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update on the Sugar Bet


Robyn Openshaw - Aug 17, 2012 - This Post May Contain Affiliate Links


Do you ever stop and think about the ways karma just flows and flows?

When I was over six months into my year-long Sugar Bet, last February, I confessed that I’d screwed up, when I was in Hawaii.

I came clean immediately when I got home. Not just here on the blog, but I went to Matthew, handed him $1,000 cash, and asked him to let me finish the year. He, on the other hand, was legitimately released from his obligation.

He thought about my request for a WEEK, while I agonized. Then he accepted. He tried to give me the $1,000 back and I said no.

He said he was changing the rules. I got to have three weekend vacations where I could have sugar, for the rest of the year, while I finished it out through Sept. 18. (That’s the full year, plus a week as penalty.)

I did take advantage of that recently—on our trip to Portland, I ate sugar and Kristin was amazed. She said to her brother, “I don’t know who she is! She is usually in constant motion!” She was referring to how I’d lost my energy. I’d fall asleep in the car. I’d say I didn’t want to go out till late.

Sugar does that. It wrecks me. I hadn’t eaten it in a long time, and now I remember why it’s the devil. It trashes my adrenal glands and makes me a lesser version of myself.

I said, “On the rare occasion I eat like other people do, even for a few days, I feel like other people feel. Like, bleh. I don’t like it! I can’t wait to go back home, to juicing and green smoothies and salads and NO SUGAR.”

Anyway, I’m finishing out my year on the Sugar Bet—just one more month. (Actually, I’ve already found another friend to bet $10,000 for another year, more on that later.)

But some people on the blog and facebook took me to task. They said I took advantage of my relationship with Matthew, and that I should have paid him $10,000.

Well here’s the funny thing. Early in the year, I told him to look for a rental property for me. I told him what I wanted and that I was willing to wait.

Shortly before the Sugar Bet ended, Matthew’s realtor partner Drew took me to see a property, and I bought it.

Guess what the realtor’s commission is that I’m paying Matthew?

It’s $10,000.

That feels good, doesn’t it? I have learned to trust karma. I will have a big smile on my face writing that check to Armstrong Flinders and Associates at the closing.

I think we reap what we sow.  I have this card on my corkboard in my office that says, “ MAKE SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL OF YOUR LIFE.” It’s a statement of my belief that this is within my grasp—the ability to take hold of my existence on the planet and make meaning of it.

Ecclesiastes 11:1 says something like, cast your bread upon the waters and after many days it will come back to you.

What’s coming back to you? Good stuff?

As Abraham Lincoln said, folks are about as happy as they have a mind to be. We don’t get everything, but we tend to get out of life what we want most.

We look like what we eat, and what we spend our time doing. If someone bikes 100 miles a week and drinks carrot juice and eats a salad every day for lunch, you can tell. If we drink beer from Thursday to Sunday and eat T-bones and fries and chocolate cake, we look like it.

We have positive relationships if we’re generous, kind, and forgiving. If we laugh a lot, other people laugh when they’re in the room with us.

Examples of karma.

Occasionally bad things happen to good people. The bad guys get away with stuff sometimes. But I believe it evens out in the end. It’s a beautiful phenomenon. The universe’s need for homeostasis creates it.

Posted in: Mind/Body Connection, Whole Food

8 thoughts on “update on the Sugar Bet”

Leave a Comment
  1. Anonymous says:

    Are you sure your paying for the agents commission? The seller usually pays for both agents, unless another arrangment was made on the REPC.

    1. Robyn Openshaw says:

      Millie, the rental property wasn’t on the market—they found it for me, negotiated it, and so there’s no listing. I am just paying them 3%. 🙂

  2. Anonymous says:

    That was well said. I truly believe in Karma:-)

  3. Anonymous says:

    Since being on a whole foods diet I would rarely eat processed foods and especially desserts with processed sugar, but on Saturday night my husband bought some ice cream. I figured that I would just have a little. Big mistake! First of all, after I had just a little I wanted more. Then the next morning when my alarm went off, I was so tired that I could barely get up. I turned off my alarm, walked around a little, then laid back down and immediately went right back to sleep for another 15 minutes. Even after I got up and was ready for church, I could have laid down and gone right back to sleep. It was hard to stay awake and concentrate in church. By the time 9:30 pm came, I kept dozing off sitting up. It was horrible. All for a little bowl of ice cream, that frankly didn’t even taste very good! When the ice cream came out last night to get finished off, I had no desire to eat any because of what it does to me. Sadly, the memory of this will probably fade all too soon. Dang sugar!

  4. Anonymous says:

    Is there an original post about this? I couldn’t find it but am interested! 🙂 Also, any updates on when the Medicine Cabinet Makeover class will be offered in Seattle? I’ve been watching but haven’t seen it come thru yet. Thanks Robyn! You rock!

  5. Anonymous says:

    Robyn – Did you give up sugar like agave, honey, molasses and table sugar for the year or fruit too? I find I’ve started having trouble with all the fruit to make the greens in the green smoothie palatable.

    1. Robyn Openshaw says:

      We can still have fruit—and all those sweeteners except “table sugar” that I take to mean refined white sugar, which is a no-no.

      For Year 2, in my new Sugar Bet, Natalie and I are going to also ban white bread. And I may take agave and maltitol off the table.

      Splenda and Nutrasweet are banned too.

  6. Anonymous says:

    Is stevia something you use? That’s my sweetener of choice.

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