Mistakenly, I thought my job was to teach people how to balance eating anything they want to eat so they would never have the weight problem again. My job was weight loss, and weight maintenance. People paid me for this. Moreover, that included returning sugar to the diet. I taught her how to eat it without gaining weight.

The night I taught her this would be the last time I would ever see my friend. We became close during her months of visits. She had never missed a visit in over six months, and I was worried. So finally, I placed a phone call to her, and I will never forget the conversation. Whoever answered the phone at her house had a deep, gravely voice. When I asked to speak to her, the voice says, “This is she”. The sound of her voice is difficult to explain, but it was horrid, almost death-like. Therefore, I asked, ‘What is wrong with you? What happened?” She replied, “I don’t know.” Then she told me that she had been in the bed for three days. She could not get out of the bed. She was too depressed. Suddenly, my little mind remembered sugar was a depressant, so I inquired, “Did you eat some sugar?” She said, “Yeah”. The longer we talked, the closer we got toward finding the culprit. We discovered that she had eaten a candy bar three days prior to that. One candy bar put her in the bed with severe depression for three days. I hate to say this to you, but I never saw that woman again. I do not know what happened to her.

Elizabeth in Weight Warriors

Now you think I would have learned from that. You think I would have learned, but I did not. I am somewhat thickheaded at times.
This is why you can believe the things I say to you. I have experienced them first hand, and they are true. While teaching Weight Warriors, I met a beautiful woman in one of my classes. I immediately befriended her, because of her sweet spirit. She too, had many mental problems. She would actually sit and drool in class. She would be looking at me, and the slow drip of saliva would be falling. She was doing the Thorazine shuffle as well. It is important to remember that this was a born-again, blood-bought child of the King who loved God. I mean she loved God. You just do not know. You would have to know her. She loved Him. She had a love beyond what most people had. However, she was “zombied” out on Thorazine her dosage was high, along with many other anti-psychotic medications. It was sometimes difficult to teach a room full of people when she was there. She would ask me a question 20 minutes after I had already covered the subject. It was as if her brain heard what I said, but it took a long time to process it. However, , sometimes she would raise her hand, and I’d see her eyes had brightened, exhibiting even

A twinkle; and she would say, “This reminds me of a scripture.” Then she would quote a Bible scripture word-for-word and remember the numbers to it, so the rest of us could find it. Her accuracy was amazing. Then she would drop her little head again and would go back to “la-la” land. Moreover, for your information, many scriptures that you have read in here came from her. God used her in a tremendous way. However, at the same time, she suffered this horrible illness. Elizabeth remained on the Weight Warrior program three months. During that time, her doctors reduced her medication. This was quite a feat, considering her diagnosis demanded this amount of medication for a lifetime.. Sad as it is, she fully expected to be institutionalized fulltime in her future days. She had actually been in an institution periodically over the years. It was a grand day to see her removed completely off Thorazine, and the rest of medications had a dosage low enough that she could function normally. Her eyes twinkled constantly. She lost 50 lbs. What a transformation. She was a different person. No one could believe the change in her. She reached her goal, went on maintenance; and I will never forgive myself. I am trying. I am still working through that. I know I am supposed to forgive me, but this is just one that grieves me tremendously. I told her how to add sugar back into her diet. She was going out of the country on vacation, because she was finally healthy enough to travel. Knowing her hosts would serve dessert, I taught her how to balance it and not gain weight. When she came back from vacation she had not gained weight, but she was depressed again. The next time I talked to her after that she was calling me in hysterics because they were thinking about putting her in the mental institution again. When I saw her, I was mortified to find, she had been restored to her previous drugged state. I looked at her, and cried. Acutely and soberly aware of the effect sugar had on her, I grabbed her tightly. Tears falling, I apologized. I said,” With your

History of mental illness, you cannot ever eat sugar. You cannot do it. It makes you sick.” She was very sick. Sugar was the reason. The addiction took over, and she refused to remove it from her life. Sadly, she too dropped away, and her illness progressed.

Consider something for a moment. These are two instances that I saw severe reactions with sugar. I have no doubt it is a powerful drug. Obviously, these were extreme cases. Nevertheless, if it affected them enough to land them in mental institution, it would be quite pompous to deny that it could have a negative affect on us.