Fruit is good for you in moderation when you’re healthy, less so when you’re not. Fruit affects a cancer patient just like sugar. So whether you specifically should eat fruit or not depends on more information that you told me in your post. Does your doctor feel you’re in remission? Are you presently without symptoms? Are you still doing chemo or radiation? These answers will guide your answer about fruit while you heal from your cancer.

G.N. Jacobs for Nancy Appleton

G.N. Jacobs for Nancy Appleton

I work in film & tv and often times pull 14 to 16 hour days. Recently I’ve had a lot of stomach issues (pain mostly, unable to eat, pain associated with eating, etc) and saw a physician. He was dismissive and I got the “oh, a girl with a stomach ache” eye roll… but he did say I have gastritis. Now.. healthy friends of mine have been riding me to change my eating for the past year, and I’ve ignored them. Typically because I’m so active, I eat whatever I am craving just to get the calories. Like I said, this bottom feeder philosophy of eating has probably been my mantra for the past year or so.

This approach has resulted in a lot of Famous Amos chocolate chip cookies breakfasts with double caramel sauce 4 shot iced espresso drinks every morning. And, more surprisingly, this approach has caused weight loss. I’ve always been small, and as a vegan I was 105 – 110 (i’m 5’0 tall and slender framed). But now I’m as low as 97. This disgusts and worries me… I don’t like looking at myself without clothes on. I’m starting to realize that I’ve been depriving my body of nutrients in favor of giving in to sugar cravings. I’ll eat 1/2 a tub of frosting at 5:00 cause I’m ravenous and then loose interest in dinner because it doesn’t have 60g sugar per serving. Really fucked up stuff… incredibly embarrassing too…. I’ve gotten to a point where every food bothers my stomach because of the gastritis. Last week I tried to do soups and whole foods, thinking I’d fall back into my healthy lifestyle of yesteryear easily; not so.

It has become apparent that I’m in the grips of the sugar monster, and he’s holding on tight… I guess it’s also worth mentioning that I’ve been sober from alcohol for 1.5 years. I suppose the increased sugar consumption correlated with that, but I’ve always had a major sweet tooth (not drinking gave me an excuse to reward it more and more, and here we are).

Any thoughts?

G.N. Jacobs for Nancy Appleton

The doctor and I fully appreciate how difficult beating sugar can be, even in places that haven’t made a national identity out of chocolate and sweets. You have a rough road ahead, because you’re an addict living in an environment that doesn’t lend itself to your recovery.

Some thoughts:

1) Moving won’t help you – Leaving aside that moving is expensive and that most people move because they were transferred to another city, or need a different sized house, you would be very likely to move to a neighboring country in the EU. Everybody in Europe has the local sugar bomb. France also has patisseries and various custard/pudding deserts. In Germany, your temptations are strudel and Black Forest Cake. In America, you’d probably have your head turned by those ice cream/cookie sandwiches in the freezer near the front door of every convenience store, or maybe it will be New York Cheesecake.

2) Admit to the full scope of your addiction – Reading between the lines of your post, you seem stuck on a very early step of the Alcoholics Anonymous 12 Steps (that has been applied to other addictions, as well). Step One: you admit you have a problem and YOU ARE POWERLESS AS AN INDIVIDUAL TO OVERCOME YOUR ADDICTION. It seems you’ve only gotten half of this step in that you repeatedly attempt to quit, but you flame out at three weeks, like clockwork. The various Anonymous groups work because they draw upon the collective willpower of everyone at the meeting, plus whatever definition you give for the higher power. The food related groups that come to mind are Overeaters Anonymous, Food Addicts in Recovery and Food Addicts Anonymous, plus there are a whole lot of small offshoots and that professional food management companies (Jenny Craig, Weightwatchers, Nutrisystem) have all borrowed from the Anonymous program for the counseling aspects of their own programs. Get busy with Google and see if you can find a local meeting you can attend.

3) Going cold turkey usually fails – It seems that you keep trying to beat the addiction on your own all right now. The body doesn’t like going from a lot of anything to nothing regardless of whether the food being cold turkeyed out of your diet is bad for you. In your case, you last about three weeks. When you join the group suggested above, you’ll want to discuss various plans for a gradual weaning from sugar. Depending on whether your problem is sugar, or just too many calories, your group and you will collectively come up with a plan that allows for human frailty but ultimately gets you to your goal of being as sugarless as possible. One such plan I call Half as Much as Yesterday, where you calculate how much sugar you had yesterday and you eat half that amount, or less today. This kind of plan eases your body through the transition so that at the three week mark you won’t have as many those awful cravings that wreck your plan. It also allows you to be more strategic about going off the wagon, because you may be able to time eating sweets with the sugary events that really matter (for example, having a few days of pushing away the desert cart as advance payment for that upcoming birthday celebration for that really good friend where there WILL BE CAKE and a lot of pressure to fully participate in the party).

4) Professional therapy may help – Even people fully invested in a support group may need regular counseling. Decide for yourself here.

5) Whole fruit may be a good substitute – A well-timed bowl of fruit may help you through a craving. Many people talk about how fruit is just sugar and is bad for you. Doctor Appleton will be the first one to say that someone who is sick has no business eating fruit. However, healthy people can eat fruit, because the sugar is moderated by another type of sugar called Dietary Fiber which slows the absorption of the naturally occurring sugar so that the body just doesn’t get hit all at once. Nothing is stopping you from ordering a dish of berries and cream (only if you’re still okay with cream, a whole other reply) for dessert. The fruit will feed your sweet tooth and mean one less desert that week.

6) Consider a Gymnemma supplement – We used to sell a gum where the main ingredient was this herb. In most but not all people, sugar and other carbohydrate heavy foods suddenly tasted like cardboard. People don’t like eating cardboard and ate less sugar. We stopped selling the gum because our supplier couldn’t find his ass with a hunting dog and a map and we aren’t set up to sell a perishable item like gum or other type of supplement. Other suppliers have since filled the void selling the herb in liquid solutions. Look it up on the web and see what happens.

7) everything else is probably fine.

I will gladly sell you anything from our store if you think it will help. Our Body Monitor Test Kit will at least tell you when you go off the rails. But, commercial plugs aside, the doctor and I hope these answers help.

G.N. Jacobs for Nancy Appleton