Practical ways to break up with sugar in midlife

00:00 Sugar fueled industrialization, now pervasive in food industry.
04:45 Sugar hijacks dopamine, creating pleasure-seeking response.
07:16 Struggle with substance abuse leads to shame.
11:09 Early Coca Cola marketing and medicinal claims.
13:29 High protein bars with sugar alcohols cause issues.
19:08 Start small, replace sugar with fruit. Reduce soda.
22:19 Be cautious of hidden sugar in "healthy" foods.
23:09 Meal prepping saves time, avoids unhealthy eating.
28:49 Clients lost due to limited one-on-one work.
29:46 People not following the program properly.


In this episode, you'll hear: 

1. The physiological and psychological impact of sugar on our bodies, including the addictive nature of sugar and its effects on our brain chemistry.

2. Practical tips for breaking the sugar habit, from recognizing hidden sugars in processed foods to the importance of journaling and meal prepping.

3. The significance of a whole foods diet and lifestyle changes to combat sugar addiction and maintain stable blood sugar levels.

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Amelia

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Cam

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Transcript

0:06

Cam, do we really need some sugar with our medicine? Hi. I'm Cam, Holistic health coach, mom to 2 humans and 4 pets. Hi. I'm Amelia, Laboratory scientist by day and food scientist by night. Welcome to our show. Join us as we share our holistic approach to life after 50. You can expect real life stories with a dash of humor and a ton of truth. If it happens in midlife, we're going to talk about it. So hit that subscribe button and follow along. We're the Midlife Mommas. Oh, boy. Amelia, we're tackling the sugar addiction problem, which we've been chatting offline about. And holy cow, are you in that boat? I'm totally in that boat. I'm perpetually in that boat. And for our listeners, we actually covered this topic. I think I looked back and it was in 2022, so it's been a minute. We have found a little bit of new information, but I just, we really this is such a problem for so many people. We wanted to talk about it again because, yes, I'm still battling the sugar problem. Yeah. It's not a one and done kind of situation. You have to constantly, like, reevaluate your relationship and lean into something new and, like, oh, did that sneak back in? Oh. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And let's just start kinda like we did last time with a little bit of history about sugar. Sugar used to be a rare and precious commodity, and so and it does provide quick energy. So it was really precious, and there was a time when sugar along with spices were brought from the east, as it were, and it was almost traded like gold. So rare and precious, not so much anymore. No. And now today, our food is hijacked. It's something called the bliss point, and it's like a certain amount of fat, sugar, and salt to make you crave more and be satisfied less. So there's, like, no your bought your bucket is always empty. Absolutely. And, you know, at the time when it was discovered to be a great source of energy, there was a time of the industrialization in America where they needed, you know, cheap energy to fuel all of these factory workers that were lagging in the afternoon or whatever, and so sugar was the answer. But now to your point, it's everywhere, and it's infusing all of our foods, and big food and big pharma have also kinda jumped in there to to help perpetuate this problem. It is insidious. Yeah. And so then in the seventies, they're like, hey. Let's do this. They chemically engineered something called artificial sweeteners. Do you remember, like, the little blue packets and little packets? I don't remember the names of which ones, but yeah. Oh, yeah. My grandmother, I remember in the seventies, used those, and she thought it was the greatest thing. She was like, oh, you know, this is calorie free. And my grandparents were big people. Like, they were big southern, like, robust people. And so she used that, and we thought for decades, Cam, that that was okay. We really believed all of the crap we were fed, literally and figuratively, that this there was no harm in these artificial things, and we know categorically that's untrue. Yeah. I definitely remember growing up and like having diet Doctor Pepper in the house. I think that's what my my father liked to drink. But I also remember trying it and giving a gut a headache. So I instantly said, no, this is not for me. So I never really went down the artificial sugar bandwagon. Now fast forward to my forties and Halo Top ice cream. I don't know what's in there, but it rips my stomach apart. I do know that now. But, yeah, so I have had my experience, but it wasn't until, you know, fast forward many years later. I'm so interested. And I think when you said that it brought back to what we we we touched on this in last week's episode that you're a gut person. So you feel things, like, in your gut. I don't have that gift or that talent or that characteristic, so I didn't. So, I jumped on the bandwagon full force. I drank the diet drinks, and I ate all the diet foods with all blooded with sugar. In fact, truth be told, my mother still drinks diet Doctor Pepper. Not a lot, and she's 82, so I don't fuss at her too much. But, but, yeah, I did all of that stuff, and it wasn't until I was pregnant that my mother-in-law, who was a practicing nurse at the time, said, you know what? There's not enough known about this artificial stuff. I think you should not consume it. And that was the first time I even that was 1992. And so that was the first time it was ever suggested to me that that might not be a good thing for my health. Wow. She's way beyond your years. Way to go. Yeah. Absolutely. That was awesome. Yeah. So talk about the bank brain chemistry when you eat sugar, Chris. Yeah. Absolutely. So I I did some of this research back in 22 when we originally aired an episode about sugar, but I did some more this time. And there is a solid link between your brain chemistry and sugar, specifically dopamine. So dopamine is your pleasure hormone or your pleasure like the pleasure centers. The receptors in your brain seeking pleasure are dopamine receptors. Sugar basically hijacks that and lets your brain think, oh, this is amazing, give me more. The funny thing about dopamine is that food and sex are the things that give you a dopamine rush because you need food to sustain your life and you have to have sex to procreate. So our brains are actually hardwired to desire this dopamine hit. And what we now know is that not only does sugar satisfy that, but it will actually hijack more and more receptors. So a little bit of sugar now is gonna lead to a desire for more and more later. So it's a very, dangerous might be a strong word for some. I think it's appropriate here that you're actually rewiring your brain with sugar. That's scary. And when you were talking, I had, like, this vision of a pinball machine and, like, all the dinging dinging. Like, all the dopamine receptors are lighting up and they're like recruiting their friends and now you have even more lighting up because That's exactly what Midlife. Yes, I totally, I totally think that. Yeah. And so the other thing that we that this kind of may be intuitive if you've kinda follow the the effects is that we now know that sugar is addictive, much like drugs such as cocaine or heroin because of this dopamine effect. And these these studies were originally done in rats, and now we've seen it so much in people. And it causes cravings and bingings. Sugar causes cravings, binging, and withdrawal symptoms just like illicit drugs. So it's crazy how this works. I've I mean, I can relate to this. I've been very transparent about my colored sugar addiction in my forties during my my crossroad days. Like, it was cheap and easy, colored jelly beans or candy corn. I wanted it. Twizzlers, that was when my son was born. That was 97. So I guess my history goes back deeper. But yeah, the withdrawal, like when you decide you're not gonna do it. I've talked about it so many times. Did I walk down the Kroger aisle? If I went down that aisle, were those jelly beans gonna jump in my cart? Like, did I have the willpower to overcome me physically putting them in the cart? I meant eating them in the in the parking lot. Yeah, and, you know, Cam, just like people that have substance abuse problems, and you could call this a substance, you feel powerless. You really do. And then when you binge on it, which is inevitable when you're in this cycle, you feel immense shame and guilt. That's why a lot of people do it, in private, or they hide it. You know, they'll eat when no one's around, or they'll hide the wrappers. And it leads to a lot of questioning of yourself. I mean, it leads to a lot of, well, just shame. So, you know, I I like to tackle it head on, but I know it's really hard even for me. You know? I'm still struggling with putting I don't struggle anymore in the grocery aisle, but when things We've been to 2 parties recently. And one of the parties, I did eat the cake. The second party, I was able to abstain from the cake, but it's a slippery slope for sure. Yeah. If you put the toe in the water of the sugar world, then what happens? You just want more and more. Yeah. And it's designed to make you feel unsatisfied. Like, you never feel satisfied. Do you ever feel satisfied when you need a sweet snack? Well, for a moment. You know? Like, yeah. Like, I feel great, and the first bite is fantastic. The second bite is good, and you you mentioned ice cream. You know, I don't know if it's the cold or actually the fat or whatever that coats your tongue. You I only realized 30 bites in that it doesn't taste as good, but by then, I'm already hooked. And I'm like, I'm not gonna throw this away. I'm gonna finish it. So, yeah, it's crazy how this works. Yeah. And it's tied into the emotional, which you also mentioned in the shame when it when you overeat it. Right? But also physically what's happening on the inside, we have to mention blood sugar. Yes. In in midlife menopause, there are 2 things that you can control your stress. And I'm reading a great book about that. We'll have to talk about that another time. And then also your insulin, your sugar. In my late forties, I noticed like the skin tags under my armpits, which is a sign of insulin resistance, unknown signs. So if you have skin tags, pay attention to what your blood sugar is doing. I guarantee I was on the major road to diabetes. I had to be. I had to be. Well, let's go ahead and get it out there because now, unlike what we were told in the eighties and nineties where fat was the devil, we now know that sugar is one of the major factors for the growing statistics of diabetes, type 2 diabetes that is, and obesity in America. So this is starting to come to light, and all of that stuff where fat was deemed the enemy, I have read recently that the sugar industry fueled a lot of that research. So I think they probably knew it back then, the quote experts, but it was covered up by by money. Oh, that's yeah. Doesn't surprise me. I we were talking in my group about SnackWells. Do you remember eating Oh, girl. Yes. I I could have bought stock in SnackWells, and they didn't they did not even taste that good. They were just sweet. No. They ripped my stomach apart, 100%. But could I stop eating the package? No. Because the package said whatever it said. You know, it was low calories, low, I guess, sugar. I don't know. Was it low fat? Low fat. It was low fat. Yeah. I ate my my guilty pleasure back then was the Twinkies. They had fat free Twinkies. And I used to I don't know where Little Debbie is based. Maybe it's in the south, so maybe I was exposed to that a lot. But I love me some Little Debbies. And the Twinkies came as a fat free item. And, you know, then, of course, cam all came cam all of these 100 calorie pack things. Mhmm. And for a while, you know, there was Chips Ahoy, 100 calorie pack. And so, I mean, our whole mentality has been hijacked by this. And now in retrospect, I feel like such a dupe because I believed it all. Yeah. And then we have the cover of Cosmo also, like, Fontaine us. Yeah. Put the sugar in and then take the quiz in Cosmo and look like this. So we were just doomed, ladies. Let's just be honest. No kidding. No kidding. And actually, there was a time, I think, in the early part of 20th century, which would have been the early 1900, it's a whole bunch. You can watch documentaries about Coca Cola where they talked about it being therapeutic or medicinal. Of course, I think the original coke Coke had cocaine in it, but that's a whole another another issue. But, yeah, a lot of this is fueled by marketing, and I'm in marketing. So, you know, I don't I'm not calling out a profession that I'm not familiar with, but good marketing, it in intends to get you to buy something. And it could be good for you or it could be not. It doesn't matter. Right? They're just trying to close. Exactly. Yeah. Coke was definitely my drink of choice until after my son was born for a 100%, like regular Coke. Because I was like, I'm just gonna eat the real sugar, not the fake sugar. The fake sugar gives me a headache. Anyway, yeah. Just getting sugar. Well, the interesting interesting now, Cam, even in the, I wanna say as recently as the fifties sixties, the average American consumed in the single digits numbers of teaspoons of sugar a day, single digits, like up to 10. Now, the average American consumes 22 to 30 teaspoons a day. And the the recommended amount is 6 teaspoons for women and children and 9 for men. So many times what is recommended for us. Yeah. And then I just wanna say then women get this really confused and they're like, I refuse to eat fruit because it has sugar in it. Right. Right. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Let's let's rethink this because there's fiber and there's micronutrients in there and healthy carbs. And so it's it's very funny how those lines get blurred. Have you heard that too? People afraid of fruit? Yeah. Absolutely. Or anything like, even sweet potatoes because they have a fair amount of quote sugar. But, you know, I think that and one of the things in our how to combat it list is eating whole foods. Yeah. I I'm not a fan of limiting whole foods. If you can just eliminate processed foods, and I think we've got this somewhere down in our list too, Cam. But sugar has a lot of names, and it may not be called that. So that's one of the things is knowing what sugar is in a package. So you need to read those labels. Yeah. If it ends in ose, o s e, run. Right. Right. Exact even sugar alcohols. I've learned this since you and I have been, friends, and we've been doing the podcast. I went through a phase where I would eat high protein bars, and that's packaged. I realize that's bad, and I try not to do it. I try not to consume a lot, but there's a lot of those high protein bars that have sugar alcohols in them, and that messed my stomach up. I would be really bloated and gassy, and only after I stopped eating them, I was like, oh, that's what it was. Yeah. I think that's what Halo Top has. That's how they Oh, maybe. Yeah. It's something like that. They've hijacked our food, Frankenfooded our food. Frankenfooded for sure. Before we get to the how we combat it, there's just a few questions to ask yourself if you are really addicted to sugar because it is a physiologic addiction. It's it's it's a substance. So do you feel like you can't control your sugar intake, or do you think about sugar or sugary foods all day long? Or like after dinner that you just like want something sweet? Yes. Do you eat so much sugar that it makes your stomach hurt? That's a big one. I've actually done that. Yeah. And do you eat sugary foods that you don't even like just because they're sweet and they're you're trying to get that energy boost. Yeah. That's the snack oils, man. Like, that's what we did. Like, we just ate them. Right? I love this. And also, I believe that the quality of your questions, the terms of quality of your life. So ask yourself these questions, ladies, like, you know, where what is my relationship with food and fruit and sugar? And just ask yourself honest questions and discover more about yourself. Incidentally, there is a Netflix, spoof. It's a spoof, but it's a quote documentary. It's with with Jerry Seinfeld, Amy Schumer's in there called Unfrosted. And it's actually the story of I think it's actually the genesis of Pop Tarts. But they're pretty open, while it is tongue and cheek about the campaign to just infuse all breakfast foods with sugar. Because breakfast as we know it is a complete fabrication. Like, breakfast was not intended to be all of this sugary crap that most Americans eat. It's great. Yeah. And I we both believe in a savory breakfast. Like, however you break your fast, that's your breakfast. So it doesn't have to be in the morning whenever that is. But having a savory, protein forward and fat forward meals sets the rest of the day on the right track and you're less likely to go eat crazy when it comes to the, you know, the afternoon when you need some energy. Yeah. Because if you break your fast with those high carb, low nutrient foods, it might last for a little bit, but then you're gonna be hungry again, and then you're gonna be chasing that sugar, that dopamine hit. So it's if you start that way, chances are you're gonna continue that through the day. I mean, I would love a good old fashioned pancake, but I just haven't done that forever. Yeah. I'm with you, girl. I do too. But the last time I actually indulged in that, Cam, it kinda blew up in my stomach. It was like it was like a a pool raft. You know, it comes in this tiny package. And then when it got to my stomach, it's like it blew up. And I was like, oh gosh. This is bad. Yeah. And for me, if I do that, if I start my I'm irritable and I have a shorter temper, and it's just I don't like the human I am when I'm chasing that sugar. So But there's good news, ladies and gents. There are ways to combat the sugar addiction slash, dopamine hit that we get. And the first thing I wanna say is to recognize it for what it is and accept this is a true health concern. It's not just that you're weak. Don't tell yourself, I'm just weak and I can't withstand I don't have the willpower because this is a physiologic process. So that may make it easier to accept that it's not just you being weak. Exactly. So give yourself grace there. And then really focusing on a full whole foods diet. We're not talking about the grocery store, but we're talking about like, yeah, eating whole foods in the way that nature gave them to you as much as possible. Yes. Do I eat bars? Yes. I do on occasion, eat bars. But for the most part and I also I can read those ingredients in the bars. Yes. That's the second, like, layer, if you will, after the process part. Yeah. So that's really important. And then, like I said, the savory breakfast is a game changer if you haven't tried that yet. I agree with you. And here's one that might not be too intuitive is don't skip meals because we think in terms of, especially our generation, Cam, of calorie deficit. We've lived in terms of if we want to, reduce weight, then we have to to reduce calories. And so a lot of my friends talk about, especially if there's a celebratory dinner or occasion, oh, I'm not gonna eat anything until I get to the party. Well, that's just a horrible, horrible strategy. So don't skip meals because you don't wanna be super hungry and then overeat the bad stuff. Absolutely. And, also, let's go back to the blood sugar. Eating, you know, having consistent blood sugar throughout the day makes you not you have control over your food. There's no no breaks. Like, have you ever been somewhere in there? You're literally, there's no breaks, you don't want to be in that situation. Exactly. And that goes along with eating enough protein, because we're big fans of eating enough protein. And it's like the micro Mac, the macronutrients that most women are just not even aware that they're under eating. I don't know why, like, why are we under eating protein? Was it that part of our diet culture? I'm not really sure. I don't know the answer to that. That. But both protein and fat are very satisfying. And they give you the energy your body needs without like the added sugar that sugar gives you. It's like a fake sugar or fake high, fake energy. Exactly. And, you know, you can start your sugar recovery program small. If you do have a colored sugar problem, try replacing that with fruit. Like, you don't have to eat the whole elephant. You can bite it off in little chunks. And so that may start with the low hanging fruit. Get rid of, sodas or at least get rid if you're drinking multiple a day, and I'll even throw in diet sodas. If you're drinking cokes a day, can you cut it down to 1? And then cam you cut it down to every other day? And can you cut it to 1 a week? So start small and progress rather than being like, I just have to stop cold turkey. Because sugar is addictive, the cold turkey method rarely works. Yeah. I you know, my son was born in 97. In that year, my sister and sister-in-law both got married, and I was in both of their weddings, and I was as big as a house. And I was walking, quote, unquote, I was not strength training because that you did not do that at age 20 8. I didn't even know about it, but I was still drinking, like, 2 Cokes a day. I I mean, it was insane, Amelia, when I look back on that time period. Crazy. Let's just throw in skinny fat too, Cam, because back in that same time fair period, I worked with a woman that existed on cigarettes and and Pepsi. Mhmm. So it is possible to be outwardly trim and still have a sugar problem and still be at risk for type 2 diabetes. So if you fall in that camp, I don't know many people that live on soda and cigarettes anymore, but definitely was true in the seventies. I would definitely advise to rethink that as well. Yeah. The sodas were hard for me. And I'm trying to think, like, I do believe that's when I started to learn how to drink water. Up to that point of 28. I really never drank water. We had juice for breakfast, like in high school or growing up and milk, which I did not like milk ever. Like, that was the worst for dinner. We never had water growing up. I don't know. Did you drink water growing up? Well, no. And I was just thinking when you were saying that, I wonder if that's a generational thing. I wonder if our mothers weren't taught about hydration and they didn't do it. Like, so my household was exactly like what you're describing. I had to learn about water. Yeah. And I wasn't until 28, so maybe 30, something like that. Yeah. Crazy. Yeah. I wonder what our kidney function was like right now. No. It's in our blood sugar, like, a bagel and orange juice, and we're off to school. And then what then what happened? I don't know. Yeah, like at 10 o'clock, we're like falling asleep and needing. Anyway, I'm glad that those days are over and our kids are way different than we were. Exactly. Mhmm. The next one is avoid foods with added sugar. This is harder than it looks. We can tell you avoid foods with added sugar and you're like, oh, that's easy. I won't eat the cake. Almost everything that comes in a package has sugar, so you've got to read the labels. Yeah. And not the front label. Let's turn the package over. There's been so many marketing things that I've giggled about with my group. They're like, Yeah, I thought this is healthy. And I turned it over and they're like, What is this in here? So we're talking about where it says ingredients, and we want you to read the words. And in general, let's just give a guideline like less than 10 ingredients, and there should be no ose words in the first five or low or at all. You know? So Yeah. And this comes into play. You talked about healthy foods. What comes to mind for me, you mentioned the bars, which is a big one because some, quote athletic or health food bars, they're candy bars. That's all they are. The other thing is yogurt. Yogurt some yogurts are loaded with sugar, and some of the ones that are sugar free are loaded with the oat with some sort of, like, fake stuff. So I think Greek yogurt is a great healthy food, but you have to be careful about the brand and what's in it. So that's probably one of my biggest caution foods is yogurt even though I love it. Yeah. I would just get the plain, not even the vanilla. Because if you rate the vanilla and you get the plain, you'll notice the difference. So I highly recommend getting the plain and then adding your own fruit. You add your own berries. How many do you want? And then I love, like, a little, like, salt, sliced almonds or walnuts in there too. That's a great idea. So good. Satisfying. So, you know, here's one that I don't think we talked about the last time we talked about sugar is meal prepping. And a lot of people say they don't have time to meal prep, and I respect that. I mean, I'm a busy woman too, and I know Cam is. A little will go a long way. Because a lot of times, if you don't prep, you know, what is it? What's the saying, if you fail to plan, plan to fail. So you can circumvent some some binge eating or being forced to eat unhealthy foods. I say forced in quotation marks because when you're in a situation where you're truly hungry and convenience foods are other is, you're kind of stuck. Mhmm. So a little bit of planning, and I basically do planning once a week, Cam. It's on Sunday, afternoon or evening. It's not like I spend, you know, 40 minutes every day being, oh my gosh, what am I gonna eat tomorrow? It's just very simple. I make sure I have things for snacks, and that that goes a long way. Yeah. We're I'm more lenient. We did go over our ButcherBox order that's coming up, making sure that we have the protein in the house. And then I love repurposing food. I know you do too on the left. So I'm more of an ingredient prepper versus a meal prepper. So for example, like, the other day, Dan cooked all the sweet potatoes even though we didn't eat them all, but then we could reuse them in a bowl, which was amazing, by the way. We use lentils, and there were greens and sweet potatoes. And it was the it was quick and healthy. It was gorgeous, colorful, and it took 5 minutes. So, you know, that's another way to think about it if you don't wanna get your Tupperware out into, you know, the same lunch 5 days. So I absolutely love that. I do that sometimes with eggs. Like, boiled eggs make more than I need at the mommas. But I love that idea because it actually helps you eat more variety. If you've prepared several things, whether it's you sliced a bunch of carrots or you've made up some sweet potatoes or you've made a portion of quinoa. Bowls, we haven't done an episode on like food variety in a menopause, but that's one of the things we've we've loved is how to repurpose food and make different combinations of things that are really tasty, and it might be things you would never think of before. So I love that. Experiment. Absolutely. Sleep is on there. If you sleep or if you're sleeping, you're going to make better choices in life and especially in the kitchen. So it's important. I totally agree. I I we've talked about this in numerous episodes on different topics, but when you are fatigued, that cheap energy is such it's almost an impossible thing to combat because it's like your brain doesn't even function. It's just grabbing all of the things that's usually crunchy, sweet, or salty. And a lot of times they're not the best things for you. And then it's gone and you're like, what just happened? Yeah. Yeah. So then don't go beating yourself up. Just become aware of your triggers. Was it emotional? Like, did you need energy? What was going on? Take time to reflect on it. Yeah. Absolutely. And another thing is moving your body, and I I'm I'll use that term specifically instead of quote exercise because we're just talking about moving your body. Because, a, it does expend calories, but it gets your mind it, you know, gets your mind off the food. It helps with your stress. So moving your body, especially outdoors, in my opinion, is just a wonderful way to reframe your thoughts, actually. Actually, and and if you time it, if you do it after you eat, no matter what you ate, it helps with your digestion, but it also is going to lower your blood sugar naturally without insulin, which is a big deal. You know, if 88% or more, I think it's actually more Americans are on the metabolic syndrome somewhere. Right. That's shocking. 88% of us have sugar problems. That's crazy. And the metabolic syndrome, remind us, is that like type 2? What what what is it? I can't remember. I know it's diabetes or Leading to type 2. Yeah. So on the spectrum, there there are different categories, like how many things do you have, but you're on the way. Okay. Yeah. Wow. That's crazy. We mentioned this before, knowing what what words mean, sugar, corn syrup, dextrose, fructose, glucose, malt syrup, maltose, and raw sugar. So some of those actually say sugar, but the o's is definitely, and I think there's so many more now, Cam. I think in the last 10 or 15 years, they've come up with all sorts of other chemical modifications that steal sugar. Yeah. You have in our notes 56 names for sugar. Crazy. Oh, boy. Yeah. We're just bringing awareness. That's all we're doing is shining light on this so that you can make better choices for yourself. 100%. This next one you may or may not like. When I was doing some one on one coaching with people, this has been years ago. I've done it once in the last 2 years. One of the things I had people do is I want you to journal what you eat. Because if I can't if you can tell me, but a lot of times people either aren't honest or they truly don't remember. Journaling what you eat is a big deal. I happen to think it's great, but I know a lot of people don't love it. It can be kinda detrimental to your mental space maybe. But it does get shed some light even if it's a short term thing. Obviously, now there's apps that you can just log what you eat. But I think just being open and honest. This isn't criticism. This isn't judgment. This is awareness. I a 100%. And just do it for a week or so. You know? Yeah. Just get a baseline. We've also mentioned this for protein, it's a great way to say, oh, actually, how much protein am I eating? Is there another way I can add more protein? In this particular case, we're talking about sugars and many of the apps will break it all down for you. Right. Exactly. It's all automatic now. Yeah. But, you know you know, again, I I've actually more than 1. In fact, I would venture to say and I didn't work with that many clients 1 on 1 because I kinda dropped it when I started working this new ish job. But more than 50% of people would not work with me based on that fact alone. They would say I'm not doing that. Or they do it, and then they weren't honest. And it was just like, you know, they they pay me initially, and then they just never re upped. Mhmm. And they wouldn't even, like, report. Like, we they'd stop answering my calls. It's a very it's a very triggering subject for people because I think they know when they actually write it down that it might be or use an app. It was because they track it, it might be more. Where neither of us are judging anybody. Exactly. We're in here telling us telling you about our sugar problem. So it's not when you hire a coach, they help you see your blind spots and get keep you up, you know, on the road instead in the ditch. So I'm sorry that happened because that's No. It it's fine. I mean, I had that happen when I was a triathlon coach, honestly. I mean, you know, people would add right the the program. This happened a couple of times. I would check-in with them like I always did, and at least 2 people told me weeks weeks later after they were complaining about they weren't doing they weren't seeing progress, they'd admit, oh, well, I only did half the workouts. Or I had this one lady tell me, I did all of the week's workouts on Saturday Sunday. What? Before the check-in call? Yes. What did you like, no. Like Yeah. Oh my god. So, anyway, I I guess that's why I'm not a great coach, Cam, because I just don't understand that. I yeah. Like I said, working with a coach just shines blind spots on yourself. So yeah. I'm sorry. Anyway, ladies, if you need a coach, come on. Cam. We we can help you out. Absolutely. And one of the last things is accepting that this is hard. I mean, I know, you know, everybody wants a quick fix. I mean, I, you know, I hate it when I give in to the sugar, but it is a a constant battle even for us. And we've been working at this a long time. So, you know, we can do hard things. Absolutely. And it is a hard thing. I was trying to think how did I even give over my sugar thing in the forties. It took a long time. I would go with weeks and be like, yeah, I've got this and then I'll fall off the wagon, you know, so it takes a long time and then all of a sudden you just don't want it anymore. So just stick with it. Or if you dip your toe back into the sugar like I did a few weeks ago with the cake, it my stomach literally hurt. Like, it was uncomfortable. So, yeah, you do you do you can break the habit. Right. Just stick with it.