The happiness in being proven wrong

For the last few days I have been reading Adam Grant’s book Think Again. One of the topics is about accepting that your pre-conceived notion could be wrong and how because of it you actually grow even more. It can be extremely liberating.

That made me think how often haveI been proven wrong and accepted it in public.

One big one was Sugar and sugar substitutes. I have written extensively in multiple posts on how my father had mentioned about sugar being a poison almost 20 years back but it took me so long to give it up almost completely. Over the last few years I did try some sugar substitutes but I have now realized after reading a lot of studies, that they are equally bad in a different way.

But I also now happily share, how rectifying my liking for sugar has helped me on a daily basis.

The above was a personal realization. Another one, a few years back was on the professional front.

One of my sales person was following up on an account for almost 8-9 months. Even though our typical lead time can be between 3-6 months, anything which crosses about 8-9 months is a very suspect case.

In this there were buyers who were changing which made me even more skeptical of the whole deal. But this sales person kept after them through all the changes and brought in the order.

The reason for me to feel happy was not that he had picked up an order because of the size of the order – the order value was not anything great. The fact that this was a completely new logo that we were acquiring, was made it feel good. If I had removed this sales person from doing this deal , because I thought it would not happen, we wouldn’t have acquired this logo.

I felt happy to be proven wrong. There have been other times also when I have been proven wrong and learned a valuable lesson, but we will keep it for another day.

Till next time then

Carpe Diem!!!

Some more interesting aspects of Sugar

sugar

I came to know about the white sugar poison during the early part of this century when my father told me of research he had read where sugar was defined as the white poison.

Today I was reading the book “Cracked IT” and came to know that John Yudkin a doctor in the UK had written a book “Pure White and Deadly” way back in the mid 1950s but because of better lobbying by people with smarter communication abilities, his work was completely ignored.

Right through our growing years we used to hear doctors tell our parents to not eat fat because that would cause so many problems while the actual devil which is sugar was completely ignored.

Another thing that I wrote in my post yesterday was about, sugar being addictive. I had only compared it to drugs. But I also realized while reading “Cracked it” that the source of alcohol, which is also very addictive in nature, is also originating through the same process as sugar.

Even when you are having alcohol, you are taking in a lot of sugar. While beer may have lower sugar compared to say whisky, you end up consuming a much higher volume of beer compared to whiskey, leading to the popular term in India ” beer belly “

Coming back to Yudik’s work, it would have been lost completely if in 2009 an endocrinologist had not brought out a video on YouTube called Sugar the Bitter Truth.

In ancient times people used to believe that earth is the center of the universe and the sun rotates around us…..till someone proved it otherwise and communicated it well….so I realized that someone had already spoken about Sugar being bad about 65-70 years back but poor communication or persuasion had kept us focusing on the wrong things for so long

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

White sugar – getting the lows after the high

Energy, sugar

I have given hp taking added sugar completely. So no more sugar in coffee, tea etc. I feel generally feel much better.

In foods also I have almost cut down on items which have added sugar like cookies, juices etc.

But we had Christmas. How can you celebrate Christmas without the Rich Plum Cake. All rules fall by the way side when I get to identify a really good quality plum cake. After all Christmas comes only once a year and I get to eat a plum cake only at that time.

So when I got the opportunity to get a really good plum cake, I ended up buying 3 boxes. I shared the cake with our guests who had come for lunch with us. The rest of the box I ended up eating by the time I went to sleep.

The next morning, when I got up, I was feeling so exhausted , I had to force myself out of bed.

Sugar had done its job. After the high of Christmas, I was was having a massive low. If you have given up on sugar , then the drain is even more I guess.

Since that day I am wondering on what I do with the remaining two boxes of the rich plum cake.

The bottom line is that sugar completely messes up with the body. While drugs get a bad name for addiction, in my opinion sugar comes very close. Its difficult to give up. After a high you get a low which can only be covered after another round of sugar.

A simple rule – avoid refined sugar at all costs.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

White sugar – not listening to my own advice

Energy, Health, sugar

I must have written multiple posts on the drawbacks of eating white refined sugar. Along with corn syrup it is one of the biggest killers in modern life, being a direct cause for blindness, kidney failures, obesity etc. The biggest problem is that all the sugar related diseases crop up suddenly. They keep getting bad to worse in the background and then suddenly appear when the situation has deteriorated to such an extent that I have seen people suddenly lose their eye sight or a small wound suddenly getting infected with gangrene and having to be amputated.

We are having the festival of Diwali , in India, going on for the last 4-5 days. We Indians have a sweet tooth. The amount of “sweet” dishes we have in each of our different cuisines is mind boggling. If you think of at least 16 different broad regional cuisines and at least 30 different sweets in each cuisine, you are looking at close to about 500 different types of sweets. In addition we now also have different kinds of chocolates, cookies and cakes / pastries.

Now during the main festival on Thursday, we had a whole lot of sweets of different kinds which were had laid out. I ended up eating a lot, because there was a huge variety, I got tempted and wanted to try all the items. I actually didn’t realise that I was consuming so many since they were all so tasty. At the end of the day, I am also human and I given in to temptations.

The next day when I got up in the morning, I was feeling so “low” on energy, that I was worried what was wrong with me. After having a couple of glasses of water, I started feeling a little better and started thinking for the reason. Then it struck me that it was the sugar which was playing games with me, since I had eaten so many sweets.

I am flabbergasted that I had not heeded my own advice, I keep telling everyone not to have white sugar based products and generally I have given up on eating all kinds of items which have sugar or corn syrup in it. But I did not listen to my own advice and paid a price for it.

If feasible always avoid white sugar and corn syrup and be more healthy.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!