amen!!!!!

Me, too. I am a sweetsaholic. Always have been, always will be.

I don't like that I have saggy wrinkles, but I doubt that sugar is the culprit.

I have on hand right now, two different flavors of ice cream (the so called 1/2 gallons) Fig Newtons, Milky Ways, and a bag of Hershey's Miniatures.

{{gwi:1474189}}

Sweet Sue

Ditto.

Here, too!!

I love my sweets so I guess Hello wrinkles.

Sugar can do a lot worse things than cause wrinkles.

I'm ducking and running now. :-)

Alisande,
No need to duck and run. Each of us can make her own choices. Excessive sugar does have other downsides, true, as do many other choices. One should not have an exclusive diet of cheesecake.

But for FAR too long many of us have not weighed what is important to us, but rather followed health recommendations strictly without regard for what makes us happy, and without using the kind of wisdom we have gained in so many other aspects of our lives which shows that a little give and take is a recipe for success.

And in my opinion, for far too long, women have seen wrinkles as something negative, when they are actually natural and expected as one ages.
Beauty is not exclusively the purview of a Playboy centerfold, to me there is beauty in all of life's many stages, and it is not only skin deep.

I'm not a big sugar junkie. I am a breadie--give me a loaf of artisan bread hot out of the oven and I could eat the whole thing in one sitting. Without butter or any spreads, I just love bread.

Lucille said it beautifully!

And speaking of...

Just saw this on FB.

Sue

Here is a link that might be useful: New Speads

Lucille said it beautifully!

Forget the wrinkles.....they are the least of the worries when it comes to eating lots of sugar.

I love sugar, but sugar doesn't love me back! I've always had a big sweet tooth that I have to constantly restrain because it makes me gain weight.

Life is to be lived, but overindulgence in *anything* doesn't work as well as moderation...MOST of the time!

It is true that you are what you eat, and your skin will bear witness to that. I've known several women who had beautiful complexions into old age. None of them smoked or drank tea or coffee or spirits. All were active (good circulation) and --attention alisande! -- they were all blonds! They apparently had 'good genes', but their lifestyles preserved those benefits.

Lucille, I agree that each of us can make our own choices. And we do, hopefully after weighing the pros and cons--or what my DH used to call the "risk-reward ratio."

In the case of sugar, serious consequences can be involved. When I was a sugar addict, my triglycerides were five times normal--a huge heart risk, especially for women. My blood sugar levels were either in the pits or too high--what Dr. Atkins called pre-diabetic.

I'm glad I got over my addiction (which was almost as hard as giving up smoking, BTW) and found other ways to make myself happy. Over the years I've known people who have suffered terrible (and in one case fatal) complications from diabetes because they refused to stop indulging in sweets. It's also well known that sugar feeds cancer cells. And Lyme spirochetes. And the list goes on and on.

If sugar really does cause wrinkles, think of what systemic damage it is doing to cause those changes in the skin.

But, as I have mentioned here at the KT numerous times, some bodies will tolerate anything. Some people do just fine with all the desserts they want. My own father, who had to give up saturated fats in his forties because his arteries were getting blocked, loved sweets and ate a lot of them. Halloween was his favorite holiday because he got to eat all the leftover candy. He never had a triglyceride problem or a blood sugar problem. He lived to be 90, and always looked young. He had no wrinkles. None. :-)

Imho, through reading many written sources, longevity/health is 99% genetic - you either have good genes or you don't.

Here's my favorite example:

Jeanne Calment

Jeanne Louise Calment (French pronunciation: âÂÂ[ÃÂan lwiz kalmÃÂÃÂ]; 21 February 1875 - 4 August 1997) was a French supercentenarian who had the longest confirmed human lifespan in history, living to the age of 122 years, 164 days. She lived in Arles, France, for her entire life.

Calment smoked from the age of 21 (1896) to 117 (1992), though according to an unspecified source, she smoked no more than two cigarettes per day.

Calment ascribed her longevity and relatively youthful appearance for her age to a diet rich in olive oil, and rubbed onto her skin, as well as a diet of port wine, and ate nearly one kilogram (2.2 lb) of chocolate every week. Calment reportedly remained mentally intact until her very end.

On 4 August 1997, at 22:45 Central European Time, Calment died, aged 122.

"IâÂÂve never had but one wrinkle, and IâÂÂm sitting on it."
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_Calment

I think there's definitely a genetic component to longevity and health. I also think a lot of people use "genetics" as a cop-out to excuse their habits. I see plenty of people with high blood pressure, for example, who claim that it's genetic and there's nothing they can do about it, meanwhile eating fast food every day. Not everyone is like that, and there are people who, despite good habits, still have chronic ailments. I'm not referring to them.

When there are billions of people who exist or who have existed, there will always be some amazing standouts/outliers. Just the rule of statistics regardless of lifestyles or genetics.

I think people should eat what they want as long as they are aware of the consequences. I feel bad for people who are truly ignorant about nutrition. Sugar is extremely addicting and the more you eat, the more you want. I do find if I successfully eliminate sugar, I feel so much better and the cravings do go away.

All that being said, I do indulge in dessert sometimes because life is short. :)

The way I figure it, if you were to combine all the current fad diets and eat only what is supposedly good for you after you cross out all that is bad for ;you, eat nothing that is bad for you according to the latest diet gurus you would be left with a diet of dark chocolate and red wine.

Exactly, blfenton. I eat lots of dark chocolate and I'm very healthy.