#my brain is convinced it will take me a thousand years to make pasta and red sauce

[qvietspvce]

mm. want pasta. do not want to make pasta. impasse.

[perseusjackson-jasongrace]

Empires on the Horizon IV

Jason is a CEO: Part IV

Here’s my masterlist for the next part and my other stuff 

new beginnings

look fragile

like glass

but when grabbed

sparkle

like diamonds

-badpoetry

“Good morning Mr Grace,” Grover Underwood smiled from his usual spot behind the coffee machine.

“Morning, how are you?”

“Much happier for seeing you less like someone kicked your puppy,” He gave Jason a knowing look.

“How?”

“There are some things the brain cannot hide, matters of the heart are often one of them.”

He didn’t really have any reply to that, so he gave the man an awkward smile and shrugged.

“Your usual then?”

“Yes please, and an iced coffee for Hazel.”

“Ah where is the darling this morning?”

“She’s coming into the office later, something about needing to go home first? She must have stayed at a friend’s place.”

Grover raised a dark brow, “Mhmm and where is your driver this morning? I noticed you drove yourself in today.”

“Uh I think Frank took the day off,” He frowned trying to piece the conversation he’d had with his friend in his sleep-deprived brain.

“Oh interesting,” Grover’s chocolate brown eyes twinkled in amusement, but before Jason could question him a warm cup was being shoved into his hand and he was being ushered away to wait for the iced coffee.

Collapsing into a chair, he pushed his glasses up his nose and wrapped his scarf tighter around his neck. Winter was beautiful but gods it was cold. He glanced around the café taking in the familiar forest green walls and dark wood floors. There was no sun streaming through the windows today so the gold accents on the tables were dulled and dark, like hidden bronze. He traced his fingers around the edge of his cup, losing himself in the motion, in the feeling of heat on his cold fingers, in the small gusts of wind against his cheeks as the door opened and closed, in the noise of a bustling store, in the–

“Hello Jason,”

“Luke,” He took a deep breath, “Fuck off.”

“Aw don’t be like that,” He sniggered.

“Please Luke, I don’t have the energy for this right now,” Exhaustion was a thousand-ton weight on his bones.

“That’s your problem Jason you never wanted to take things head on. It was always let’s wait for this, let’s get their opinion first, let’s just give it a couple weeks. You could have had the world begging at your fingertips if you just went for what you wanted.”

“Are you done?”

Luke’s responding laugh was malicious, “You are so-“

“Leave.” His voice was stone.

His ex-boyfriend scoffed, “Pathetic.”

Jason watched as the face he had been so in love with sneered at him, the scar running down a pale cheek twisting into malice. His soul ached for what could have been, it burned for what now was. It always surprised him how drained he felt after every interaction with Luke- like crashing down from a potent high. Being with Luke was a high, was euphoria and hope and sin. What the fuck went wrong? 

His phone buzzed in his pocket.

“Talk to me,”

“Why do you insist on answering the phone like you’re some sort of mafia boss?” His sister grumbled.

“Hello to you too Thalia,”

“I just wanted to let you know that I’ve set you up on a date tonight. Six-thirty at Sun and Songs.”

He groaned, “No. I am not in the mood.”

“Jason Grace,” She started; he could feel a rant coming on, “You cannot stop living your life because you have a wanker of an ex-boyfriend. You have been in a slump since Luke and it is affecting you in ways you’re too scared to admit.”

“It is not affecting me,” He was tired of having this fight, “I literally dated Piper for like three months.”

“Mhm and were you happy? Did you put all you could into the relationship?” She didn’t wait for his response, “No, you may have been a little happier, but you weren’t you. So you will go on this date tonight and in five years when we’re planning your wedding you better be thanking me in your speech.”

“Gods Thals,” He snorted, “We haven’t even gone on the date yet and you’re already planning a wedding?”

“Wait does that mean you agree to it?” She squealed through the phone.

“Yes loser,” He held in a laugh, “I’ll go on the date. But if it doesn’t work out you drop all of this. No more setting me up, no more interfering.”

“Yes sir. Now, how work’s going?”

“Besides the fact that Project Hestia is on hold because of this stupid contract everything is good.”

“Isn’t your fancy lawyer lady sorting it out?” She muttered.

“Reyna is a great lawyer and you know it.”

“Yea but she’s also my ex-girlfriend so I get to be a little resentful.”

He snorted at that, “Of course, and how are you?”

“I’m good. The Conservatory is still standing so I can’t be doing too many things wrong.”

“Didn’t you guys get cheetah cubs this weekend?”

“Oh Jase!” His sister cried, “They are just the absolute cutest things. Did you know cheetahs are so shy that some conservationists and wild-life biologists recommend giving them emotional support puppies?”

“So what you guys got puppies and cubs?”

“We haven’t got the puppies yet; they’re only arriving this week.”

“Well send me pictures when they’re together, maybe I’ll have them framed and hung around the office as a morale booster.”

She laughed, the sound crackly through the speaker, “Will do little bro. Listen I have to go but call me tomorrow to tell me about the date.”

“Wait!” He yelled, ignoring the weird looks from the café patrons as he walked out, “What’s her name?”

“Zoe.”

***

Jason was nervous. That was the only explanation for his shaky hands and the zoo of creatures in his stomach. He had gotten to Suns and Songs fifteen minutes early with a lavender and daisy bouquet in hand. The restaurant his sister had reserved was nothing short of incredible. Dark maroon draped over each table, and opulent candelabras sat in the center, lit only if the table was occupied. Glass and crystal chandeliers swung slowly from the high wooden beams, catching on the light and making a kaleidoscope of the room. Even the way the air smelt was decadent here. Like wood smoke and perfume, some hint of chocolate, maybe. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but he wanted to bottle the scent and bathe himself in it. Trying not to be suspicious he took another deep breath in; it calmed his nerves if nothing else.

“Mr Grace?” someone put a soft hand on his shoulder, “Your guest,”

He thanked the waitress, getting up to greet his date and pull out her chair. He tried to muffle his gasp when he finally turned to her. She was stunning. Midnight skin contrasting elegantly with the pastel yellow dress she wore. Braids intertwined with glittering strands; it cast a pale silver halo around her head. Small hoop earrings glinted as she moved, and the bracelets at her wrist clinked gently when they shook hands.

“Hi, Jason Grace,” He smiled.

“Zoe Nightshade.” She flashed beautiful white teeth.

He handed her the flowers, “You look unbelievable.” He truly was in awe of her.

“Thank you,” Her smile was soft, but her voice was crisp and direct, “And these are gorgeous.”

“Would you like to order drinks?”

They scanned the menu quickly; Zoe ordered a cocktail he hadn’t heard of and he ordered the first thing he saw that didn’t have tequila in it.

“So,” He asked, and then cringed at himself internally. Starting any conversation with so was bound to make it awkward.

He cleared his throat, “How do you know Thalia?”

“We work together at the Conservatory. I moved here a couple months ago because I got transferred from the wildlife center in Germany.”

Jason didn’t know what but something about her voice made his insides melt. She said everything so undiplomatically– like if it wasn’t a fact it wasn’t worth uttering.

“Oh that’s cool. What do you do?”

“I’m a veterinarian. You?”

“Well I was a structural engineer but somehow over the years I got roped into being a town and regional planner.”

She frowned, tilting her head assessingly, “You did not finish your engineering degree?”

“Oh no I finished and got my masters in structural but then I started my company and I realised I needed other qualifications to run it the way I wanted to so I had to go back and get a degree in urban and regional planning. By the end I felt like I had been studying since the dawn of time.”

She laughed at that, and a look of surprise crossed her face, as if it was as unexpected to her as it was to him. “I know how you feel. I love animals and I’m passionate about my work but when I was done studying, I vowed never to go back. Studying for seven years after school and then trying to do it all over again feels like a one-way ticket to the end of the road.”

He mirrored her smile, “How did you get into veterinary sciences anyway?”

“My father was always busy, and my sisters were… interested in anything that could make them more beautiful, or richer. So I was pretty alone for most of my childhood. At some stage I convinced my father to get me a dog, Ladon. We were inseparable. But he got hurt when this man,“ She said it with such disgust he almost flinched. “This man hurt him. Kicked Little Ladon out the way when he was just trying to say hello. We had to take him to the vet, and I remember them being so sweet and kind to my dog and I knew I wanted to be exactly like that when I grew up.”

“Any chance you know where this man is so we can kick his ass?”

She laughed, raspy and bursting, “Don’t worry little eleven-year-old me kicked Mr Alcides as hard as I could in the shins.”

“Good,” he nodded with conviction, “He deserved more but you found your passion so there is some balance.”

She hid her grin behind a sip from her drink.

“Sir, ma’am,” Their waitress stepped to their table, “Would you like to order?”

Hours later, cheeks flushed from the liquor, laughing over Thalia’s antics and their shared need for structure, they finally decided to call the dinner to an end.

“The focaccia was to die for,” Zoe groaned, patting her stomach.

“Honestly, I may have to marry the pasta.” He sighed contentedly.

She giggled, and he knew it was a rare thing for her because her face caught that surprised look again.

“Want to grab dessert?”

“Oh gods no,” She shook her head in alarm, and then frowned as the realisation of what that meant washed through her.

“I had a really great time tonight,” He started softly.

“Do you want to walk to the park? We can stop and have gelato?” Her dark eyes were full of nervous hope.

He blinked at her, a little shocked she wanted to continue the date, “I thought you didn’t want dessert?” He teased.

“Maybe the walk will burn off some of these calories and i’ll have space for a little ice-cream.” She scunched her nose.

He knew the gelato was just an excuse, so with a grin that lit up his whole face he grabbed her hand and nodded, “Let’s do it Miss Nightshade.”

Her face glowed with relief and enthusiasm as they tucked their chairs in and exited the restaurant.

“Tell me about your family. How come you weren’t interested in the rich side of life like your sisters?”

“I guess being the youngest kind of made it all seem pointless. I had seen what happened when their vanity became malicious and I didn’t ever want to turn into something I couldn’t recognise. I went to stay with my Aunt Diana through high school. She owned a bird sanctuary. That’s where I interned in my college years.”

“Wow,” He looked down to her, awe evident in his face, “And it didn’t bother you to be so far away from your father and sisters?”

“Honestly, I’m not even sure they noticed when I left.” She shrugged, “It was a long time ago. I really only see them for family functions now.”

“And your aunt?”

“She still has the bird sanctuary, but she mostly works in the background now. My cousins, Bianca and Phoebe, run it full time.”

“Do you miss it? Were you guys close?”

“Much closer than my sisters and I. I do miss them, but I definitely can’t say I miss the sanctuary. Some of those birds were evil.”

Just then a loud squawk came from above them. She scowled at the sky, “I’m talking about you Auretta.”

He tried to hold in a laugh but Zoe stuck out her tongue childishly and they both bent over in laughter.

“Maybe we shouldn’t hurl insults while we’re out in the open.” He managed to gasp.

“Good thing the gelato shop is right there.” She grinned, grabbing his hand and sprinting towards the small, illuminated store at the end of the cobbled street. Her dress shimmered, moved like rays of light. She looked like a star.

“Come on,” She yelled, tugging at his hand harder.

‘Alright, alright,” He snapped out of his admiration and let her lead him into the shop.

“Hi, what can I get you?”

“Want to share?”

“Sure, you choose,” He waved a hand towards the abundance of flavours behind the glass.

“Please can we have one scoop of chocolate, one scoop of vanilla and,” Her brow furrowed as she scanned the tags, “And one scoop of cookie crumble.”

“Why did I think you were a sorbet girl?”

“Sorbet in the summer, anything else for the rest of the year.” She said matter of factly.

He nodded solemnly, “Yes makes sense.”

She swatted his arm, grabbing the cone from the lady with a thank you, “Gods I feel like a teenager again,”

“I know what you mean,” Her excitement was infectious.

“I have to ask,” She swallowed a chunk of cookie crumble, “What on earth were you thinking when you decided to eat a stapler?”

Jason groaned, “Why did Thalia tell you that? She swore she wouldn’t tell anyone and if asked I would say I fell off my bike or something.”

Zoe giggled, “Come on, spill.”

“Okay, first of all I was two,” He sighed, embarrassment heating his cheeks, “And it was shiny, and it made a cool clicking noise, and I wanted to know what it tasted like.”

“I can just picture a little Jason crawling onto the kitchen counter and trying to bite down on a stapler.” She teased.

“Yes well now I have this scar,” He pointed to his upper lip, rolling his eyes.

“Battle scars. Very worthy.”

He shoved at her shoulder lightly and they dissolved into laughter once more.

It was almost midnight by the time he had dropped her off at home and stepped into his apartment. He looked at his phone to see a couple work messages, and something from Hazel– things he could reply to in the morning he decided, tugging off his tie and discarding his clothes as he walked to his room. He was asleep before his head hit the pillow, his phone still glaringly bright and open on the chat with his sister.

You were right. We’re going on a second date.

-----------------------------------------------------

Grover is like some other worldy deity that spews life lessons every time they meet and i am so here for it! Anyway what y’all saying??? How are we feeling?

Tags (if you want to be added to/ taken off the tag list just let me know, all my channels of communication are open):

@lesbian-peanuts

@leydiangelo

@queen-of-demons-and-hell

@msdrpreist

@sparkythunderstorm

@nishlicious-01

@lucyisblue​

[mostweakhamlets]

SummerOmens: Ice Cream

Written for @thetunewillcome‘s summer omens prompt list! Again, I’m doing fileflies, but the husbands make an appearance in this one. 

All of the prompts I’m filling are also on my AO3 in one work! 

--

Dagon knew that it wouldn’t be the smoothest outing of their time on Earth, but she had gotten along fairly well with Aziraphale and Crowley once they had all made peace. As much peace as they all could after thousands of years of torment on Hell’s end and one traumatizing farewell to Crowley. The traitors had promised they had no intention of harming the demons (a relief as Beelzebub now had no power over Crowley who was both physically and supernaturally intimidating to them) and were only interested in a quiet life alone--with exceptions to help Beelzebub and Dagon adjust so long as the pair played fair. There were awkward, tense dinners and afternoons in one another’s gardens before they were all comfortable enough to bury the proverbial hatchet. 

Beelzebub looked at themselves one last time in the mirror. Dagon had convinced them to wear a pair of jeans out rather than their typical full suit. It was far too hot for such an outfit, and even Dagon had toned down her usual look in favor a grey t-shirt and light trousers. 

“It’ll be good for you to get out of the house for a little bit, and the traitors promised that we’ll enjoy where they’re taking us.” 

“I don’t trust them,” Beelzebub said, looking at their floral, short-sleeved button-up. “And it’s called sloth. We’re demons. We’re supposed to embrace and enjoy doing nothing.”  

“It’s called depression, and I know you’re not enjoying laying in your own sweat and filth for hours every day. Probably. Maybe you do.” Beelzebub did like their filth, but Dagon doubted that their recent habits were motivated by enjoyment. “And I don’t trust them, either.” 

“Then why are we going?” 

“Because it’s something to do up here, and the angel wouldn’t let me say no.” 

“You’re a Lord of Hell and you couldn’t say no to a principality?” 

“I’m as much of a Lord as you are a Prince right now.” Dagon regretted snapping as soon as Beelzebub clenched their jaw and looked back to the mirror. “And he’s not just any principality. He’s immune to Hell fire and stopped Armageddon. He must have done something to not let me say no. A mind trick or something.” 

In reality, Aziraphale had just used his pushy charm and insisted again and again that she couldn’t say no, that he and Crowley would plan the trip, and how does Wednesday at noon sound to you, dear? Before Dagon knew it, she had solidified a date and time and Crowley looked amused. 

“Where are we going?” Beelzebub said. 

“Not far from here. If you’re uncomfortable, we can turn around.” 

Beelzebub nodded. “I’m uncomfortable.” 

“I meant if you’re uncomfortable once we get there.” 

“Fine.” 

                                                           ~*~

Aziraphale had rambled for a good 10 minutes about how beautiful the old quarter of the town was, how nostalgic for the 19th century he was in the middle of it, and where all the divine places to dine were. Crowley listened with a sappy expression. Beelzebub tuned him out. Dagon actually took mental notes for future reference, though she didn’t acknowledge him. 

“I hope you don’t mind walking,” Aziraphale said after finishing his one-sided discussion on the cafes. “It’s a lovely day, and I insisted on enjoying the weather.” 

“It’s fine,” Dagon said. “Beelzebub needs the exercise.” 

Beelzebub only responded with a huff. Crowley snorted and smirked until Aziraphale said, “Crowley did as well.” 

By the time they arrived to the Old Town, they had drifted back into silence. Aziraphale and Crowley shared a look and a smile and lead them into the narrow streets of shops, pubs, and cafes. 

                                                         ~*~

Beelzebub would never admit that they enjoyed looking into the windows of shops and seeing the various things on display--odd dolls, old books, and various knick-knacks selling at high-prices. 

“A lot of it is to get tourists to waste their money,” Crowley whispered to them as Aziraphale stood by street musicians, listening with a wide smile and hands clasped together. “Humans are gullible when it comes to this type of stuff.” 

Beelzebub smirked. “So, humans are taking advantage of other humans with useless shopping?”

“Sort of. But it makes the other humans happy. They sort of know they’re being taken advantage of, and they don’t mind it if they can be happy in the moment.” 

The smirk disappeared. “Oh.” 

“But it is still... pretty evil. It’s capitalism at its worst if you ask me.” 

“Did you have anything to do with it?” 

“Yup.” 

                                                          ~*~

Dagon entered a shop with Aziraphale to look at secondhand books. She hadn’t taken to leisurely reading books yet (only gossipy tabloids), but was secretly interested in looking into them. She was used to pouring over paperwork in Hell, and with her new free time, she longed for something to hold in her hands and consume for hours on end while Beelzebub slept or moped. 

“What are looking for?” Aziraphale asked. 

“A book.” 

“Well, we’ve walked into the right shop.” He laughed at his own joke, perhaps one he would have told to his own customers if he had actually enjoyed their presence. “What do you want to read about is what I’m asking.” 

“What are books about?” 

Aziraphale lifted a hand to his chest and sighed. “Anything you can imagine.”

“Then find me something about death.” 

Aziraphale’s smile became tight, but then relaxed into something a little ornery. “Luckily, humans can be just as morbid as demons. I think something historical would suit you. How do you feel about tyrannical rulers?” 

“I know most of them.” 

“Let’s see what they have, then.” 

                                                          ~*~

Aziraphale grabbed Crowley’s hand as they strolled down the street. “What do you say to a treat?” 

Crowley followed his gaze to an ice cream parlor a few shops down from where they currently stood. He turned around. 

“Do you two know what ice cream is?” 

Dagon and Beelzebub shook their heads. Aziraphale’s jaw dropped. 

It sounded appalling to Beelzebub. Cream that had been turned to ice? They didn't like the sound of that. And what was its purpose? 

“We have to now, dear. The poor things have never had it. Think of the disservice we’d be doing to them if we didn’t--”

“We can get ice cream, angel! No one said ‘no.’“ 

Crowley turned back to the confused demons. “Do you want to try it?” 

Dagon and Beelzebub looked at each other. Beelzebub shrugged. They hadn’t been asked about they wanted to do in a long time. They were both used to following and giving orders.  

“What’s it like?” Dagon said. 

“Uh... it’s creamy and, uh, ice-y. It’s like soft, frozen, sugary milk. You can get it in different flavors.” 

“Is there a pasta flavor?” Beelzebub asked. They were only familiar with pasta. 

“No. You can usually get chocolate or vanilla. Sometimes there’s little things in it like sweets.” 

“We’ll help you decide,” Aziraphale said. 

And no one had offered to help them with anything before, so Beelzebub and Dagon stared at the angel. It was more autonomy and assistance that they had had in their entire existence because, despite willingly revolting against Heaven and their strict regiment, they had lived by rules and high expectations sculpted by fear and Her writings. 

They finally nodded together, unfamiliar with the feeling they both had in their chests and stomachs. 

Aziraphale ended up suggesting they start with vanilla, and they were handed two shallow cups with two scoops in each. They sat together at a patio table outside the shop where the sun could irritatingly beam in their eyes and the wind could whip their hair around. But as soon as they were settled and after Beelzebub fixed their hair for the third time, the wind died and clouds slid over the glaring sun. 

Dagon scooped a small bite on her spoon. Beelzebub followed suit and put it in their mouth. 

It was as Crowley had described it--soft, frozen, sugary milk. But it was lovely. It was creamy and rich and the perfect balance of sweet and bland. Beelzebub wondered what the other flavors tasted like, if they were equally sweet and had the same texture. They wondered what the cone that Aziraphale had tasted like. 

They wanted to experiment with the sweets in the little jars inside the parlor tasted like when combined with the vanilla and the other flavors. The imagined a crunch to it if they added chocolate chips or a stickiness to it if they had chocolate sauce. 

Their tongue was cold and the sugar rested on the very back of it, encouraging them to eat more to remind of the fresh flavor. Their lips were sticky, and they licked the corners of their mouth to swipe what they had missed. 

“Ow.” 

Dagon sat her spoon down and pressed her hand to her forehead. Her eyes were squeezed together in pain. Beelzebub touched her shoulder, forgetting about the frozen treat they had wanted a love affair with. 

“It’ll pass,” Crowley said, smiling as he took another spoonful. 

Beelzebub glared. They knew the whole trip was a ploy. If they could, they would have set the entire table ablaze with Hell fire. They would sent a swarm of flies out. They would have called on other demons to pull Crowley and Aziraphale down to the deepest pit they had in Hell. 

But then Dagon sat up seconds later, fine. “What was that?” 

“It’s called a brain freeze,” Aziraphale said. “It happens if you eat something too cold too fast. It’s nothing harmful. Just annoying.” 

Dagon pushed her ice cream away. “I think I’ll pass on this in the future.” 

Aziraphale’s bottom lip stuck out. “I’m so sorry, dear. We should have warned you. It took us by surprise the first time it happened to us.” 

Beelzebub made sure to take small, slow bites of their ice cream until it was gone and when they reached for Dagon’s half-melted, abandoned cup, no one said anything. 

[cards-onthetable]

the strangest autumn

Note: This fluffy little Joble oneshot is meant to be read in the context of @ontherockswithsalt‘s penthouse universe. the names Cavatappi (Cav) and Tripoline (Trip) are hypothetical pasta placeholders in this hypothetical future scenario in which everything is hypothetical and nothing is real okay? Okay.

***

“Ughhh, when are we gonna be there?”

In the passenger seat, Noble suppresses a laugh at our five-year-old’s dramatic groan, leaving me to glance at Cav’s eyes in the rear view mirror and answer him. “We were in the car a lot longer yesterday and you didn’t complain once.”

“You said this was gonna be short!” He counters.

“It is! We’re like… ten minutes away.”

“Ten minutes is looooong!”

“Look out the window and tell us when you see the pumpkin signs,” Noble suggests. “That means we’re really close.”

“This thing better be worth the hype,” I mutter, low so the boys can't hear.

“It’ll be great once we actually—“

A loud wail from our three-year-old’s car seat cuts him off. “Hey, leave your brother alone,” I warn. 

“Every trip we take, you’re all negative about it until we get there and you have a great time,” Noble tells me. “Just relax and have fun, okay?”

“Not every trip we take--”

“Yeah, pretty much. You’re always too worried about having everything be perfect. But it doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to be us.” His arm nudges mine on the center console. “The boys will have fun, we’ll have fun, we’ll be exhausted by the time we get home, it’s all part of the experience.”

“Well the experience of everything changing at the last minute is not my favorite.”

“Oh so you’d rather hang out with Ben and Scott than be alone with your own husband—“ he teases.

The mention of our friends catches Cav’s attention and he excitedly pipes up, “Is Cleo gonna be there?”

“Nice work,” I tell Noble as he explains again, “No buddy, remember? Cleo is sick so she had to stay home.”

I think that’s what has me on edge this weekend. Scott’s the one who did the heavy lifting as far as planning this little weekend getaway. He and Ben brought their daughter Cleo to this fall festival last year, back when Noble and I were just starting the process to become foster parents, and I’m pretty sure this damn trip was like, their number one priority the second Cav and Trip moved in with Noble and me. Seriously, Scott booked the Airbnb back in March.

So I couldn’t help but feel a little anxious about having to suddenly do all my own research when Scott and Ben bowed out because of Cleo’s strep throat. I was all ready to postpone until next weekend, or maybe cancel altogether. But they, and Noble, insisted we stick to our plans. They’re even still covering their half of the cabin. So I didn’t have much choice.

“I see the pumpkin sign!” Cav shouts a few minutes later, and sure enough a giant, bright orange wooden pumpkin alerts us that the Parker Farm Fall Festival is one mile ahead.

“Are you excited?” I ask, an appropriate amount of conjured enthusiasm in my voice.

Both boys shout proof back at me.

“Trip, are you gonna pick out a pumpkin?” Cav says. “Your very own pumpkin?”

“I want a pumpkin!” Trip replies.

“Well guess what, Papa said we both get to pick out a pumpkin!”

Cav’s habit of speaking to his little brother like that—like Trip is still a little baby who doesn’t understand anything that’s going on, like it’s Cav’s job to explain it—usually gets on my nerves but I manage to ignore it as I roll past bored teenage attendants who direct me to the next open spot in the field full of parked cars.

“We’re here!” Noble announces. “Be careful boys, we’re in a parking lot…”

Stepping out into the crisp morning air, a deep cleansing breath helps to ease that lingering tension in my gut. In my frantic, last minute research of this fall festival, I read about all the events and activities to make a mental list of everything I thought we’d all enjoy. But I know Noble’s right, I need to relax and let the day unfold organically.

It’s not about checking boxes and rushing from place to place to cover every activity that caught my eye. Hell, Cav and Trip would probably be thrilled to spend the entire damn day on the moonbounces. It’ll be a fun, memorable weekend even if we don’t make it to every single attraction.

“Is there snacks here? Can we get popcorn?” Cav chatters across the parking lot. “Can we get a pumpkin that weighs a million pounds? Are we gonna see the inside? The slimy stuff…?”

“Snacks, yes. Popcorn, we’ll see. Million pound pumpkin, only if Papa carries it to the car,” I reply.

“Nuh-uh,” Noble tells him. “I’m the brains of this operation. Daddy’s the brawn.”

“What’s brawn?”

“Brawn means big, strong muscles.”

“I have big strong muscles!” Cav brings his fists up in a flex, nearly whacking the woman in front of us in line. “I’m the brawn.”

“Hey, son, watch out for other people,” Noble warns.

“Are you going to carry a million pound pumpkin to the car?” I ask Cav.

“I carry the pumpkin!” Trip insists.

“You’ll both get to carry a pumpkin.”

“Next in line?”

Noble and I usher the boys to the painted plywood booth. “Two adults and two kids,” Noble says.

“He’s three, is he free?” I wonder, swinging Trip up onto my hip.

“Sorry, just two and under. Do you want one-day admission or weekend passes? That includes the hot air balloon launch tomorrow.”

“We’ll do the whole weekend.”

While Noble pays, I manage to get green paper wristbands onto both boys and myself. Then we emerge from the gateway into the wide, dead grass expanse of the pumpkin patch.

“Whoa it’s a—!”

Cav is already barreling forward as I turn to Noble, his face a reflection of my own caught somewhere between amusement and shock. “Did he just—?”

“What did you say, Cav?” I call.

“It’s a bitch! Dad! Take a picture!”

“It’s a witch,” I insist. “A witch is… a magical woman. Bitch is not a nice word. We don’t ever say that, okay?”

I’m sure he’s not listening to me as he poses next to the wooden board painted with a cartoon witch, cat, and frog with open ovals where their faces should be. “No buddy, you have to go behind it and put your face in the hole…” I try to explain.

“Cav, Cav. Come here.” Noble tugs him by the arm and they disappear around the back of the photo prop with Trip. A second later their heads appear in the face holes and I snap a couple of quick pictures.

“I wanna see!” Trip shouts, while behind him Cav takes off in some other direction. Noble catches my eye with a happy, goofball smirk before chasing after him and I can’t help the little laugh that escapes me.

The kids’ enthusiasm is contagious and Noble and I just follow their lead. Within the first hour we hit up a moonbounce, climb on a display tractor and a huge pile of hay bales, take a detour to the line of port-o-potties, and convince the boys to ride down the giant homemade hill slides on our laps. And they don’t let us pass any of those painted photo-op boards without stopping for more pictures.

It’s been hard, parenting Cav and Trip, in ways we didn’t quite expect. Adding two preschoolers to our family certainly took some adjustment but we were pretty well prepared for those challenges, at least as much as first-time parents can be. The part that nobody warned us about was the inevitable drama of foster care — the constant scrutiny, the arbitrary demands, the frustration of sharing kids who feel like ours with another parent whose questionable decisions drag them, and us, down all kinds of unpredictable roads.

But here, away from the relentless bustle of the city, all that feels far away — almost like a whole different life. Here it’s just us, a normal family having normal fun, nobody looking over our shoulders. Standing next to my husband, who looks all casual and innocent in jeans and a thick, dark orange cardigan like he doesn’t know what he does to me. Watching our kids squeal in delight, free and uncontained and totally fascinated by the open space and the fresh air and the pit filled with dried corn kernels that will surely find their way back to our house like a thousand unwanted souvenirs.

No obligations, no real agenda — a strange feeling, entirely unfamiliar. Just this warm, overwhelming affection blooming in my chest against the chilly air as our younger son clambers back to us from across the corn kernel sandbox.

“Daddy! I wanna ride the train!” Trip announces, pointing at the tractor dragging a chain of little orange cars behind it.

I agree easily. “Alright, let’s go ride the train. Cav!”

“No, not the train!” Cav whines. “I want to do the big one with the big tractor where there’s ghosts!”

“We’ll do that too, the big hayride. After this, though, come on.”

Noble turns to me a moment later, a knowing grin on his face as the boys rumble away on the train. “Having fun yet?”

“I suppose,” I offer my easy answer as I try for another picture of the train.

His teasing elbow digs into my side. “Give me a break, you love this shit.”

“This? Having fun with them? Sure. But the port-o-potty situation here...”

He cracks up, throwing his head back with that whole-body laugh of his that never fails to charm me. “Okay, god, I’ll handle the next bathroom break. But come on. This is amazing.”

“It is,” I acquiesce with a chuckle. “Oh, but look. We’ve got to make them keep their heads up in those picture boards. Every single one, they’re looking down at themselves.”

Flipping through my phone, he sees what I’m talking about — all these pictures of the tops of the boys’ heads sticking through face holes as they look down at their painted corn cob or scarecrow or superhero bodies.

“It’s a difficult concept, clearly,” Noble laughs. “And hey, if my choices are looking up at you or looking down at my off-brand Superman six-pack, I’d probably choose the six-pack too.”

“I don’t need anyone to paint me fake abs. I’ve got the real thing.” I smack my hand against my stomach for emphasis, a quiet thump over my zipped hoodie. “Which you could too if you cut down on the pancakes and bacon—”

“Hey, okay, some ass-flavored green smoothie might be good enough for you in the morning but I’m not sending my kids to school without a real breakfast.”

“Yes, right, you’re father of the year,” I tease. “With the dad-bod to go with it.”

“Hey!” He drops his shoulder and checks me sideways, knocking me off balance a couple of steps until I grab his arm to steady myself. “Not even close. And like, I didn’t hear you complaining yesterday morning…”

“This is a family place, dude,” I warn.

“Where’d you even learn the term dad-bod?” He scoffs. “Like you’re all young and hip or something. Old man.”

I straighten my shoulders set my narrowed gaze on him. “Old man? That’s not what you were saying yesterday morning—”

“Look who’s back!” Noble interrupts loudly as the train rolls to a stop in front of us. “Did you have fun, guys?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Cav shrugs like he’s too cool for this toddler train business. But the smile he’s failing to hide gives him away.

“Papa, I want popcorn!” Trip shouts.

“Yeah, popcorn!”

“Okay, let’s go find popcorn,” Noble agrees. As soon as he sets Trip down he’s running off with his brother, leaving the two of us to scramble quickly behind.

Our pace doesn’t seem to slow down for the rest of the day as Noble and I chase the boys around the property — moonbounces again, the petting zoo, a near-meltdown from Trip at the face painting booth, the big hayride that Cav insists on even though the sound effects that come from the bedsheet ghosts in the trees along the route freak him out. But the boys are still going strong and it’s my and Noble’s own exhaustion that finally makes us herd them to the expansive pile of choose-your-own pumpkins so we can accomplish that task and head back to the cabin for the night.

“There’s a million pumpkins!” Cav exclaims, his brown eyes wide in the waning fall sunlight. “I’m gonna get the biggest one.”

“Better get to work then, dude,” Noble tells him. “Climb on up there, go ahead.”

While Cav navigates his way to the middle of the pumpkin pile, Trip doesn’t make it past the first pumpkins he sees. “I want this one!” He shouts every time he tries to pick up a nice average-sized squash before it proves too heavy for him and he moves on to another one. I trail behind him, paying no attention to Noble and Cav climbing away in search of the biggest pumpkin they can find — which turns out to be a mistake.

“Daddy! Dad, me and Papa found the best pumpkin! It’s huuuuge!”

It takes me a second to follow Cav’s voice and then I scoop up Trip around his middle, tearing him away from his latest pumpkin of choice to reach his brother in the middle of the pile.

Noble stands on one foot with the other propped on their prize like he’s conquered it. “Look, Daddy, Cav found the one.”

“Oh he did, huh?” I pass Trip to Noble and circle to evaluate the pumpkin from all angles. “That’s a really big pumpkin, bud. I don’t know if we can even get it out of this pile to buy it.”

“Yes we can!” Cav insists. “I’ll help—” he squats, braced against nearby pumpkins, and tries to grip but his little arms barely reach halfway around this beast. He grunts and carries on with genuine effort but after an amusing moment he gives up with a sigh. “I think you gotta get it, Dad.”

“Cav, buddy, I don’t think…”

“Please?” He whines. “I want this one!”

“He wants this one!” Noble echoes.

“Then you pick it up,” I mutter at him under my breath.

Noble bounces Trip in the air and catches him. “My hands are full. It’s all you, boss.”

My dumbass husband — of course he’s over here acting like we can totally bring this thing home, he can’t say no to these kids. And I’m left to bring everyone back down to earth.

“It’s just too big—”

“Just use your muscles, Dad!” Cav insists, and dammit, I find myself humoring him too.

“Oh, geez. Alright, I’ll try. Watch out.”

Crouching, I act like I’m finding a good grip. But this thing must weigh sixty or seventy pounds, and with other pumpkins piled around it there’s no easy way for me to heave it out of here.

“I’m sorry, Cav,” I announce. “You’re going to have to choose another one. Something normal sized.”

“No, this one!”

“We can’t—”

“Please? Papa said!”

“Papa said we’d ask Daddy, and Daddy says no,” Noble interjects.

God, except for Trip losing it a little at the feeling of a paintbrush on his face — a disaster that was easily averted — we’ve had such a good day. But now Cav is nearing tantrum territory and I’m not sure anything short of this impossible pumpkin will make him happy.

I reach over and take Trip from Noble. “This is your mess,” I tell him over Cav’s indignant whining. “Come on Trip, we’ll go find you a little pumpkin.”

By now Cav has plopped his butt on a nearby pumpkin, arms crossed, facing away from us so we can’t see his classic grumpy pout. I let Trip loose with a bunch of other toddlers at an outer pile of smaller pumpkins, keeping one eye on him and one on Noble as he crouches next to Cav. Before long they get up and start perusing again. Cav still doesn’t look thrilled, but at least he seems to be moving on.

Trip is still jumping happily from small pumpkin to small pumpkin when Cav and Noble find us, a nice, reasonable, medium-sized pumpkin in Noble’s arms. “We’ve reached an agreement,” he announces. “Instead of one giant pumpkin — one medium pumpkin and one small pumpkin.”

“Yeah because medium plus small is like a big one,” Cav explains.

“Oh-kay,” I agree. “Sounds like a plan. Go ahead and pick a little one so we can go back to the cabin and watch a movie before bed.”

“Trip, you gotta go get your medium pumpkin so you have a medium one and a small one,” I hear Cav say.

“I think Trip is happy with his little one,” Noble calls before I can ask him exactly how many pumpkins we’ll be buying today.

“Couldn’t stick to the plan, could you?” I muse.

Balancing Cav’s pumpkin on one hip, he finds my hand with his free one and squeezes. “Hey, okay, the kid’s hardly seen a real pumpkin before, much less carved one—”

“I know, I know. I’m glad they have you around to make sure they get those experiences. We just need to, you know, be a little realistic.”

“And I’m glad we’ve got you to be realistic for us,” he murmurs. “Because fuck, I was not excited about carrying that beast home up three flights of stairs—”

“Shut up, you would’ve made me do it anyway,” I scoff.

“I would’ve… helped…”

“Liar.”

“I would have!” He insists.

“You’re a dirty liar,” I shoot back.

“I don’t know about liar, but that dirty part—”

“Oh god,” I cackle, leaning into him before I take the pumpkin he’s been holding. “Keep it in your pants, huh? And go help your son. That pumpkin’s about to knock him over.”

***

“Are they down?”

“Didn’t wake up at all,” Noble assures me. “Perfect transfers. I’m magical. Like a witch.”

“Oh good. Here you go.” I push a drink towards him across the counter and he takes it as he returns to the couch to turn off the Disney movie that the boys just fell asleep watching.

“This is okay,” he muses.

“Just okay? Is it not strong enough?” I take another inquisitorial sip of my own margarita.

“No, no, it’s pretty good. It’s just not, like, Ben’s Paloma good.”

I let out an incredulous laugh as I realize he’s just teasing. “Oh yeah? So you wish Ben and Scott hadn’t bailed, hmm?”

“It’d be fun if they were here,” he says. “We could play poker and I’d have some actual competition—”

“Oh!” I call out, a hand coming up to my chest like he’s wounded me. “They make better drinks, they play better cards…”

“They’d’ve let us bring home that huge pumpkin,” Noble adds.

“You’re as bad as the kids,” I tell him.

“It was an awesome pumpkin!”

“Well you know what—” I finish straightening up the small kitchen and grab my drink to join him. “I’m glad they’re not here.”

“That so?”

“Mhmm. Because if they were here, and we were playing poker and trying to carve some huge-ass pumpkin, then we’d be pretty busy.”

“Busy?” He stretches back against the couch cushions, propping one arm across the top as his gaze wanders openly down my grey t-shirt.

“Busy,” I repeat. “Too busy for this—”

Leaving my drink on the rustic end table, I smoothly drop to his lap, my knees settling on either side. With my hands free I’m quickly all over him, fingers turning his head up to meet my lips while my opposite palm slides down between us.

“Mmm, god, I’m never too busy for this.”

I shut him up with a hard, insistent kiss. He wastes no time reaching under my t-shirt, his hands a cold contrast against my skin after holding his icy glass, pushing the fabric up my torso until I duck out of it. As soon as I do, he steals the leverage I have over him and swoops me sideways, following quickly on top of me where I land on my back. My fists are in his hair, squeezing hard so I don’t make too much noise as he works biting kisses down to my shoulder.

Just as his touch trails lower, a suspicious noise from down the hallway stops us both short.

“I thought you said they were asl—”

“They were,” he insists. “Shh.”

Listening again, we’re met with only silence.

“Must've been the wind,” I conclude.

He pushes his weight off of me, sitting up on his knees. “Still. Does the bedroom door lock…?”

“I didn’t notice.”

“Let’s hope.”

I reach a hand up and he grabs my wrist, heaving me up off the couch. “What if it doesn’t?” I wonder.

“Well then.” He slides a hand into the waistband of my gym shorts, where he snaps the elastic against my skin. “I guess you’ll just have to stay quiet, won’t you?”

[chopper-witch]

Honey, Where is My Super Suit one-shot series: Loki

Pairing: Loki x reader (gender neutral)

Warnings: some angst, poor Loki’s dinner gets ruined, implied smut

Word count: 2,927

Summary: Loki has your special dinner all planned out and is more than a little upset when it ends up disturbed.

____

“When you said you were glad we finally got to have dinner together because you set up something special I expected… I’m not sure. But not this!” You exclaim, gesturing towards the set up. 

Three weeks ago was your and Loki’s three year anniversary but any plans that may have been were canceled by a last-minute mission you were needed on that started three days before your anniversary and ended eight days after. 

But that was a pattern you and Loki were accustomed to: plans were never guaranteed. Whether it was you being whisked away due to an emergency mission or him being called in due to an 084 they needed help with, it became apart of your life. 

Or if plans weren’t interrupted by last-minute calls, then they were interrupted by surprise visits from friends and co-workers who love to just show up and don’t need a key to get inside, like Natasha or Tony. No matter what security (or spells) you two installed, they always find their way in. 

So tonight you were assured by Fury, Coulson, and several others up the chain of command that you would not be needed tonight and if there were any issues with 084s they would handle it the way they did before the Asgardians landed on Earth.

Which is how you walked back into your apartment after Loki telling you to stay out until 7 PM to this scene. 

Candles lit nearly everywhere: on the table by the couch, on the kitchen counter, and a few larger ones on the tiny table you wedge near the window. An obscene amount of food, all things Loki has called his specialties ever since he learned how to cook down here on Earth: alfredo bowtie pasta, panelle with goat cheese and salsa rustica, arancini, saltimbocca, and the most delicious chocolate cake you have ever had (Loki became partial it Italian food and you still have yet to figure out why). And the best part, of course, is Loki, standing nervously by the table. 

“So is it alright?”

Your eyes flit back to him in his perfectly tailored all black suit. “It’s perfect, Loki.”

“Well then stop staring at it and come enjoy it.”

“So pushy.” 

But you comply, dropping your bag beside the door and walking over to your absolutely perfect boyfriend. 

“Alright,” you smile, grabbing the lapels of his suit, “what is first of the menu chef.” 

Loki releases a small chuckle. “First is a kiss.” 

He presses his lips to yours lightly, barely even touching your lips fully with his chaste kiss. Nonetheless the softness of his lips never fails to make you smile, so any kiss is a good kiss with him.

“And now, it’s whatever you’d like to start with.” 

You bite you lip. Everything he makes always ends up perfect somehow. “How about a little of everything?” 

“Anything for you.” 

But Loki, being the true (yet suspiciously well-behaved) gentleman he is, pulls your chair for you at the tiny table wedge near the window. It’s sweet so you comply, normally not keen on letting him to things for you. 

Once everything is settled the two of you can legitimately talk. Your plate is full of far too much food and the wine Loki got is definitely something special. Him being so sweet is always lovely, so you don’t mind.

You take a sip of the red wine. It’s surprisingly sweet on your tongue and amazing. 

“Who woulda thought you’d fall in love with your baby sitter?” You muse.

Loki leans back in his chair, peering over to you. “I believe you were the one who said not to call you a baby sitter.”

“True,” you shrug, “but that is basically what I was while they figured out what to do with you.” You shrug and swirl the glass of wine around. “Anything interesting happen besides you cooking earlier? I have a hard time believing you didn’t use your magic.” 

“Oh, I didn’t. What did end up happening is -” 

A long, light familiar buzz emanates from your watch. Mission alert. 

10 second pause. “And then I couldn’t find where you kept the larger things pans.”

Three short but equally light vibrations. Meet at curb of current location. 

15 second pause. “- going to the store to get the wine I want to cook with. That took far too lo-” 

Two short vibrations followed by one equal to both combined. 25 minutes. 

5 second pause. “- is how the panelle ended up so perfect.” 

Three heartbeat-like vibrations. Sam? 

You are dead last on Sam’s list of mission partners meaning it really is important if you are being called in. Literally every single Avenger followed by six other agents come before you. 

“Hey, love,” you say, placing your glass of wine down on the table, “I’m sorry to interrupt your story, but I really need to pee.” 

Though the excuse is poor and weird and horribly said, you stand, hoping he will take it.

The door clicks shut behind you, your hands pressing the lock simultaneously so it doesn’t sound off after the door closes. You really do need to pee; your main objective, however, is to get your second suit that’s hidden in the wall for emergencies like this. Also to find the proper words to apologize to Loki. But it’s just another dinner ruined after all. Just like every single one so far over the past few months. 

After doing your business (and washing your hands extra loudly to keep Loki distracted from thinking something suspicious) you pull on the lever along the vent on the ground. The panel slides open, the section of the wall well hidden due to it being tiled. 

It’s empty. No pants, no shirt, no jacket, no boots, no weaponry. Not even the pepper spray is in there. 

Your hands feel around inside. Maybe things are just hidden in the shadows? 

No. 

It’s entirely empty.

Loki.

“You alright love?” 

You pull open the door, a sickly sweet smile on your face. Loki is leaning casually against the end of your bed frame, hands curled around the wood. He has that stupid satisfied smirk on his face that you’ve gladly kicked off more than once. 

“Loki, where did you put my suit?” You ask through clenched teeth. 

“I don’t know what you speak of?” He shrugs. 

“Honey, dear, love, where is my suit? There is an emergency situation and Sam will be at the curb in 20 minutes.” 

“I think the real emergency here is the danger you put our dinner in.” 

“Loki, this isn’t a joke!” Your voice is beginning to raise. 

“You promised me a night off.” Loki pushes himself forward, taking the two steps it takes to get to you. “Fury and Coulson assured you of a night off. The only joke here is thinking I would let you go.” He rests his right hand along your jaw, thumb gently tracing along your cheek. 

“Loki where did you put it? And how do you even know about it?”

“You are not as sneaky as you believe.” He grins.

“Where is it?” 

“That is not important.” 

“Not important?” You shove him back. “Loki there is an emergency somewhere that they called me as Sam’s partner. That’s really fucking important.” 

“Nothing is as important as this dinner.” His voice is still tempered, calm. 

And it is utterly infuriating. 

“We can have thousands of dinners Loki.” You sigh, closing your eyes a moment to try and calm your voice.“If I don’t go help people down there, they may never have any more. Where is my goddamn suit?” 

“Finish our dinner and I’ll tell you.” 

“I don’t have that kind of time.” You shake your head at him. Your phone vibrates twice on the counter. “And look, there is more of the mission information. Goddamnit Loki this is important!” It comes out more like a whine than a shout, your anger reaching a breaking point at his complete and utter calm.

“I am more important than some foolish mission that will turn upside down like it always does!” He huffs. “I am your significant other and this is the first time we are finally getting a night together without interruptions.” 

“They wouldn’t call me if it wasn’t absolutely necessary.” Your posture relaxes and you walk a bit closer to him. Your right hand reaches to rest at the nape of his neck, your left resting gently on his chest. “You are one of the most important people in the world to me, but helping those who need it is important as well. We will get a night off at some point, I promise.” You look down before releasing him reluctantly, turning to grab your phone. 

He is stoic in his spot half way between the bed at the bathroom door, forcing you to push past him as you dial Sam. 

Loki chooses not to try and convince you to stay and leans back against the bed, listening to your voice as it trails off. 

“Hey, any chance you have my suit or an extra one that might fit me? Oh awesome, thanks Sam. That reminds me...” 

His hands squeeze the bed frame; the wood cracks beneath his grip and is immediately iced over. 

—

One week and a far too long debrief later, Sam is parked back in front of your apartment complex. You look up at the building against the night sky, happy to be home, nervous about what is to come. 

“How mad do you think he is?” You quietly ask. 

Sam laughs. “Your paycheck for the next year is gonna be spent on making it up to that drama king up there. Good luck.” 

“It’s gonna take more than luck for me to survive whatever is waiting for me up there. Til next time bird brains.” 

“Nuh uh, you know I only let one person call me that and even then...” 

“Yeah, whatever. Night!” 

-

With a shaky exhale you unlock your apartment door. You know Loki is still there, he never stays at the place they set up for him in the compound even when you both fight. 

“Loki?” You call out. 

There’s no response. 

On the table of your living room is a tipped vase of your favorite flowers, the water long evaporated. The kitchen is almost entirely clean of any indication the two of you were supposed to have a romantic evening or any sort of evening at all save the now re-corked bottle of wine on the center of the counter. 

“Loki?” You call out again, dropping your tactical bag to the bench beside the door. “I know you’re here. I’m sorry.” 

The door of your bedroom opens, the sound loud compared to the relative silence of the rest of your apartment. Loki creeps quietly through the short hallway. He comes into the light looking arguably better, and worse, than you. And it isn’t like he hasn’t be taking care of himself; he rather looks like he’s been mentally beating himself up over your fight. Eyes slightly sunken, hair a little more messy than normal and an actual sweatshirt instead of just a zip-up hoodie like he normally wear if he is going to be in relaxed clothing.

“I’m so sorry for ruining our night,” you begin to apologize, moving forward towards him. “Everything was set up so nicely too, you even made dinner, like a full five course meal. I didn’t want to go but... I had to. I really did need to go.” 

Loki had been making his way towards you as you spoke. His head tilts down once he reaches you, hands pulling up into his sweatshirt to make sweater paws, a nervous habit of his. He quickly removes the fabric from his hands. It’s just you, he reminds himself. 

“I’m sorry for trying to make you try to choose between your job and me.” Loki lifts up his hands so his palms face you. You smile, threading your fingers through his, the feeling of his skin against yours a nice change of pace from the craziness of this past week. “I just spent so long trying to make it perfect since we finally had a night without any distractions. I even went out of my way to get a ring so I could do it the way you mortals in this part of the world do it…” he trails off, looking up with eyes widening as realization of his admission hits him. 

You drop your head down, resting the top on his chest. “You were going to propose. That’s why, ah…” You tilt your head back and smile. “That’s why not only did you actually legitimately cook for once without magic but you were also legitimately upset. Well… I’m free now.”

Loki frowns. “Aren’t proposals supposed to be romantic and special?”

You shake your head. “I’m an agent that works for an organization that ranges from completely covert operations to straight up public as hell. Special I appreciate. Romantic is sort of no longer in my vocabulary. Where’s the ring?”

“Why would I tell you?”

“Where’s the ring?”

Loki sighs, releasing his right hand and conjuring a small velvet green box in a flash of green. Your fingers unthread from his left, allowing you to pluck the box from his hand and open it. Inside sits a thin gold band complete with an inset of three gems: one emerald in the center, larger than the two diamonds on the outside of it. You pick it up from the box. It’s simple and pretty and definitely going to need to go on a necklace or be left behind for field missions. Regardless, you slide it onto your left ring finger and toss the box back to Loki who catches it, but barely.

You shrug. “There, all done.” 

“Is that you saying yes?” 

“That’s me saying yes. I hope you got yourself a matching one because we are both very officially off the market, not just me. Oh! I got you something while I was gone to make up for missing our dinner...” you dig around in your jacket, fishing inside both pockets until you find the paper. “Here we go.” 

Loki peers at skeptically as he grabs it. It’s folded and worn due to it being stuck in there for a good three days and definitely suspicious. 

“You read that, I’m going to eat something. Sam has horrible taste and I was stuck with them for a whole damn week.” 

Loki sits down on the couch as you walk over to the kitchen. A giant perk of Loki’s magic is how he extends the expiration date of food so everything he cooked from dinner last week is still perfectly preserved and just needs to be warmed up. You grab out the container full of his signature Alfredo bowtie pasta and reach for a fork in the drawer beside the fridge, closing both with ease. Post-mission flexibility is a real thing. 

You hop up onto the counter facing the couch and pry open the container. The smell wafts up to you. Butter, milk, cheese and gooey goodness is so much better than Sam’s combo of fast-food and healthy breakfast cereals. Your eyes flutter shut to take a moment just to appreciate how much better your fiancé’s cooking is compared to whatever Sam tried to poison you with. 

“Is this what I think it is?” Loki asks. 

“Well...” you begin, taking a forkful of pasta. “I have no idea what you think it is. If you think it’s an official document providing both of us three months leave then yes, it’s what you think it is.” 

“Is this really going to do anything? They promised you a night off and we saw how that went.” 

“That isn’t a ‘we promise we will leave you alone’ text,” you explain through your bite of pasta, “that’s a ‘we cannot contact you even if the world is going to end’ document. For three months. So whatever you want to do we can do for three months.” 

Loki tosses the paper onto the coffee table and stands. You watch as he walks towards you, still mostly focused on eating. No more bird food. It’s as he nears the counter do you finally notice his sparkling predatory gaze - the one he uses when he has an idea that is likely not the best but always ends up being interesting nonetheless. 

His arm wraps around your waist and tugs you to the edge of the counter, eyes staring lustfully down at you.

“Three months, huh?” 

“Plenty of time to elope. We could hop on a plane tonight if you’d like.” 

He grabs the container of pasta and places it beside you. “Or a three month vacation of the world, maybe even the galaxy. Explore it all.” Loki presses a soft kiss to your neck just below your left ear. 

You shudder slightly. “I don’t know about the galaxy, but the world does sound nice.” 

“The world it is then,” he murmurs against your lips. “But I think I want take some time re-exploring you tonight.” 

His lips finally capture yours in a deep, slow kiss. He grabs your arms with his right hand, pushing the wrists together and slowly pulling them up over your head. His left hand remains on your waist, squeezing it hard as the kiss intensifies. 

If this is how every ruined proposal is going to end, maybe you’ll keep ruining them. 

[sunyoonandstars]

BTS Reaction 12: They propose to you || HYUNG LINE

So, this incredibly sweet, fluffy and almost cringe-worthy request, unfortunately, took me a while to get to. 🙃 Nonetheless, I hope you’ll enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it. ☺️💖

A/N: Since these turned out to be a little longer, I split them up into Hyung Line and Maknae Line again. The Maknae Line Edition will follow shortly. 

FLUFF, just a whole lot of FLUFF

Word Count 4.710

1. Kim Seokjin / Jin

Tonight was supposed to be special, Jin had announced when he called to ask you to put on something nice before he arrived to pick you up. Naturally, you assumed he was merely referencing the restaurant he had chosen for tonight's date. He had made the reservation months ahead, as he let you know in the car. 

"It's one of Seoul's most excellent restaurants. They're especially famous for their masterly truffle pasta and their divine collection of the finest desserts."

Now that you finished the first two courses, you can undoubtedly agree. 

"This pasta was the best I ever head, Jinnie. Thank you for bringing me here. Tonight is just perfect," you sigh as your gaze wanders, getting lost in the marvelous view of Seoul's glittering nightlife a good fifty stories beneath your feet. 

"I'm glad you think so," Jin says, his hand reaching out across the table to hold yours. "I got us a window seat because I know how much you love this view."

"I do. Thank you so much, Jin. I don't even know what to say." You look over at him, smiling fondly, your glance being met with nothing but affection. "You always put so much thought into our little getaways from reality. You have no idea how much that means to me. Spending time with you like this, just the two of us, unbothered by your hectic lifestyle and my responsibilities. It's as if time stands still when I'm with you. Everything is better when you're around. Have I ever told you that?" 

"Yes, you have," he smiles, his grip on your hand getting a little stronger, reassuring. “On more occasion than one. And I feel the same, y/n. I love you and every single second I get to spend with you. That's why I'm always trying to make the most of our time together. Besides, you deserve nothing but the best." 

"Stop it, or I'm gonna cry," you whisper, only half joking. 

Right that second, the waiter arrives to present each of you with an exceptionally artistic and mouthwatering dessert in the form of a small strawberry mousse cake, sprinkled with edible flowers and confectioners sugar and completed by an arrangement of incredibly delicate chocolate ornaments. 

"Wow," you gasp. "This looks amazing. I love strawberries and chocolate. They're my favorite foods! How did they know?" 

"I may have tipped them off," Seokjin winks at you, now letting go of your hand to grab a silver fork. "But I'd treat this masterpiece with caution if I were you. Really savor it. One tiny little bite at a time."

"Of course I will," you shake your head with feigned indignation. "I do have some self-control, after all. And when have I ever not known how to appreciate the fine things in life?"

"Just saying," Jin shrugs his broad shoulders, eying you intently as you take the first forkful of the stunningly light strawberry mousse. 

"This is magic," you burst out after you have tasted another bite. "It feels like I'm eating a strawberry cloud. How is it so light and subtle and –" You pause. "What is this?" 

With eyes as big as dinner plates you stare at the shiny silver ring dangling from your fork. 

"Jin?" 

You can feel your heart beat faster, pound so heavily you're sure even Seokjin can hear from where he's sitting. 

"What –? How –?"

Breathless with excitement, you look over at your boyfriend who flashes you a radiant smile before he slowly takes a napkin and gets up to make his way to you, picking the ring off your fork with a telling grin. 

"Kim Seokjin, what the hell is going on?" you ask, your voice trembling. 

"Just wait and see," he calmly says, focused on cleaning the ring of any remains of light pink cream and bits sponge cake. Once he's done, he gets down on one knee before you, eyes locked with yours, his gaze unwavering and full of love and expectations as he holds out the ring and takes your left hand into his. 

"Y/n, I can imagine no other than you to spend the rest of my life with. You are the one with whom I want to keep on relishing the pleasures it has to offer just as well as overcome the obstacles it may send our way. You are the one for me. Sweeter than any dessert I ever tasted. Kinder than any person I ever met. Strong, beautiful and loving. Never too busy to take care of me and shower me with love and affection. You helped me become the person I am today and persevere even in moments when I had lost all confidence in myself and my abilities. You make me want to be a better man. You make me want to be your man and your man only. So, Y/l/n Y/n, will you make me the happiest man on earth and do me the honor of being my wife?" 

"Yes!" you soundlessly gasp, shaken by stifled laughter and tears of happiness. "Yes! Yes! Yes! A thousand times, yes!" 

"Good," he sighs, theatrically rolling his eyes, Jin's voice almost being drowned out by the applause echoing throughout the luxurious dining hall. "Because it took me ages to convince my mother that you are more than good enough for me."

“Oh?" 

"I'm joking," Jin chuckles, stretching to place a quick peck on your lips. "She loves you. As do I. More than anything." 

With these words, he carefully puts the ring on your finger. Mouth agape, you marvel at its beauty. The elegant silver band carries the largest and most brilliant diamond you have ever seen in real life. 

"Wow, Jin. It's – I don't know what to say. It's –"

"Stunning. Just like you. And, as I said, you only deserve the best." 

2. Min Yoongi / Suga 

"So, next year there's a gap in June, apparently. It says 'Recovery'. Does that mean you get two whole weeks off? All to yourself this time?" you ask as you slowly spin around in Yoongi's office chair, holding up his schedule and curiously eying the back of his head, waiting for any kind of reaction. Your boyfriend, however, doesn't pay you much attention and, instead, stays focused on the computer screen before him, still wearing one earphone. A mumbled "Hmm-hmm" is all you get in response. 

"Sooo ..." you continue. "How about I book us a flight to Hawaii already? You always wanted to go there again, with me, right?"

"I do. Want to go there with you. Someday. Not this June, though." 

"But why not?" you whine, flaunting your best pout despite the fact that he isn't looking. "If we book everything now, six months ahead, it's even gonna be affordable."

"Money isn't an issue, y/n," Yoongi sighs, his annoyance slowly starting to show. "But we can't go. Period." 

"Why, though? Give me one good reason and I'll shut up."

"Because we're gonna get married that week." 

"Ah, yeah, right ––" Only now, a few seconds after they have reached your brain, do Yoongi's words really sink in, causing you to choke on air. 

"We – What? Wait. What?" you stammer, almost falling out of your chair. 

"Ah, shit," Yoongi curses under his breath as he reaches for his desk's top right drawer, his back still turned on you. "I forgot something." 

Frozen in place, holding your breath, you watch as Yoongi takes out a small box and eventually turns around to face you. 

"Guess I should've proposed first," he mutters, not yet meeting your eye, utterly nervous if you aren't mistaken. 

"Sooo." Yoongi stretches out the syllable before he inhales deeply, straightening his posture as he rises to his feet and torturously slowly makes his way towards you. 

Cheeks tinted with a faint blush, he comes to a halt before you, his lean, pale fingers anxiously fiddling with a small black velvet box. 

"Oh. No way!" you gasp, bursting into incredulous laughter, one hand covering your mouth that you can't seem to close again. 

"Don't laugh at me," Yoongi grumbles, hiding his eyes behind a layer of shiny ebony hair. "This is bad enough as it is." 

"Oh, no! I'm so sorry, babe. I'm just – This isn't bad at all. I'm just surprised, that's all," you explain while you try to get up as gracefully as possible, an effort made all the more difficult by the fact that your legs have turned into jelly at this point. 

"Okay. Well, that was pretty much the point. So –" You can't believe your own eyes as you witness Min Yoongi actually get down on one knee. 

"Y/l/n Y/n, will you marry me?" he asks, looking up at you hopefully, Yoongi's eyes overflowing with fondness and fear at once and his hands, that now hold up the most beautiful diamond ring you have ever seen, trembling so violently, you're afraid he'll drop the priceless jewelry any second now. 

"Why are you even asking?" you laugh through tears of joy. "Yes! Yes! Of course, yes!" 

"Wha – What? Really?" he stutters, by the looks of it genuinely surprised. 

"Of course, idiot," you shake your head, smiling so broadly your cheeks hurt as you cup Yoongi's face with your palms and bend down to kiss his lips. "I love you like crazy."

"And I was almost sure you'd say no," he chuckles, Yoongi's previous anxiety visibly melting away from him as he now gets up on his feet again, still slightly week at the knees, it seems. 

"Your finger, please, Mrs. Min to be.” 

"Oh, of course," you giggle, the sound of that sending a hot and cold shiver of excitement down your spine as you hold out your left ring finger for Yoongi to place the ring on it. It fits perfectly. 

"How did you know my ring size?"

"Tae told me," he admits with a crooked grin. "You go shopping with him all the time, so …” 

"Ha. So this was a whole conspiracy, huh?" 

"Sort of." 

"But you picked the ring?" 

"That I did," Yoongi proudly nods, still holding onto your hand, his thumb tenderly caressing the back of it. "Do you like it?" 

"If I like it? I love it. It's perfect. Not too big, not too small, not too swanky but still incredibly beautiful. It must have cost you a fortune."

"It was nothing, really,” Yoongi nonchalantly shrugs, his eyes getting lost in yours as you look up from your ring to meet his glance. 

"You know this wasn't necessary, though, right? A fancy ring and all? I would've said yes even if you had put a piece of wire on my finger, Yoongi."

"I know," he smiles. "And that's why I love you." 

3. Jung Hoseok / J-Hope

"Thank you guys for coming today and making this possible. Like, I know how busy your schedules are, but, nonetheless, you made time to celebrate my birthday with me, and that means a lot," you announce, teary-eyed, before you go on to blow out the candles on top of the state-of-the-art birthday cake the guys had bought for you. 

After you have made your wish in silence, you take a look around into the seven beaming faces surrounding you, giggly boys watching with bright eyes as Hoseok dips his finger in the cake's creamy frosting and spreads it across your lips, just to kiss it off them again a few seconds later. Quickly, Jimin whips out his Polaroid camera and captures the moment on film before Hoseok can stop him. 

"Yah!" your boyfriend playfully scolds the younger one. "This was a private moment! Where's the respect?"

"Leave him be," you laugh, wiping off the remains of the frosting and observing the slowly developing photograph Jimin has handed you. "Thank you, Jiminie." 

He acknowledges your gratitude with a nod of his head, a proud grin curving his full lips.

"I'm glad we were able to preserve this memory," you continue, snuggling into Hoseok's side, your arm wrapped around his waist. "It's cute. See for yourself. You look so handsome." 

"Nah, you're the handsome one, jagi," Hoseok fondly smiles before he leans down to place a gentle kiss on your hair, his gleaming eyes flooded with affection. 

"And now –" Seokjin disrupts the silence that has, for some reason, started to occupy the candlelit room. "– we will all step out for a bit to get some more drinks and some food for dinner. It's getting late, after all. And we can't very well all live off of this tiny cake for tonight, can we now? We have seven hungry men here, just out of the practice room. We're gonna need some real food, am I right? Some meat, maybe, to mark the occasion?" 

"But, Hyung, you don't need all of us to buy food, right? That's not usually a seven-person job," Jungkook objects, pouty, nestling up to Taehyung on the sofa even more closely in order to demonstrate his unwillingness to leave the cozy spot that he managed to secure for himself. 

"It is today," Jin stresses, expressively wiggling his eyebrows. 

"Exactly," Yoongi comes to the aid, darting the youngest one an urgent gaze. 

"Ah. Oh. Right," Jungkook gasps, one hand wandering up to cover his parted lips, his doe eyes suddenly twice their usual size. "Of course. Yes." 

“Umm. What's going on?" you wonder aloud, by now clearly sensing the palpable tension having gotten a hold of the seven members, including your boyfriend. 

"Oh, nothing," Taehyung nonchalantly shrugs, giving you his sweetest smile. "We just thought, since it's your birthday and all, that you shouldn't be bothered with doing chores today. So, we're gonna prepare dinner for everybody. You always work so hard for us, cooking healthy meals, baking treats. Today it's our turn to treat you, y/n. And since it's your big day, we can hardly steal your precious boyfriend from your side. So you can keep him. I think the six of us can manage." 

"How very generous of you," Hoseok snickers, suddenly turning stiff in your embrace. His hands, interlocked with yours, are getting sweaty if you aren't mistaken. 

"Hey, guys!?" he calls after them as they are just about to leave the room, his voice oddly strained and strangely high-pitched. "Don't you think you could stay maybe just five more minutes? It's not even six yet. There's still time till dinner." 

"Nah-ah," Seokjin shakes his head, peering back over his shoulder with an ambiguous grin. "I'm sure you'll do just fine without us, Hope-ah." 

"Hobi?" you look up at him, brows raised questioningly. ”What's going on? Why the sudden awkwardness?" 

"Oooh," he mumbles, more to himself, it seems, as he gently frees himself from your embrace and starts pacing the floor of the living room, one hand buried in the pocket of his wide Jeans. "I don't know if I can do this. It was supposed to be perfect." 

"Hoseok, what's happening?" you ask as you make your way over to him, grabbing him by his shoulders to stop him from running in literal circles. 

"What was supposed to be perfect? My party? It is! It is perfect!" you assure him. "Everything is just right. The gifts, the cake, the company. Having you by my side all night long. This is more than any girl could ever wish for." 

"Yes. No. It's not that. Not the party," he mutters absentmindedly, avoiding your gaze. 

"Hobi, you're starting to scare me here. What's wrong?"

"Okay, I'm gonna do this." With these words, Hoseok takes a deep breath and gently shakes off your grasp to take a step back. He then goes on to briefly close his eyes and run a hand across his face before he gives you one of his blindingly bright smiles as if his little meltdown never even took place, in a matter of seconds miraculously having regained composure.

"This is a special day," Hoseok starts out. "Not only because it's the day the love of my life was born, my sun, my moon, my everything. The one person I fully trust in. The one who has proven to love me, all sides of me, the pretty and the ugly ones." He pauses, just looking at you, his eyes filling with tears. "I never thought I'd find you. But here we are. And that's why I want to make this day even more special. For the both of us. I've been waiting to do this for a while now. I bought the ring almost a year ago. Ask Tae. He was with me." 

You won't trust your own ears. 

"Hobi. Are you –"

Before you can finish your sentence, Hoseok falls down onto one knee, holding up an open ring box containing one of the most beautiful pieces of jewelry you have ever laid eyes on. 

"Y/l/n Y/n, will you marry me?" 

At first, you can't seem to find your voice. All that leaves your lips at first is a soundless gasp, a mixture of a stifled sob and a hysteric laugh. Before you, eventually, manage to string together a whole sentence. 

"Yes, I will. I will! Definitely! Oh my god, I can't – I can't believe it. Did you plan this? Were all the guys in on this?" 

"Yes. Yes, they were. They basically made me do it. I was so scared," Hoseok laughs, clearly relieved, struggling to get up on his feet, his legs trembling. His hands shake so violently, he barely manages to put the ring on your finger. 

"Wow, it fits perfectly," he remarks with surprise. 

"It does. And it's so, so beautiful, Hobi."

"An emerald. Green. The color that brought us together. Do you remember? When we reached for the same pair of socks?" 

"Yes. Yes, I remember," you sob as you throw your arms around his neck, burying your now tear-streaked face in the fabric of Hoseok's sweater. "It's perfect." 

"I'm so glad you think so," he whispers, rubbing your back in soothing circles. 

"Shit," you snivel. "I can't stop crying. I'm a mess now. Look what you've done to me!"

Half laughing, half crying, you lean back so Hoseok can get a good look at your red-rimmed eyes and runny makeup. 

"Aww, my beautiful jagi," he fondly smiles, softly brushing away your tears with the tip of his thumb. "As pretty as ever." 

After having taken in the sight of you for a few more seconds, Hoseok goes on to cup your cheeks with both his slender hand before he leans down to place a tender kiss on your lips. 

"Come on, future Mrs. Jung. Let's go and let the others know that I didn't mess up. I'm sure Jungkook will be sad to hear that he lost this bet."

4. Kim Namjoon / RM 

"Wow. An observatory?" you nod in approvement, craning to get a better look at the towering building rising into the starry night sky right in front of you. "Nice choice, Kim Namjoon. You never cease to amaze me." 

Smiling, you turn around to find your boyfriend's gaze. He seems genuinely relieved.

"Good," he sighs. "I was afraid you'd think it's a lame idea for our anniversary."

"Anniversary?" you repeat, questioningly raising a brow as you link arms with Namjoon and allow him to lead you inside. "But our anniversary isn’t due for another two months." 

"Well, that's our official anniversary. But three years ago today was the day we first met. Around this time, too.”

"Wow, really? I had no idea, to be honest," you admit, blushing slightly. 

"It's okay. I wouldn't have remembered, either, if I hadn't come across the picture in my phone's gallery by chance. You know, the one we took that night." 

"Yeah, I remember. And I kept whining about how I hated selcas. But you just took it anyway. And you said –" 

"The point of this is to preserve a meaningful moment, not to look like a model."

"Yeah," you chuckle. "And, all night long, I kept thinking 'Why does this guy talk like he's 50-something?'. At first, I thought it was an act, or whatever, the whole wise-beyond-your-age thing you had going on, especially once you got tipsy and started digging out the deep stuff. Didn't take me long, though, to realize that you just have an incredibly beautiful mind." 

You halt on your way upstairs to get on your tiptoes and plant a kiss on Namjoon's cheek. For a few seconds, you get lost in each other's eyes, his chocolate brown orbs reflecting nothing but the warmth and affection you, too, feel as you look at him, still unable to fathom the fact that this man is indeed yours. 

"I think you already had me at 'Mind if I join you in the reading corner', though," you muse as the two of you continue your way up, headed for the telescope. "Like, it was a party. And, judging by the kind of people present, I thought I'd surely be the only one taking the opportunity to ravage that incredibly well-stocked bookshelf. But there you were."

"Yeah. I'm really glad I decided to go to that birthday party, even though I didn't actually like the guy. And when those red Converses of yours first caught my eye, I couldn't help but think 'How ironic'. Because you looked so gorgeous, perfect even, just sitting there, literally the woman of my dreams – so beautiful, I was almost sure you were already spoken for."

"And I remember that you weren't all that subtle when you tried to find out if I indeed was," you laugh. 

"Yeah. It got kinda awkward for a second there," Namjoon grins to himself, dimpled cheeks turning a lively shade of pink. "I was never really good at talking to girls." 

"I didn't even notice," you lie, clinging onto his strong arm a little more tightly. 

"We're there," Namjoon then announces, slightly short of breath, when the two of you have finally reached the top of the stairway where you are being greeted by a patiently smiling elderly man in a blue laboratory coat. 

"This way, please," he points you in the direction of the Kepler telescope that takes up a large portion of the observatory dome. Namjoon grabs your hand, his fingers naturally interlocking with yours, and leads the way, positioning you right in front of the telescope. The astronomer briefly explains the essentials of its workings and adjusts it to your height before he excuses himself with a polite bow and swiftly leaves the room, not without darting Namjoon one last conspiratorial glance, though. 

"What's going on, Joonie? Shouldn't he stay here, so we don't, I don't know, break anything? Especially with you here?" you joke. 

"Very funny," he playfully pinches your side. "No, I think we'll be perfectly fine on our own from here on out. I've actually been here before a couple of times, so I have a pretty good idea of what is safe to touch. Besides, all you have to do is look through that lens." 

"And see what?" 

"Just look, and I'll explain."

"All right," you shrug, unable to notice a subtle shift in Namjoon's expression. Hesitantly, after giving your boyfriend one last scrutinizing glance, you do as you're told. And what you see takes your breath away. 

"Wow, Joon. The stars. I – They're so beautiful. And they look so close. So much brighter." 

"Yeah. We're fortunate the sky is clear tonight. Just as it was that night. Which means that these are, more or less, the exact same stars we saw when we looked up there three years ago, huddled together to keep ourselves warm while we waited for your bus to arrive.” 

"Wow. I – I don't know what to say, Namjoon. This – This is so beautiful. And thoughtful. I –” 

You can't take your eyes off of the galaxy spread out before you in all its beauty, trying to take in as much as of the view as possible.  

"I mean, I've always loved the stars –"

"I know." 

"But this – This is next level. This is unbelievable. Thank you so much for showing me this, Joon, and for creating yet another memory.” 

Reluctantly, you step back from the telescope and turn to face Namjoon whose full lips are curved by a fond smile. 

"I love this. It's perfect, Joon. It really is. I don't know how you come up with all these ideas." 

"You're my inspiration," he just says, those simple words causing your eyes to well up.

"I love you, Kim Namjoon. You know that, right?" you snivel, stretching so you can put your arms around his neck. 

"Yes, I know," he grins, his dimples making another glorious appearance. "But I never tire of hearing you say it. That's why I'm hoping I'm gonna get to hear you say these words for the rest of my life." 

You are just about to give a cheesy response, when, all of a sudden, as if he just remembered something important, Namjoon's expression turns distant and he starts frantically searching the pockets of his bulky coat. This little spell of anxiety go his is followed by a sigh of relief once he apparently finds what he was looking for. 

"Excuse me," Namjoon gives you a quick smile before he goes on to remove your arms from his neck and steps back, leaving you puzzled. 

"Come on, y/n. Let's go outside," he then suggests, already getting a hold of your hand.

"Outside? You mean, to the viewing platform? But isn't it freezing out there?"

"It's only gonna be for a little while. Please?" 

"Of course, if it makes you happy." 

"Very," he nods, virtually dragging you outside now. 

"Okay. You're weirding me out, Joonie. Is everything all right?" 

"I should hope so." 

"That doesn't sound very reassuring," you mumble, resisting his pull.  

"I know you're always so curious and impatient, y/n." Namjoon looks back at you, his smile wry. "But, please, just wait and see. You'll understand. I promise." 

"Okay ..." 

Eventually, you give in and allow Namjoon to lead you out onto the platform where he comes to a halt as soon as he seems to have determined the perfect spot for whatever he is planning to do. At this point, a million ideas of what that might be are racing through your mind, none of them reasonable. 

"What's going on, Joonie? Because something is.” 

With a gesture of his hand, Namjoon indicates you to keep quiet while he backs off by two steps and, the whole time maintaining eye contact, finally drops down on one knee, causing you to gasp in surprise. 

"Joon, I –"

"Shh," he cautions you jokingly. 

Half laughing half crying, you put a hand to your lips to keep them from blurting out further comments. 

Impatiently you watch him as Namjoon reaches for his right coat pocket, the movement leading him to lose his balance and, in an effort to regain it, hit his hand on the platform's banister. Cursing under his breath, he inspects the damage done to his reddening knuckles. 

"Shit, babe. Are you all right?" you inquire, struggling to hold in a laugh, as you grab your boyfriend's arm in order to steady him. 

"Yeah. It's nothing."

"Good. Go on then," you grin, stepping back again. 

"All right. This is not exactly going as planned," Namjoon commences with an apologetic grin, now breaking out a small velvet ring box holding a stunningly beautiful silver band, studded with numerous small yet scintillating diamonds. "But if you, Y/l/n Y/n, would take me as your husband, this shall be a moment I will forever treasure, despite its obvious shortcomings." 

"Shush. It's perfect," you chuckle through tears. "And it would be my honor to be your woman for life, Kim Namjoon." 

Smiling, he struggles to steady his trembling hands to place the ring on your finger, succeeding at the second try. 

”Hearing that, Y/n –,” Namjoon says in getting up and placing his hand on the back of your neck to gently pull you in for a kiss. “– makes me the happiest and proudest man on earth." 

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed them. ☺️

The Maknae Line Edition will follow shortly.

And here you can find my Masterlist if you feel like checking out more of my BTS fiction.

Take care and have a great day! 💖

NONE of the GIFs used are mine. Credit goes to the initial creators. Thank you for your hard work and dedication.

[theritualofourexistence]

The Lizard Brain.

The brain is a powerful tool.

My brain has read thousands of books.

Has learned so many interesting things and valuable lessons.

Has carried my body through 27 years of life, including a lot of years of soccer and theater and dancing.

Has kept my soul in tact through both trauma and healing.

My brain has anxiety. It panics. It gets sad. But it also gives me the gift to feel things deeply. To appreciate beauty and be touched by the marvels and magic in the world.

This week, I got on the scale, and my brain short-circuited.

The number “2-0-0” zipped like lightning from my eyes to my brain and the analytical tools I value so much in school suddenly became my worst nightmare.

Slowly but surely my Rational Brain gained back the ground from my Lizard Brain.

I was able to stop crying.

I was able to believe that the progress I’ve seen in the last month is still progress... no matter what number I see on the scale.

Then, on Tuesday, it was time to schedule more blood work to see how much progress I’ve made in my battle against iron-deficiency anemia. I’ve been on supplements since September of last year.

In looking at my bloodwork from last year, I noticed that my glucose was high.

I now weigh about 15 pounds more than I did then.

If my glucose was high at that weight, it couldn’t possibly be better now.

Enter Lizard Brain: Episode 2.

Once again, my brain became electrified with a thousand horrible possibilities.

I went from successfully putting myself back together on Sunday to saying OUT LOUD through blinding tears and quaking sobs that if they had to amputate one of my legs, hopefully the doctors could take the one I haven’t spent thousands of dollars getting tattooed.

In less than 15 seconds I had fully convinced myself that I was on the verge of being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes.

A doctor would tell me I had to stop eating pasta and ice cream.

A doctor would tell me I somehow had to find the willpower to exercise even more.

All of the years of energy I spent on loving my bigger body would be for nothing if I still ended up with diabetes.

I’ve finally started to manage my iron, I can’t handle another lifelong medical problem requiring daily and committed management.

My Lizard Brain is powerful.

It’s swift.

Before I even had a chance to tap the breaks I was hysterical for the second time in three days.

Some of my second breakdown is likely due to being fragile from the first.

But Tuesday night I felt like everything I have worked for... managing my relationship with food, working on healthier self-talk, exercising more, focusing on health and fitness instead of the numbers... all of that was ripped away in a heartbeat.

My world felt like it was dissolving around me.

I was angry.

But more than that, I was scared.

I cried for hours. Nothing anyone said would make a difference. Nothing my Rational Brain tried to say would make a difference.

By the morning, Lizard Brain had let up off the gas.

My puffy eyes and swollen lips showed the story of my breakdown clearly on my face but my brain was more stable again.

It took longer than I might have liked but I dragged Rational Brain back into the driver’s seat.

Today, I had my blood work done.

In 6 months of regular supplements, I have doubled my iron stores and my hemoglobin is a whopping 15.8.

My glucose has gone down. Instead of falling in a borderline range, my blood sugar is now in the normal range.

The work I’m doing is making a difference.

I can feel it.

I can see it.

My body, my blood, confirms it.

The number on the scale is not my boss.

My Lizard Brain can fuck straight off.

My brain is a powerful tool.

It can make me miserable before I even have time to exhale.

But it can pick me back up.

And put me back together.

And give me the energy to keep fighting this battle.

On the good days, my brain brings me sunshine.

But even more importantly, it carries me through the bad days too.

[ninjakitty15]

Chapter 18: Spiderman With a Plan (Loki x OFC pairing)

May came back before Loki could teleport us away or Peter could even hide us. It took a bit of explaining and convincing to let an alien war criminal and a walking, slowly healing corpse stay but between Peter telling her we had in fact been staying with Tony up till now and she trusted Tony almost as much as she trusted her nephew, and me swearing they aren't in danger as Hydra doesn't want Peter, only me, she seemed to yield at the end. Loki then offered a better place for them if they didn't feel safe with us being around but the two of them turned down his offer, stating that if Spiderman's enemies didn't even know where he lived, ours wouldn't either. Loki then promised if that wasn't the case and they came after them, to have Spiderman find us and Loki would fix the damage for them. I had to look at him then, being all generous and gentlemanly when the world pegged him for a narcissistic megalomaniac war criminal.

"I kinda get the sense you were a bit like him when you were...a kid? I'm sorry, I'm not familiar with Asgardian years, is it like dog years? No wait are humans like dog years compared to you lot?" I asked Loki.

"What do you think I was like as a child that you see with Parker?" asked Loki in amusement.

"Quiet, eager to please, exceptionally clever compared to most your age there, desperately wanting to find your place, maybe a little bit awkward but still quite gifted though few see that last quality or care enough to notice."

Loki was quiet for a moment, probably trying to remember what he was actually like way way way back when he was a wee bairn but the slowly creasing brow seemed to imply I was at the very least not off the mark that bad. "Why do you think I'm like him?"

"I'd say more he's like you as you were here eons before he was. But to answer your question...I can't say how long I've been around but I do know I've been around long enough to study people and see details most might miss in interactions and reactions. When you're around anyone like Thor, you kinda have this aura of irritation, even though it's not him all the time, the kind of person who charged head and fists first into any kind situation, all about action and making a great mess. When it comes to interacting with someone with more wit, more intelligence, more analytical and less physical stuff, you're more reserved in reaction, more curious and intrigued. The same kind of qualities I see in you, you see in others and I know there's plenty of self love in that icicle of a heart you have, maybe not at first, but it's definitely there now." Both Peter and Loki stared at me with damn near identical expressions of something between "wtf" and "how the hell did you figure all this out, who are you?". "What? You think I didn't notice between the jokes and the constant commentaries? Just because I'm physically and legally dead, doesn't mean I'm brain dead too."

"You sure I'm not just rubbing off on you," teased Loki.

"I told you I'm not terribly fond of that action to begin with, it's gross. Also and more importantly, I find your lack of faith disturbing, as you should recall even in your ancient age, I was muzzled when you found me and I don't always need to use my mouth when calling the dead so..."

Loki was about to retort I assume but as he opened his mouth to do so, Peter beat him to it. "Hydra muzzled you?"

"Initially they didn't but when you're me and hoping they get so annoyed by your jokes and taunts that maybe they'll let you go because nothing else they did to me worked like they wanted, they decided a muzzle wasn't just for dogs. In my defense, I had been stuck in that cramped glass cell for apparently 5 years with no outside contact, I honestly don't know how I'm still somewhat sane after all that time alone."

"Well maybe it's because time has no effect on the dead, right?" offered Peter hopefully.

I opened my mouth to object but damn if he wasn't a mortal, Midgardian version of Loki always being on par with his points. "Okay, you win that round. It felt like a few months to me, color me shell shocked when I was actually told how long I was down there and how much stuff I missed out on."

"I'm still not completely sold on you actually being dead when you're walking and talking in front of me though," Peter muttered.

"Seeing isn't always believing, hun. Here, check for a pulse or any way to tell if a person is dead or alive these days."

"Then how are you here? And also, if you are in fact a necromancer, aren't you susceptible to being controlled by another necromancer since you're dead too?"

"Under normal circumstances, maybe, but alas I'm anything but normal so nah."

"What are you then?"

I gave the kid a sinister smile. "Pray you never find out because when you do...you'll wish you never met me."

"You can't be that bad if Tony Stark took you in."

"Tony Stark means well and is insanely smart but mostly just insane, I mean he did essentially invent his own supervillain with Ultron on Slovakia and then more or less help in making an infinity stone with Vision, didn't he? More recently though he gave insanely expensive superhero equipment to a teenager too smart for his own good. Think of it this way, Hydra wants Capsicle dead because he's too good to be made useful to them, nothing they can do will make him the next Winter Soldier. A good heart will almost always be a good heart unless the ones let into that heart break it which won't be Hydra ever, that's for damn sure. Hydra can break many things but a heart ain't one. Now take a heart that's not all good, one that has no strict moral compass or doesn't lean toward one end or another, that one more than a good or even an evil one, can be useful. They want me alive because I'm useful and now they know how to make it theirs through Loki. If they really thought their efforts in extracting stuff from me was fruitless, they'd kill me any way possible or at least leave me for dead or let me go even but they didn't as Loki can attest, I was still chained down and muzzled in a glass cell when he found me."

"Are you seriously trying to convince me that you're actually a chaotic neutral?" Peter asked incredulously.

"That is exactly what I'm telling you I am. I mean yeah I try my best to keep the peace and natural order between me and the others like me but look how fucking well that's going when they're either dying out or switching sides. I'd say I'd like to be more toward lawful neutral but then I'd be lying because lawful is fucking boring having to follow the rules so blindly."

"What's wrong with rules?"

"Nothing, they're just meant to be broken is all and no one seems to get that."

"Nothing's made to be broken though," Peter argued.

"I disagree, Reginald, pinatas are, glowsticks, karate boards, pasta when you have a small pot, those party crackers. Loki, can you think of anything?"

"Glasses or goblets for really good drinks you want more of, good riding horses that haven't been trained yet, new footwear, a lady's hymen," Loki continued.

"I'ma stop you right there before you get too graphic."

"You asked, don't get shy on me now."

"Shy? I'm sorry, have you met me? I joked about oral when we first met, how the fuck is that shy? I'm censoring you for Peter's sake as we're guests and don't want to overstay our welcome."

"Seriously?" squeaked Peter. "I'm sorry, you're trapped in some base and the first non Hydra person you see, who just happens to be a war criminal from another planet that attacked this city not too long ago, and you blatantly flirt with him?"

"'K first of all, back off on the judging, buddy, you don't know what it's like being trapped with the same ugly assholes for an extended period of time and wishing for a new face regardless of their intentions. Secondly, he's hot so there's that and just cuz I'm dead doesn't mean I don't have some needs left in me, a few select things make me feel alive again, he turned out to be one of them. Also, did I mention he's hot and he really pulls off the green god look in all leather and stuff."

"You weren't the least bit worried?"

"What's he gonna do? Kill me? Good luck, he ain't the first to try it."

"Okay, you are way too casual about being wanted dead or deader."

I snorted. "Very little fazes me these days, if I got myself worked up over every little obstacle I would be a cold mess and never leave the grave I crawled out of."

"Wise words from a dead girl," teased Loki who got punched in the arm again, this time my fingers didn't break but he was still made of solid ice so it pretty much bounced off him.

"I'm curious which of the two of you has more secrets, I mean Loki is kinda known for that kind of thing but then there's you who's been dropping hints there's a lot we don't know about you, you're just so casual about them whereas if Loki drops hints he comes off completely devious and cunning about it, like he's flaunting it almost."

"That's because Loki is the god of teasing," I mused. "In many ways. And he's had many many lifetimes in his old age to perfect it. Yeah that's right, tease me about being corpse all you want, but remember you're basically a cradle robbing necrophiliac for shacking up with a dead girl that's not even a fourth of your age."

"I might be over a thousand or so years old but between that being still young in Asgardian years as you call it and no one outside you and the Avengers knowing how old I am just by looking at me, that's not actually that much of an issue. Nice try though."

"You're over a thousand?" questioned Peter in shock. "How long before you actually get gray hairs?"

"I'm working on that," I joked.

Loki scowled at me then and shook his head. "A few more thousand I should say, might be different for me being a Frost Giant rather than actual Asgardian."

"Do you age at all?" Peter asked me.

"My body is in a state of dead stasis, it can't change or age and always returns to the same state of death. It's how I heal like I do."

"But didn't you say Loki's magic could undo that?"

"He's probably the only one that can at the moment, him and the wankers that stole some of his power to use against me. I don't know the specifics but I'm guessing because I'm a source of death magic and his is either exactly or closely related to living magic, the two cancel each other out."

"I'm still not happy about them doing that nor do I know how," muttered Loki.

"Like you said, that part doesn't matter at this point, they have it and unfortunately they know how to use it. We just gotta figure out how to undo that so I don't get shot full of rocksalt again, that shit stings like swallowing an angry beehive."

"I-I might have an idea if I remember your other powers correctly," Peter spoke up, looking at Loki eagerly. "Also, random question, which of you is actually more powerful?"

Loki and I looked at each other for a moment then both at Peter at the same time.

"He's been around eons longer than I have and acquired a fuckton more power over time than I have but the power I have isn't remotely like his so I'm not even sure the two are comparable, he built his up over time, I earned it another way entirely and not all on my own like I'm willing to bet he has."

Loki then looked back at me and I could almost hear the gears grinding in his head, knowing he had picked up more of the many hints I've dropped about myself to collect and analyze later. "Are you ever going to tell me the whole story?"

"If that's allowed but ultimately it's not up to me to decide that," I replied softly. "So this plan of yours, Pete, do tell!"

"Well first, Loki, would you be affected by your own magic hitting you."

"If it came from me, no, if someone else can wield magic like mine then yes."

"Then I got an idea that should work."

[sept-dix]

college au! aron

summary: you and aron are uni roommates genre: fluff a/n: requested; i feel like i’m trying to singlehandedly end the aron drought here lol hope u enjoy!!

yknow the myth about art students living off of virtually no sleep and no money is not entirely false

as a visual arts major who’s only still alive thanks to 20 cent instant ramen and the discovery of the red bull + coffee mixture, you would know

what you didn’t know was that journalism majors had it almost worse, bc with all news platforms having to publish their stuff at the break of dawn it was a given that they had to slave away while the rest of the world was asleep in order to even get something meaningful done during internship periods

the workload is also intense so even during non-internship periods they’re buried in work

you learnt this (and more) from aron

at the start of your second year in uni your existing roommate had dropped out of college, leaving you with an empty apartment which was both too big and too expensive 

and as you’d been aimlessly walking around your campus after school one day trying to think of possibilities for a better living arrangement, you’d fatefully come across an advertisement for someone looking for a roommate

the thing that had caught your eye was the shockingly low rent 

given the rlly cramped and small nature of the actual flat of course the rent wasn’t unexpected but you couldn’t care less about space at that moment

so yeah, you called and this guy called aron picked up and you two became roommates just like that

aron was so relieved and thankful when you called him and eventually became his roommate bc just like you, he was rlly tight on money

but let’s just say he just got even more thankful with time

when he first opened the door to you it would be an understatement to say that he was surprised

because well..,,, he looked at you once and got overwhelmed by how good looking you were

and you were moving in all your thousand of art supplies and the whole time you kept apologising bc you had to make so many trips and you kept getting in his way and he thought that was so cute

that first night you insisted that you make dinner as thanks for him letting you be his roommate

but he insisted that he make dinner as thanks for you wanting to be his roommate in the first place

so the both of you just ended up making dinner together 

it was nothing fancy you guys just made pasta lol

but you two had so much fun making it!!! 

you were exchanging pasta sauce recipes and tips with each other and aron tried so hard to stop himself but every now and then he kept finding himself thinking about how cute you were

somewhere in the back of his brain, there were warning sirens ringing trying to tell him that he shouldn’t be thinking like this about you because you were his roommate,,, it would mess things up big time

but what can i say aron ignored those sirens lol

both of you were naturally very sensitive of each other’s needs and preferences so it was almost too easy for you two to fall into a comfortable routine

like you’d wake him up before you left for your 9am class on tuesday because he had a 9.30 one

and he’d do the same for you on thursday when the situation was reversed

it just so happened that you came home earlier on 3 days of the week and he came home earlier on the rest of the days

so you’d cook the both of you dinner when you were back first and he’d do the same when he’s back first

and towards the end of the month there were always those few days when you guys had to make do with instant ramen lol rip

you two never rlly meant for this to happen but you guys ended up bonding a lot through these shared dinner times

admittedly it wasn’t too often that the two of you actually ate dinner at the same time 

but when those times did come, you two always ended up just talking or watching a tv show together

as it so happened you guys loved the same tv shows so that’s great

and he loved hearing about your art stuff bc well he’s an aspiring journalist and he loves to hear about everything

and you loved hearing about what he’s studying just bc you never really knew much about it before and he made it seem super interesting

you didn’t know this but during all those times aron was thinking to himself ok so not only are you super cute you are also interesting and ambitious and passionate and nice???? not fair 

but it wasn’t exactly that he had a crush on you or anything

lol jk he had a crush on you

a small teeny tiny one that grew concrete and huge over one fine weekend

which wasn’t so fine because well,, aron was sick

he was down with the flu and he had a high fever and he couldn’t even get out of bed

not only was he physically sick but yknow when people are sick and away from home they get extra homesick and emo

so yeah he was feeling like shit in all aspects of the word

and he had gotten sick when he was still living with his old roommate

that time he had just had a slight case of the flu he didn’t even have fever or anything

but his roommate had avoided him like he had the plague or something just bc he didn’t want it to spread to him

so naturally aron expected you to do the same and stay far away from you but what did you do instead?

that’s right

you made him soup

and you stuck a thermometer in his mouth

and you forced him to tell you any medical allergies he had so you could go out and buy him flu medicine

and then you came back with the medicine and forced him to eat it with soup and then stayed by his side for another 15 mins just to make sure he was okay

15 mins might seem like a short time but considering the huge assignment you had due in 2 days which you hadn’t even started on, 15 mins was as good as half a day

and i guess you could say that’s when aron knew he was in trouble

you’re cute and nice and interesting and everything but you’re also good at taking care of him

it’s all too much for him

so he decided to consult his bro minki on the situation

and minki being minki told aron to confess asap in the most corny and cringey and extravagant way

and aron wanted to follow that advice (at least a part of it) but when he got home that day and saw you smiling at your phone for god knows what reason

he realised that he knew all sorts of things about you but he didn’t know whether you had someone you liked or someone you were already dating or whatever

and of course he was too nervous to ask you about it at that moment bc you were already smiling at your phone meaning there was a high chance you were already being sent lovey dovey text messages from the love of your life

but you would have told him if you had a boyfriend right?

right?

well idk but that’s all that went through aron’s mind that day

and he tried to look for more signs that you were already taken throughout the course of the next few days but he didn’t catch anything else except for that one smiling at your phone event

so he reported this back to minki and minki all but hit him 

“why tf you doing all this when i clearly told you to just conFESS??”

 so aron tried another time

this time, thankfully, you weren’t doing anything suspicious like smiling at your phone

you were just on the floor in your room working on a huge canvas painting for one of your classes

as soon as you noticed him walking in you asked him his opinion on the piece

“it’s supposed to be a study of movement, i’m not exactly sure if this is what my professor wants but what do you think?”

“oh well it’s great”

bc duh aron doesn’t know anything about how a proper study of movement should look lol

he just stood there watching you work for a little longer before you noticed him

“is there a reason why you’re just standing there looking at me, aron?”

“no! i mean well, yes, actually. yeah, i mean yes”

you chuckled at his clumsiness and that put him at ease for a moment

“ok then, what is it?”

he took a deep breath and

“i was just wondering if you wanted to have dinner with me this saturday?”

“.... aron are u ok we always have dinner together on saturdays unless one of us is busy or smth lol”

“yes but this wouldn’t be our usual dinner. i could bring you to that japanese place down the road from here and we could perhaps catch a movie afterwards?”

ah

“... are you asking me out?”

“yeah i guess you could say that”

the few seconds you spent looking at him then almost made him pass out bc they convinced him you were going to say no but-

“sure, it’s a date!”

needless to say the date went great bc well,, it isn’t an unknown fact that you two match each other super well

in fact, it goes so well that one date turns into two, which turns into a few

and before you know it, you’ve been introduced to minki as the person aron’s in an actual relationship with

aron finds out months later that the moment you started falling for him had been the same one when he’d been so sick that he was out of his mind

and he had looked up at you and whined that “he would have really missed his mommy if you hadn’t been there to make him soup”

that’s so cute

soon you guys become one of the established College Couples in campus

with him walking you to your classes all the way in the arts building

and you hanging around in his editing studio while he types away about something or the other

and the both of you always grabbing dinner together at the end of the day

what can i say uni isn’t so bad when you’ve got someone like aron by your side hehe

[fuckyeahtattoogirls-blog1]

Keto diet: weight loss and disease treatment

New Post has been published on https://bestrawfoodrecipes.com/keto-diet-weight-loss-and-disease-treatment/

Keto diet: weight loss and disease treatment

At first, the cravings were like “a drug withdrawal,” Jay Wortman recalls.

Lying on a hotel bed in Ottawa one night, he’d had to white-knuckle his way out of eating Ferrero Rocher chocolates he’d spirited off a flight. A recent Type 2 diabetes diagnosis had prompted the Vancouver-based family medicine doctor to cut out nearly all carbohydrates — sweets, pasta, bread, even fruit — in an attempt to manage his blood sugar while he waited to start medication. But he couldn’t stop thinking about those chocolates, or his favorite breakfast: waffles doused in syrup. “I think I was a full-fledged sugar addict,” he says.

Four months later, the sugar pangs had eased. He got through the early weeks by stocking up on artificial sweeteners and focusing on how much his 2-year-old son needed a healthy dad. With sugar off the table, he says, all that was left was “the non-carby foods” — bacon, eggs, steak, and vegetables. Soon, he started sleeping better and feeling less fatigued. Weight was coming off at the rate of a pound a day, until he was down 30 pounds and no longer overweight. “I had to get my pants taken in,” Wortman says. “And then I had to get them taken in again.”

More than 16 years later and still following the ultra-high-fat, low-carb regimen that’s become popularized under the name keto, Wortman has never taken a diabetes drug. He hasn’t needed to. He feels stronger and is skiing the most ambitious slopes of his life. “At 68, I’m far fitter than I was at 52 when [my diet] started,” he says.

Transformation stories like his — and the thousands of seemingly hyperbolic claims of dieters losing dozens of pounds, complete with Instagrammed before-and-afters — have made keto the biggest diet phenomenon today. The most Googled diet of 2018, it has eclipsed household names like Weight Watchers (now known as WW) and the other low-carb regimens, Atkins and Paleo.

Keto is a Silicon Valley life-hacking fixation (see author Tim Ferriss’s keto videos), a Hollywood trend (see Kourtney Kardashian’s and Halle Berry’s keto journeys), and fodder for numerous online communities. Devotees can meet at low-carb keto cruises, keto conferences, and keto cafes. While there’s no leading figurehead, a cadre of evangelists sell books and pseudo-medical supplements and devices to help dieters check whether they’re truly in “ketosis,” the holy grail fat-burning state keto dieters are after.

Beyond all the hype, the chance that keto — a minimalist variation on the diet promoted by cardiologist Robert Atkins — can solve the obesity crisis is vanishingly slim. On average, low-carb diets look a lot like others when it comes to long-term weight loss: Most people can’t stick to them. There’s tremendous variation in how humans respond to nutritional and dietary tweaks, and let’s not forget that the promises keto boosters now make are reminiscent of the overhyped claims that fueled the recent gluten-free craze.

But how do you explain results like Wortman’s? He expected that avoiding carbs would help manage his blood sugar in the very short term, not that his other diabetes-related symptoms — thirstiness, frequent urination, and blurred vision — would vanish. And he definitely didn’t anticipate that the diet would allow him to control the disease long-term, without any medication.

Keto might not be an obesity panacea, but it would be a mistake to dismiss the diet as just another fad, in part because of results such as Wortman’s. Along with all the dubious keto supplements and the weight loss books has come a growing body of science exploring keto as a potential foil for Type 2 diabetes and other illnesses. It’s part of a fascinating broader examination of how we might use nutrition to treat disease.

“It’s anti-establishment”

Keto isn’t just low-carb — it is practically no-carb. Its followers avoid ice cream and pizza, as well as whole grains, fruits, and legumes such as brown rice, apples, and lentils. No bakery-fresh bagels, homemade apple pie, birthday cake, or even juicy watermelon.

But what people eat in America — and around the world — is carbohydrates. They account for roughly half the calories on average in the American diet, come highly recommended in national nutrition guidelines, and feature prominently in the traditional diets of everyone from pasta-munching Italians to rice-loving Indonesians.

According to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, of the world’s more than 50,000 edible plants, “Just three of them, rice, maize and wheat, provide 60 percent of the world’s food energy intake.” All three of those staples are carbs.

To follow a keto diet is to reject this culture and history. And while keto forbids processed junk foods — something common to just about every diet — it also severely limits the fruits, grains, and legumes suggested by the US Department of Agriculture as essential parts of a healthy diet. Keto adherents believe the conventional nutrition wisdom is not only wrong but actively harmful.

This rejection of mainstream thinking helps explain why keto went viral at this moment, and why it’s more than just a diet. It’s a cultural identity.

Take Wortman. He’s been on two of Jimmy Moore’s low-carb cruises, sailing across the Caribbean, downing steak after steak. His wife started keto shortly after he did and remains on the diet. He calls their daughter, who was born seven years into their keto lifestyle, “a product of a keto gestation.”

The diet didn’t just change Wortman’s life; it changed how he thought about medicine and nutrition. He believes there’s a conspiracy by a “matrix of agendas” to promote a plant-based diet. The “whole fiber thing is a myth,” he tells me. He also thinks the concerns about a meat-heavy diet’s impact on the planet — that cows produce too much methane — are hugely overblown (they aren’t), and that the link between cardiovascular disease and saturated fat has been “debunked” (it hasn’t).

In a time when black is white, up is down, and discussions of fake news dominate the news cycle, it’s no accident that keto went viral, says Alan Levinovitz, a James Madison University religion professor who studies diet beliefs. “It’s anti-establishment,” mirroring other strains of rebelliousness in our politics, he says. He experimented with the carnivore diet (a form of keto) and says he experienced no health improvement.

Americans are living in the aftermath of the low-fat experiment — where the public learned about guidelines and studies that have often been muddied by food industry interests. With its emphasis on fat, keto is the antidote to the Snackwell’s era. You can gorge on butter and bacon and stay in ketosis. It’s the perfect fuck-everything-you-know-about-nutrition diet.

A diet to heal disease?

Keto’s potential to heal has captured the imagination of people like Columbia University oncologist and author Siddhartha Mukherjee, who has been studying the diet’s effects on cancer. “We are trying to steer clear of any diet crazes,” he says. “For me, it’s thinking of the diet as a tool or drug,” one that may work when used in tandem with traditional cancer medicines in “a very particular population of cancer patients.” Keto’s effects on insulin and glucose levels — and how they may interfere with cancer cell growth — are what intrigue Mukherjee and other scientists.

He’s only tested the cancer hypothesis in mice. And he has other concerns, echoed by many in the medical field, including that keto may not be safe for the cardiovascular system since it can drive up cholesterol levels.

Wortman, the keto evangelist, is gratified that other doctors are at least opening their minds to keto as a therapy, something he didn’t expect to happen in his lifetime. After his high-fat and -protein diet controlled his blood sugar, he started reading about keto in Atkins’s books and scientific papers and became convinced of its potency.

The diet’s potential for treating Type 2 diabetes is the aspect of keto that has long obsessed Wortman. More than a decade ago, he started lecturing on the subject at medical conferences, only to be lambasted. Other health professionals believed the high-fat regimen would damage people’s kidneys, arteries, and brains.

Wortman felt vindicated when, this spring, the American Diabetes Association came out with a consensus statement — intended as guidance for doctors across the country — suggesting a very low-carb diet could be a nutritional treatment option for some patients with diabetes.

Today, Wortman prescribes keto to all his patients who have Type 2 diabetes. (The standard medical interventions include weight loss, exercise, medication such as metformin, and insulin therapy, as well as regular blood sugar monitoring.) He’s even experimented with using the diet to treat northern British Columbia’s aboriginal people, who are disproportionately diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. Though he never published anything on the experiment in a scholarly journal, it was the subject of a 2008 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation documentary. “People lost weight, improved their diabetes, and got off their medications,” says Wortman, who does not profit from advocating for the keto diet.

“The obvious failure of the conventional approach has also been getting too big to ignore,” he adds. “I often say to my patients and colleagues now, ‘What’s the most important thing you do about your health? It’s your diet.’”

The burning question

The reason for shunning sugars is that eating more than the equivalent of a slice or two of bread each day can knock dieters out of ketosis. Dr. Atkins reportedly liked to say that ketosis is “as delightful as sunshine and sex.” (With his four-phase plan, he promised to help people “stay thin forever” by eating more fat and fewer carbs — the same way the now-popular Keto Reset Diet book promises to “burn fat forever.”)

To understand how ketosis works, consider how the human body uses fuel. On a typical high-carb diet, we’re fueled primarily by glucose (or blood sugar), much of which we derive from carbohydrate-rich foods. When we eat a bagel or a bunch of grapes, for example, the glucose levels in our blood rise, and the pancreas secretes insulin to turn glucose into an energy source, moving it from the blood into our cells.

But the body only evolved to store enough glucose to last a couple of days. So if we forgo eating carbs, it finds other ways to keep going.

One of those ways is a process called ketogenesis. In ketogenesis, the liver starts to break down fat — both from food and from the reserves stored in our fat tissue — into a usable energy source called ketone bodies, or ketones for short. Ketones can stand in for glucose as fuel when there’s a glucose shortage. Once ketogenesis kicks in and ketone levels go up, the body is in ketosis and burning fat instead of the usual glucose. (Whether this actually leads to increased calorie burn or fat loss is a matter of scientific debate.)

There are a couple of avenues into ketosis. One is through fasting: When you stop eating altogether for an extended period of time, the body will ramp up fat burning for fuel and decrease its use of glucose (which is part of the reason people can survive for as long as 73 days without food).

Another way to reach it is by making your body think it’s fasting — by eating only about 20 to 50 grams of total carbs per day. At the low end, that’s equivalent to a slice of bread or a small potato.

People on a keto diet generally aim to get about 5 percent of their calories from carbohydrates in foods such as berries and salad, about 15 percent from proteins like salmon and sardines, and 80 percent from fats including coconut oil and avocado. And ketosis is a quantifiable state. Dieters can measure their ketone levels with blood tests, breathalyzers, and urine strips (with varying degrees of accuracy — blood tests are considered the gold standard for now).

This data-driven aspect is part of what appealed to Ethan Weiss, a University of California San Francisco professor of cardiovascular research. Initially, he was skeptical when he was invited to consult for Virta Health, a company selling lifestyle counseling on ketogenic diets for Type 2 diabetics. A second-generation cardiologist, he says his family had “nothing that resembled fat in the house” when he was growing up.

The more he learned about keto, however, the more intrigued he became. He says he was excited by “the idea that we can give [patients] an option that’s going to get them off medication reliably. The only other intervention that’s done that was bariatric surgery,” he says.

Eventually, Weiss co-developed a breath sensor, called Keyto, to help people track how their diet affects their ketone levels. Playing around with the prototype, he realized he’d made the diet a kind of game. “I was trying to see if I could get my ketone levels to go up. And because I’m naturally competitive and like games, I got obsessed.”

Within two months, he dropped nearly 16 pounds he hadn’t intended to lose and saw his blood sugar levels, which had been high, normalize.

Still, he concedes there’s a lot we don’t know about the effects of the diet. “There are two questions: Is it safe to be in ketosis long-term? And is there something else about this diet that’s potentially dangerous or harmful long-term? We can’t really answer either one in a rigorous way today,” he says.

One concern is that some people on keto will see their cholesterol levels increase, which is linked with a heightened risk of heart disease. In a recent op-ed criticizing low-carb evangelists for their “cheerleading,” Weiss wrote of the cholesterol problem: “It’s a classic issue of balancing benefits and risks, one complicated because it isn’t clear if, how much, or in whom an increase in cholesterol even matters. That’s why there is general consensus that rigorous clinical trials are needed to answer this critical question.”

Other doctors, writing in JAMA Internal Medicine, list “keto flu,” cardiac arrhythmias, constipation, and vitamin and mineral deficiencies among keto’s documented side effects in the pediatric scientific literature. But the diet’s greatest risk, they write, may be the opportunity cost of not eating enough high-fiber, unrefined carbohydrates.

I ask Weiss why he’s so excited about keto, even willing to promote it, given those risks, and the fact that sustained weight loss on keto doesn’t look all that different from other diets. “[We] can’t let perfect be the enemy of great,” he answers. “That is, what we are doing now sucks.”

The frontiers of keto science

Oncologists are also looking past keto’s big unknowns and exploring the potential benefits of the diet as part of cancer therapy. While they warn that it’s far too early to prescribe the diet for any specific cancer type, they’re excited about the possibilities.

For a study published in 2018 in Nature, Mukherjee and his co-authors tested whether PI3-kinase inhibitors — a class of drug used to treat cancers, which has the side effect of driving up blood sugar and insulin levels — would perform better in mice when they also ate a keto diet or took a drug that suppressed insulin levels. The idea they wanted to test, Mukherjee explained on Weiss’s keto podcast, was: What if “the drug causes a physiological side effect — high sugar, high insulin — and that high insulin is now what is bringing the tumors alive again … like a malignant circuit.”

In the study, the combination of the drug and the diet shrank 12 types of tumors in mice — even pancreatic cancer, which is very difficult to treat in humans. But keto caused the leukemia to worsen, meaning researchers still need to work out where the diet is helpful and where it’s harmful.

Marcus DaSilva Goncalves, a co-author on the study and endocrinologist at New York’s Weill Cornell Medicine, says we’ll learn more from a human trial, scheduled to start later this year, that will build on the mouse research.

For now, it’s way too early to know whether this research will translate to humans, despite all the YouTube videos and blogs suggesting that sugar “feeds” cancer. “We are in the Stone Age of understanding which diet is best for each type of cancer site,” Goncalves said.

He’s also concerned about heart health. “We don’t know what it’s doing to cardiovascular risk factors. But cancer’s unique — people are willing to accept a more hazardous condition in order to cure the cancer.”

Much better-established are keto’s effects on epilepsy. For nearly a century, doctors have been prescribing the diet to treat epilepsy, an idea that came about in the 1920s, when researchers observed that people who fasted experienced fewer seizures. Researchers still aren’t sure why the diet can work, but a few mechanisms have been proposed, including making neurons more resilient during seizures. And today, studies have shown that children and adults whose epilepsy doesn’t respond to medications seem to experience a pretty large reduction in seizures when following a ketogenic diet.

That doesn’t, however, mean that the diet works for other conditions. There are still many questions about even the most talked-about keto applications, such as keto for Type 2 diabetes. While researchers have found the diet can reduce people’s hemoglobin A1C (a measure of blood sugar) and their reliance on medication, the effects tend to wane after one year.

Virta Health, the keto counseling company Weiss consults for, recently published data from a two-year evaluation of the Virta program. Through telemedicine, Virta’s clients get nutrition support and health coaching about how to prepare low-carb foods and stick to the diet. In the trial, people’s A1C and weight crept up between one and two years — but 38 percent saw their diabetes reverse and 15 percent were in remission. “Those results are dramatically better than anything else anybody’s published at two years with diet or lifestyle regimen,” Steve Phinney, a founder of Virta who has been studying (and living on) keto for decades, says.

Skeptics, such as the cardiologists turned diet gurus Dean Ornish and Joel Kahn, argue that keto’s potential heart risks are too great. Others note that it’s not clear whether it’s the keto diet itself or the weight loss it can induce that helps control Type 2 diabetes.

To begin to answer the latter question, Phinney and his colleagues ran a study that cycled 16 patients through a low-carb (keto), moderate-carb, and high-carb diet during four-week periods, with two-week reset periods in between. During the diet, the participants were fed enough to keep their weight stable. At the start of the trial, they all met diagnostic criteria for metabolic syndrome, a constellation of conditions — excess fat in the abdominal area, high blood sugar, low HDL (or “good”) cholesterol, and high blood pressure — that are linked to an increased risk of heart disease, stroke, and Type 2 diabetes.

The results were just published in the journal JCI Insight. After one month on the high-carb diet, one of the 16 people no longer met the criteria for metabolic syndrome. On the moderate-carb diet, three of the 16 reversed their metabolic syndrome. On keto, that number rose to nine out of 16. This suggests that it’s carbohydrate restriction, not weight loss, that helps control metabolic syndrome, including high blood sugar.

The study will have to be replicated. It’s also worth noting the high-carb group ate a lower-quality diet (with foods such as marshmallow fluff and barbecue sauce) while the lower-carb groups stuck to whole foods, which could have muddied the results. And it was funded by a grant from Dairy Management Inc. and the Dutch Dairy Association, and co-authored by researchers with a financial stake in showing keto’s benefits.

But Phinney believes the work is nothing short of revolutionary. “A guy named Thomas Kuhn pointed out that scientific revolutions don’t happen overnight, they happen over time,” he says. “We’re using a non-pharmaceutical, very powerful tool to hopefully halt and turn back an epidemic that is threatening our ability to provide health care because it’s such a dramatically expensive disease.”

And there are other ways the diet may be used. Researchers are currently exploring the benefits of keto for Type 1 diabetes. There’s preliminary research suggesting an ultra-low-carb diet could have a role in treating neurodegenerative diseases, like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. A lot of the brain research, however, was done in mice or cells, so we still need evidence of human response. When we have better studies, keto might look as ineffectual as gluten-free — or maybe it’ll be the diet miracle we’ve been hoping for. That is, if we can stick to it.

CREDITS Editor: Eliza Barclay Visuals editor: Kainaz Amaria Designers: Amanda Northrop and Christina Animashaun Copy editors: Tanya Pai and Tim Williams Cover designer and graphics: Javier Zarracina Photographer: Scott Suchman for Vox Food stylist: Lisa Cherkasky for Vox

Source link Keto Diet Diabetes

[milominderbindered]

thirty days of skam fic: day three

beginning. accusation. restless. leaves. rainbow. flame. formal. under. move. silver. prepared. knowledge. soft. cans. order. thanks. pink. summer. transformation. tremble. tent. mad. thousand. paper. winter. luxury. letters. promise. simple. future.

[ READ ON AO3 ]

There are two regular presences in Isak and Even’s bed -- Isak and Even -- but sleep does not always join them.

Some nights, it's fine. They fall asleep curled around each other within minutes of turning the light off, and don't wake up until sunlight is blaring through their badly-hung curtains or one of them tries to kiss the other one awake.  But other nights, things don't run so smoothly.  It's not always one thing; sometimes, Even’s brain is running just a little bit too fast to keep up with, and it won't let him lay down for long enough to fall into in unconsciousness, and other times his meds have just been adjusted and are keeping him up, or he's stressed about how soon he’s finishing school and what he's gonna do after that ends.  Sometimes his artist’s brain just only floods with inspiration at two AM, and he has to get up and draw portraits or sketch storyboards of movie ideas by the dim light of his phone so as not to wake up Isak.  Sometimes, he's just too distracted by the beautiful boy in his -- their -- bed, and he'd rather stay up for hours, watching Isak snuffle into the pillows and curl his fingers around nothing and twist his legs in the duvet, than close his eyes and miss a single second of it.

Then, sometimes, it's Isak who’s the one left awake.  His insomnia is a lot less frequent these days; he's out, he's happy, he's resolved to not stress about the little dramas of the world and just to focus on living him life.  But still, when Isak does find it impossible to get to sleep, it's usually because he's worried. If his mum has sent him a particularly fractured text that day, he worries, and it keeps him awake.  If some people made a few snide comments about him and Even holding hands, he worries, and if keeps him awake.  If he has a test coming up, or an essay he's not sure he’s done his best on, or just suddenly remembers how much pressure he has put on himself to do well at school -- he worries, and it keeps him awake.

Individually, they're both used to it.  And they can take some comfort from each other, just by lying there, listening to the steady breaths of another sleeping body, having someone warm and loving to curl up against in the darkness, even when their minds won't leave them alone.

One night, though, Even and Isak’s insomnia happens to coincide.

In a way, it's amazing it hasn't happened sooner.  They've been living together for months and spending most nights together for longer still; but other than the tremulous beginning of their relationship, they manage to make it until June before one of their sleepless nights lines up.

They'd tumbled into bed early, but that was all hot hands and pulsing kisses and frantic scrambling to get clothes off -- not for sleep.  After they'd finished and cleaned up lazily, they lay there, Even’s arm around Isak, Isak’s head on Even’s chest.  They both tried to fall asleep.

But Isak had an exam the next day and he'd drunk a red bull earlier trying to psych himself up for studying, and his brain still hasn't calmed down.  He finds himself shuffling his legs restlessly under the covers, tapping his fingers against Even’s chest in an uneven rhythm, trying to force himself to take deep breaths.  They're curled up under the warm duvet, the flat quiet, everything pitch black, and he's had a long day -- he should be tired.

But he's not.  And as Even shifts underneath him, one of his fingers relentlessly twisting a curl above Isak’s ear, Isak begins to suspect that Even isn't dropping right off to sleep either.

“My brain is buzzing,” he admits into the darkness, his words a little muffled by Even’s chest.

“Mine too.” Even’s voice is quiet, but sounds a little amused.

“Never let me drink red bull again.”

“Babe, you threatened to shove your pen into my eye if I took the can away from you earlier, remember?”

“ Ugh, Even, that’s no excuse.”

For a moment, they’re both quiet again.  Isak sort of hopes that admitting his sleeplessness outloud will miraculously help, and the darkness and the soft moment between them will suddenly lull him to sleep, but nope.  Nothing.  He feels as wide awake as if it was the middle of the day, and he starts tapping his fingers over Even’s chest again, restless.

“Why’s your brain buzzing?” he finally asks, sighing and sitting up.  He stretches over the top of Even’s body to switch on the little lamp that sits on their dresser on Even’s side of the bed.  It’s kind of crappy and needs a new bulb really, but it casts enough light that they can see each other’s faces, and being wide awake in the middle of the night doesn’t seem quite so bleak anymore.  Once he’s turned the lamp on, he flops down on top of Even heavily, laughing when Even makes an oof noise and pretends to be winded.

“Just one of those nights,” Even says, as he shoves Isak off, but then immediately follows him to the other side of the bed and starts cuddling him again.  “I handed in that film project today, and now all I can think about is how many shots I wish I’d done differently.  There’s this whole bit at the end where, fuck, I could have shot the entire thing at an angle through a doorway, like the viewer is really intruding on the moment, y’know?”

Isak nods into Even’s chest.  He doesn’t actually know a single thing about film composition, but living with Even is teaching him a lot -- and he knows about this film in particular, for Even’s media course, because Even had made Isak be one of the actors in it.  He didn’t have to talk, but he had to be filmed walking around Oslo and lying in a pile of leaves and making pasta on the balcony, things like that.  It’s abstract.

(He’s half convinced that most of the things Even made him do won’t end up in the film at all, but Even was just having fun making Isak do stupid things on film.)

“Regrets, regrets,” he mumbles.  “It’s okay, baby.  You can always reshoot some things if you wanna use it on your film school portfolio, right?”

Even makes a hmm sound.  Isak looks up at him, in the light of their crappy lamp; he’s mostly chin from this angle, but it’s a very cute chin.

After another long moment of silence, Even suddenly shifts against him.  “We should do something.  Since neither of us can sleep regardless.”

“Like what?   It’s two AM.”  Isak thinks he’s allowed to be skeptical -- Even often has terrible ideas of what’s appropriate to do in the middle of the night.  “Besides, studies show that if you can’t fall asleep, it’s still better to just lie in bed and rest.”

“Oh, yeah?”  Even’s voice is light and teasing, and Isak grins as he shuffles a bit further up the bed, putting his head on the pillow instead of Even’s chest so they can look right into each other’s eyes.  “Nah, bullshit.  I think that study was done by someone like you, just as an excuse to lie in bed all day and get cuddled.  Since that’s your favourite thing in the world.”

Sometimes, Isak thinks his boyfriend knows him too well.

“No, it’s real!  It’s still beneficial to your body to be restful, even if you’re not asleep.”  He pauses, and then adds, “It’s also totally beneficial to get cuddled.  One study said we need about seventeen hugs a day to fulfil our need for touch.”

Laughing, Even stretches his arms out and locks them tight around Isak’s shoulders, pulling their bodies even closer together.  Their noses bump on the pillow they’re sharing.

“Shit, I better start counting, then.  Do you think I’m giving you seventeen hugs a day?  Probably, right?  I wouldn’t want you to feel deprived.”

“Even, you give me about seventy hugs a day.  I think we’re good.”

Isak tries to make his voice snarky, but it just comes out hopelessly soft.  Despite his whirring mind and the way he still feels jittery from his energy drinks, there’s no way he can ever feel tense in Even’s arms; he slides his hands up the back of Even’s t-shirt, rubbing along his warm skin, and smiles a bit.  It wasn’t always this way.  Before Even, nobody really hugged Isak at all, apart fromquick bro-hugs from Jonas, and a few cuddles with Eskild against Isak’s will.  Sometimes Isak feels greedy, wanting his boyfriend to touch him absolutely all the time, but then he remembers all those years of wishing anybody would hold him like this, and he decides he’s earned this.

“Seventy hugs a day,” Even repeats, nuzzling their noses together a bit more.  He stretches out and drops a tiny kiss onto Isak’s lips, his chin, his cheek, before dropping back onto the pillow.  “Yeah.  I think that’s the number we should aim for.”

Isak is okay with that.  And he thinks he might be okay with not sleeping, too.  When Even is awake as well, stroking his shoulders and twirling his hair and teasing him about cuddles, a restless night suddenly doesn't seem so bad at all.

[byfatedchance]

Too Little, Too Late — 2.14.19

“Where are we going now daddy?” The bright eyed toddler queried. As part of their daddy-daughter early dinner date Alek took Liya to get ice cream, the two of them walking hand in hand back to the restaurant, each with a cone, double scoops insisted upon by the four year old, her mouth smudged with the frozen strawberry treat. “Brain freeze,” she shuddered. In a show of sympathy Alek shuddered too, perhaps more over the top than necessary, pretending he had one too, which got a laugh from Liya who quickly forgot of her own. “Maybe we shouldn’t eat it so fast, Alek suggested and wiped ice cream off her lips. “I was thinking we could make a stop. I want to get flowers for Nonna and your aunts for Valentine’s day.” Alek hadn’t had a date for the last two years so he preferred to spoil his mom and sisters with sweet little gifts for the holiday. Later tonight he would build a blanket fort with his daughter and watch Disney princess movies, never complaining that he’d seen them a thousand times and he could recite every line from memory. “Will you help me pick some out?” Instead of a response from Liya he felt a very enthusiastic tug, at which Alek chuckled and allowed himself to be dragged forward by the sheer strength of a four year old.

As soon as they stepped foot into the shop off the corner the little girl let go and took off. “I know which flowers Auntie likes. Imma find ‘em.” Alek trailed behind not able to match the speed of the toddler. “Excuse me.” Liya stood on her tiptoes so she wouldn’t appear so little in trying to catch the attention of the florist. The woman leaned across the counter towards the sound of the miniature voice that addressed her. “Do you have any turnips?” Used to his daughter’s funny vocabulary Alek stuffed his hands into his pockets and explained, smiling in amusement, “she means tulips.” When shown to them out he smiled again and thanked the florist. For his mom he selected roses and not wanting to exclude his daughter he picked out a sunflower and tucked one behind her ears. “For you princepesa, my sunshine.” It was true she was the light of his life, the only good that came from his brief fling with his ex. While perusing through the various bouquets he recalled seeing fresh flowers on Naomi’s desk, tried to remember which he’d seen, and wondered if it might be a nice gesture if he got her some. He could bring her desserts too, which he knew she pretended to hate, along with the flowers. His fingers brushed through the petals of rosaleas. Alek put his nose towards the daisies. “Are we getting more?“ Liya mimicked him and smelled the flowers. “Yeah. For a friend. I think she might like some.” Between managing the restaurant and devoting his free time to Liya he regretted not seeing Naomi as much as he’d like. If he was being honest, he missed having her around, her absence from the restaurant not gone unnoticed by him. “Which do you think she will like better?” Liya pondered the options and after careful consideration decided, “the pink ones.” Alek smiled and agreed, hoping that Naomi will like them too.

——

Naomi glanced down at her gold Cartier watch, a gift from her parents after she graduated from NYU, simultaneously typing and checking the time. If she hurried she could submit her story before heading out for her date, one that she had been reluctant to go on since she didn’t know who he was, given only a description and name and told that he was cute, as if that last part should be the deciding factor. With everything that she had been through, diagnosed with a heart condition at a young age, Naomi made a promise to herself that she wouldn’t shirk from the things that scared her, the unknown, but to be present, be open to new experiences and take life day by day. Who knew what the evening had in store for her, maybe she would end up having a very good time with her mystery date, and she wasn’t going to deprive herself of finding out. Since meeting Alek she had a hard time reading him. If he was interested in her she couldn’t tell; one moment they got along great, there had been some subtle flirting, then suddenly he completely iced her out with no explanation. Whatever his deal was, Naomi didn’t wait around for things to happen.

Propping her phone up on the desk Naomi dialed her best friend. She removed the dress off its hanger and wondered if it was too flashy. Though just a casual date, Naomi loved any opportunity to get dolled up. “Aren’t you supposed to be on your date?” Blake popped up on the phone screen. “I’m getting ready,” Naomi assured him, then again when he cast suspicion at the slouchy joggers and an off-the-shoulder sweater that she still wore. “I am. I need your help picking out what to wear. Which one?” Placing the two outfits in front of her body she showed him a white dress with plunging neckline then a lace bodice cami jumpsuit. Blake, always flattered that she relied on him for wardrobe advice when Naomi had friends in the fashion industry, advised against the second. “Sweetie that jumpsuit makes you look too corporate, like you’re meeting to talk business.” Naomi visualized herself in it in front of the mirror. “I think the lace makes it very sexy,” she countered. “Yeah, but do you want to hire him or?” Naomi blushed. “Oh my god, no! I don’t want to get into his pants. I want to have a good time but not that good of a time. I don’t even know him.” Blake laughed and pretty soon Naomi couldn’t help but join him. “I hate that you’re right.” She tossed the jumpsuit to the side.

Naomi moved away from the phone to strip out of her clothes and changed into the dress. “So what have you and Carson got planned tonight?” She struggled with the zipper in the back. “I’ve turned the apartment into a mini art gallery with a bunch of cute photos of us put up everywhere.“ The hopeless romantic in Naomi who adored cute, cheesy proclamations of love beamed at the idea. “That’s so cute. Do you already have it set up? Can I see?” Among the exhibits that Blake showed her were polaroids strung up on yarns in one room, a photo collage in the shape of a heart in another, and a projector that displayed silent black and white clips of the couple onto a wall. “Aww, Blake. It’s perfect. Carson will love it. I wish someone would do something like that for me,” she mused, that last part intended to be a private thought. “Thanks. I really like him, you know? Maybe you will meet that someone tonight. Let me see that dress on you.” The dress, tiny pearl beads lining the neckline, scooped low to tease a little cleavage. “What do you think?” Blake whistled his approval. “Poor guy is going to have a difficult time focusing or breathing when he sees you in that.” Naomi felt her cheeks flush, suddenly feeling a little self conscious. “It’s not too much? I’m not trying to give anyone a heart attack,” she chuckled, “could you imagine, and I don’t want him to be too caught up in how I look.” Blake assured her she looked beautiful. “That’s Carson at the door. Talk to you soon? Good luck on your date, babe.” At the sound of knocking he hastily ended the call and left Naomi to finish with hair and makeup.

As Naomi slipped out of her building she received a text from a coworker asking a favor. Of course she would assume Naomi was still at the office working, everyone knew she often stayed late, and she would almost be correct except for the location. Since the place where Naomi was to meet up with her date wasn’t too far away she figured she would have enough time to stop by. After rifling through for the document Naomi took the papers to the copier to be scanned and emailed. It was as she reached for a paper clip that Naomi heard faint rustling, like footsteps, then a small thud.

Had the building been this empty the last time he came by, Alek wondered then remember what day it was, spouses and couples probably gone early to be with their significant others. This time he didn’t need directions to her office. He picked at the collar of his shirt, which met his nostrils briefly for a quick smell test to make sure he didn’t smell like pasta. In hind sight he should have thought to look more presentable before showing up. Not only that, he should have texted beforehand to make sure Naomi was still around. The elevator ticked at each floor it passed before the doors opened. He stepped out. With every empty desk he passed Alek began to lose confidence that he would catch her, but then stopped, too stunned to approach any further. “Wow...” he muttered quietly. There she was feeding papers into the copier machine. She looked breathtaking, no ethereal would be how he would describe her. How could he approach her when she looked like a modern princess in white and he in his drab grays. He convinced himself that she was busy, as if scanning documents was a complicated task that required intense focus. He would come back another time, Alek decided, but after turning around and walking a few paces he reconsidered. The flowers might wilt the next time he would see her. Swiveling back Alek didn’t watch where he was going and bumped into a desk. Loud. Banged his knee hard. “Fuck!”

“Who’s there?” Naomi called out. She hadn’t seen anyone else on the floor on her way in. “It’s me,” Alek groaned in response. Recognizing that voice she hurried towards him. “What are you doing here? Are you ok?” Naomi looked around and pulled out a chair for him. “Sit here.” Alek gratefully took a seat. He didn’t knew which was greater, the pain or his embarrassment. So much for being smooth. If his sister saw him now she would no doubt be laughing at his expense. “Yeah, I’m ok. I...” Looking into her concerned brown eyes he lost his words for a moment. He followed her gaze to the bouquet in his hand. “Those are for you,” he finally replied, which probably sounded as dumb as he felt. “You got me flowers? Why?” She didn’t mean for it to sound like she wasn’t appreciative, only that it was unexpected so she didn’t know how to respond to them. “I thought you might like them. Am I wrong?” Naomi shook her head. “No, they’re lovely. You didn’t have to get me anything.” While it was sweet of him, and she loved the flowers, she had to remind herself Alek had been ignoring her ever since the night at the winery. If anything the sweet gesture made more confused. This was their first face to face encounter. An explanation would have been nice, but it didn’t look like he was prepared to give her one. “Let me go get you some ice for that,” she offered.

Alek tended to his throbbing knee, each touch making the sensation worst. Naomi returned with ice cubes loosely wrapped in paper towels. “Here you go.” He took the ice and gave a small smile despite wincing when he put the ice pack over his knee. “Thank you.” Alek could feel her worried eyes on him. “It looks worse than it feels,” he stated unconvincingly. Naomi must have sensed his pain because her hand did not leave his when she handed him the ice pack. Instead it stayed on top of his hand over the ice pack. She must have gotten a sense of how long her hand lingered and pulled it back. “You’ll probably have a nasty bruise in the morning but it looks like you’re going to be fine. I would suggest watching where you’re going or you’ll end up like me.” When he failed to comprehend Naomi showed him her ankle, a salonpas patch taped there, and told him how she nearly twisted it after her heels got caught in one of the city’s street grates. “Luckily I didn’t injure it too badly. No ankle brace, or worst crutches.” Naomi scrunched her nose and chuckled softly. Alek didn’t know whether to be concerned or amused so he shared a chuckle with her. “Those things are dangerous. I get my heels stuck in them all the time.” Naomi reached over and playfully swat at his arm. “I’m here trying to share in your pain and you’re making fun of me?” she scoffed. Alek held up his hands defensively, the ice pack sliding off his leg but Naomi caught it in time and cautiously returned onto his knee. “My apologies. Know what let me make it up to you. I come bearing treats. I also brought you these.” He pushed the box of Italian desserts across the desk. “I figured they’d be better than chocolate. Happy Valentine’s Day.” She peered inside, helpless to stop the grin that spread across her lips. Suddenly Naomi resented him a little less. He wasn’t winning his way into her heart anytime soon, but at least he knew the way to her stomach. “Damn you, Casanova,” she muttered. “What was that? I’ll have you know my zeppoles are very offended at you speaking in vain like that.” Naomi rolled her eyes and shook her head. “You’re a idiot,” she wasn’t afraid to call him out for what his was. “Foods don’t have feelings. You know why exactly why I said that.” Alek laughed, fair point. “Go ahead, have one.” When she hesitated, he pressed on, “You know you want to. I’ll feel better if you do.” Naomi laughed in disbelief. “Oh sure, me eating your devilish treats will magically cure your knee.” The more she stared at the zeppoles, they more they beckoned her to eat them. Any efforts to resist dissolved when her hand dipped into the box. “I don’t know, I shouldn’t. But no one’s stopping me right?” Alek shrugged and smiled when she gave in and took a bite. “Better?” she asked mid-chewing. “Much,” he grinned.

With a ping of her phone Naomi checked her new text message. “Oh no, I’m late.” She brushed the crumbs off her fingers. “I’ve got a date.” As soon as she said that she wondered if she had overshared. “Oh...” His heart sank. Although disappointed Alek tried not to show it as he got back on his feet. So that had been the reason why she was dressed up so nicely, not that she didn’t always look beautiful to him. “I’m sorry I didn’t mean to keep you.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I can show myself out. Enjoy your date.” Feeling like a fool he looked for a quick exit. Naomi nodded, glad that he was understanding. She hung back so she could avoid the elevator trip with him.

Alek limped his way out, his stupid knee still bothering him. But what bothered him more was that she was going on a date with someone else. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, he liked her. After his ex left him with Liya he didn’t allow himself to get too close with anyone. Naomi was the first woman he felt comfortable around in a long time. Alek shook his head. It didn’t matter anyway, she was interested in someone else and his daughter’s needs would always come before anyone else, including what he wanted. Still, it really sucked finding out that someone else would be taking her out and showing her a good time. He wished he’d been the one on the date with her. Shoving his hands into his pockets he sulked back to the restaurant.

Waiting five minutes, enough time for him to leave the building, Naomi grabbed her keys and purse. She checked the address her date had texted her. To her shock the sign above with its familiar surname greeted her. Cassano. Of all the restaurants in the city this would be the location of her blind date. After pacing around and against her reservations of why she shouldn’t be here, mainly that Alek worked there, she decided to go in. Her dress didn’t need any more smoothing out but out of nervousness she continued to straighten it while she waited for the hostess to look up and show her to her table. The guy waiting for her resembled Thor, long wavy hair, bulging muscles underneath a crisp button down shirt that looked a size too small for him and probably deliberately picked out to show off his arms. He stood up and introduced himself to her, “Greyson, nice to meet you.” Naomi extended her hand and smiled warmly. “Naomi. I’m sorry to have kept you waiting.”

Because of Valentine’s Day the restaurant had been busier than usual. Alek extended his help, but only for another hour in keeping his promise to spend the evening with his daughter. “Has anyone seen my apron?” he shouted over the chatter and clatter of dishes. “By the bar, boss,” one of the waiters informed him. As he hobbled his way over there a woman called for his attention. “Excuse me sir, could you recommend a salad? It’s our first time here.” Alek smiled politely, “Certainly. Any allergies? I would say everything is delicious but I‘m particularly biased.” He introduced himself as the chef, his amicable personality winning them over instantly and sure to earn big tips for whoever waited on the table. Alek made his rounds, checking on his customers and their foods, and finally headed toward the hostess area to see how his girls were doing. From a distance he could see a fidgety woman waiting at the front. Had she been helped? Her familiarity stopped him from coming any closer and offering his assistance, the brunette unmistakably Naomi. Instead he retreated to the bar.

Since she had arrived late Naomi didn’t mind that her date had already ordered without her, or that he insisted on ordering for her. Never mind that Naomi already knew which entrees were the best, she’d tried and loved them all. Her favorite was the chicken piccata, fell in love with it at first bite as she’d jokingly told Alek, and when he learned that her date had skipped appetizers, he tried not to show his disapproval. Not to mention the choice of wine, the guy had gotten it wrong. Red wines went with meats, and he knew Naomi favored Riesling or that her pasta paired better with Chardonnay, but he didn’t want to come off as a wine snob. All he could do was stay in the background and watch.

Though ridiculously attractive, her friends had great taste, Naomi found that she had little in common with Greyson, a model. New York was full of them. Finally a topic perked her interest, their mutual love for traveling, but again Naomi was let down when it was for different reasons. Whereas she preferred to immerse herself in the cultures of new places she visited she learned he didn’t care for any of it. He liked to talk a lot, mostly about himself. She could barely get in a word herself. At some point she stopped listening entirely, instead daydreaming about the rest of the zeppole she would eat when she got home. That managed to make her smile. She nodded and smiled throughout the evening to give the pretense that she was interested in what he’d been saying. Naomi snapped out of her daydreams of desserts when a shadow loomed over her, then the sound of his voice speaking to her, to them. “Complimentary of the owner. Valentine’s special.” Alek smiled down at her and presented them with a bottle of Vermentino. When he announced it his eyes concentrated on Naomi. He couldn’t help himself, he had to at least engage with them once and get a better sense of how the date was going. Naomi noticed that none of the other tables received free wine but didn’t comment on it. She smiled and mouthed thank you, while Greyson thanked Alek. “Would you like to order any desserts?” Alek winked at Naomi. “YES!” she responded much too enthusiastically.

At the end of the evening when Greyson and Naomi parted ways she pretended to have left something inside so she could go back in, insisting that he not wait for her. Naomi asked around for Alek but the staff told her the same thing, that he’d already left. When asked if she wanted to let him know she was looking for him, Naomi simply said no.

[dorothyd89]

That Time I Worked For the Sugar Industry…

Hey, I was young. I didn’t know any better!

And the money was good. So, how could I turn it down? As a high school kid, you make money any way you can, even if it’s something you’re not thrilled about.

And that’s how I ended up spending two summers with my older brother Jack working for Coca-Cola, which I talked about on Steve’s Instagram:

That’s right, your boy Steve – a guy who once wrote an article explaining why Sugar is Worse than Jar Jar Binks – used to work for the enemy!

For two summers, my brother and I would wake up at 5AM, put on the sweet Coke polo shirts pictured above, hop into our Coca-Cola cars (old station wagons with Coca-Cola logos on the side), and stock shelves full of Coke products for 50-60+ hours a week on Cape Cod.

Now, hopefully you know that the above “enemy” comment is in jest.

If you happen to be currently employed by Coca-Cola or a company that sells products or services that are unhealthy, I don’t mean to pick on you or your employer…kind of. After all, Coca-Cola is a company that aims to make a profit by selling products that are delicious. I get it. Give me an ice-cold Mexican Coke made with real sugar in a glass bottle on a hot day, and it’s heaven. I also know they donate lots of money to charity, employ thousands, and do plenty of good things, and blah blah blah.

Okay! Now that that’s out of the way…

Twelve years after working indirectly for Big Sugar and seven years after starting Nerd Fitness, I now know just how detrimental sugar can be to our health, and it brings me to the point of today’s article!

We know sugar is bad for us (right? I hope?), but I wasn’t aware just how insidious this stuff has become in society and until I learned the history behind sugar’s rise in our day-to-day lives – and the rise in our obesity rates.

The History of Sugar

The history of sugar is both fascinating and pretty messed up. For starters, in the 1960’s the sugar industry actually paid scientists to downplay the connection between sugar and heart disease and instead promote saturated fat as the culprit.

Screw facts and data; there’s money to be made!

This is how we ended up with hilariously depressing ads like the one below from the 1970’s, touting sugar as a great path to weight loss and healthy living:

If you know anything about sugar, you can’t help but look at that ad and start laughing. “Use sugar to help you BUILD willpower? And NOT overeat.” Seriously!?

Fortunately, these days we’re MUCH better off and way smarter, and silly tricks like that can’t work anymore.

Right?

Wrong! As pointed out in “The Case Against Sugar” by Gary Taubes: “Academic researchers in 2015 were doing the bidding of Coca-Cola by taking its money to fund a Global Energy Balance Network and ‘shift blame for obesity away from bad diets, and instead only focus on not enough exercise.’”

We know here at NF that you can’t outrun your fork (it’s one of our Rules of the Rebellion), and you can’t out-train a bad diet, so telling people to ONLY focus on exercising more without worrying about what you put in your bodies is horrible advice.

Luckily, this group was shut down amidst widespread scrutiny and pressure by the public!

Also, pesky things like “facts” and “experimentation” kept getting in the way.

With all of the information coming out about how unhealthy soda can be in recent years, soda sales have steadily dropped to 30 year lows. This is AWESOME news, but don’t expect Coke and Pepsi to go quietly into the night.

Like any animal or company that’s been cornered or attacked, they’re adapting and fighting to stay relevant.

Thus, the strategy they’ve adopted is marketing “healthy” soda alternatives to find another pathway to connect their sugar water with our bloodstreams.

If you’ve picked up a Vitamin Water, a Naked Juice: Green Machine, or a Smoothie King fruit smoothie lately, and patted yourself on the back for making the healthy choice, your head is in the right place…but your blood sugar level will say otherwise!

These beverages, despite everything you’re told on their labels and what they advertise, are as bad for you (or worse) than drinking a soda:

20 oz Vitaminwater Power-C: 120 calories and 31 grams of sugar

20 oz Smoothie King “Pure Recharge” Mango Strawberry: 210 calories and 50g of sugar

20 oz Naked Juice Green Machine (100% real juice, no sugar added): 270 calories and 53 grams of sugar

At least when you drink a soda you know you’re making an unhealthy choice!

Shame on these other companies for convincing you their products are pure and healthy when they often have as much or more sugar as a can of Coke.

If you’re currently pissed off that you’ve been dutifully chugging Vitaminwater for the past few months instead of soda, assuming it’s healthier, I don’t blame you! The marketing and packaging leave you no choice BUT to assume it’s healthy and good for you.

What’s as funny as it is depressing is that even Coca-Cola executives themselves know their “healthy” marketing of these beverages is horseshit.

In 2015, when taken to court over the unsubstantiated health claims of Vitaminwater, Coca-Cola actually used the following defense (seriously): “No consumer could reasonably be misled into thinking Vitaminwater was a healthy beverage.”

I read that quote and my eyeballs almost fell out of my head. Are you furious yet? I am. Let’s fix it.

How to Not Let Sugar Run Your Life

I get it. Sugar is awesome. It’s delicious and makes us happy…temporarily.

It also makes us fat.

And holy **** is it addicting. It targets the pleasure centers in our brains, and is more available now than it has ever been in the history of our species. Unfortunately, our lizard brains have not adapted to its widespread availability instead of scarcity, which means our bodies can’t say “no” or “just a little.” This means we can ACTUALLY get hooked on the stuff. There are even studies that claim sugar can be as addicting as cocaine.

So the solution is simple: do more cocaine, less sugar!

Hahahaha, kidding. I’m not a doctor, and I don’t currently have pants on as I type this, but my advice would be to probably avoid both sugar and cocaine as much as possible.

Unfortunately, avoiding sugar is more than just giving up soda (though that’s a DAMN good start!). Other problems arise because sugar is in EVERYTHING and often hidden.

Why can’t we just tell the truth, people?

We talk a lot about a nefarious shadow organization making us fatter and lazier in our monthly story-driven adventure, Rising Heroes.

I thought it would be fun to create a dragon to slay. However, when you read that stuff above about:

scientists being paid off

calorie sugar bombs being marketed as healthy

companies claiming “there’s no way anybody could consider these drinks healthy,”

It’s like there really is a conglomeration of bad guys aiming to make us unhealthy.

Here’s how you can fight back. Follow these 4 quick rules to keep sugar from ruining your life:

1) Whenever possible, minimize liquid calories. This includes frappucinos and sodas, but also “real fruit smoothies” and “healthy” Naked Juice drinks, Gatorade, and even things like apple juice, orange juice, grape juice, cranberry juice, etc. Every once in a while? Sure. Just make it a rare treat (“treat yo’ self!”) – you’ll actually enjoy it more and be healthier!

I personally prescribe to the “out of sight, out of mind” philosophy because I have the willpower and restraint of a 5-year kid in a candy store. I don’t keep sugary beverages in my house so I’m not tempted and have to waste willpower trying not to drink them.

I’ve found that drinking sparkling water like LaCroix can really help me THINK I’m drinking soda, and provide me with the same level of happiness and fizzy satisfaction – without the sugar.

To answer your next question: here’s a whole article on “Is Diet Soda bad for me?” High five!

Still here? Good. Here’s a picture of a puppy:

Okay, back to business.

2) Don’t trust the front of the label, and learn to recognize sugar’s aliases. A label is required to list ingredients by amount, so by adding multiple types of sugar with weird names, a company can get away with moving sugar down the list.

Look for the following names: Agave nectar, Brown sugar, Cane crystals, Cane sugar, Corn sweetener, Corn syrup, Crystalline fructose, Dextrose, Evaporated cane juice, Organic evaporated cane juice, Fructose, Fruit juice concentrate, Glucose, High-fructose corn syrup, Honey, Invert sugar, Lactose, Maltose, Malt syrup, Molasses, Raw sugar, Sucrose, Sugar Syrup.

If you only look at two numbers on the back of a box, look at grams of sugar and total calories. You want minimal sugar and fewer calories. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good. Do the best you can!

Oh, and if a product says “no sugar added” on the front of it, you can bet your life savings on it having a RIDICULOUS amount of sugar.

Note: please don’t bet your life savings on this.

3) Be skeptical, because sugar is in practically everything. When in doubt, eat things with fewer ingredients. We consume 130 pounds of sugar per year on average (holy crap), which means the white stuff in in way more foods than we realize. Not just candy and soda, but practically everything.

Nature Valley Granola Bars? Plenty of sugar. In fact, most “protein bars” have tons of sugar. And, until outraged customers complained, “Nature Valley” Granola Bars were made with high fructose corn syrup. Mmmm, nature.

Pasta sauce? Should just be tomatoes right? Nope. Add in heaping tablespoons of high fructose corn syrup too and you’re getting closer.

Wheat bread? That’s gotta be healthy, right? Check the ingredients. I bet one of the top 5 is “high fructose corn syrup” too.

Hell, look at what’s advertised as a “balanced breakfast” these days on TV! Cereal and skim milk, fruit, a glass of orange juice, and toast. Or, in other words: sugar and sugar water, sugar, sugar water, and pile-o-carbs.

4) Track your sugar intake, and minimize it over time. As I cover in “Star Wars Explains Why We’re Fat,” everybody has a different amount of “gimme gimme gimme” in our brains that craves instant gratification.

This means we all have different abilities to get addicted to things, including sugar. Some people can eat sugar (or have one drink, or try drugs) and not get hooked, while others struggle with addiction instantly – once is enough to get hooked for life.

This comic explains human behavior and addiction quite well…with dinosaurs.

If you are somebody who is actually hooked on sugar, start by tracking your sugar intake each day (actually look up the sugar content of everything you consume!), and see how many grams you’re eating every day. Don’t worry about total numbers, just focus on eating less sugar than the day before. Repeat.

Michael Pollan, author of the Omnivore’s Dilemma said it succinctly: “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.” Eat real food (meat, vegetables, unprocessed stuff), keep your calorie total down, and stick to mostly plants along with healthy protein. Done!

We’ll continue digging into this battle against Big Sugar, shadow organizations, and false advertising in future posts. It’s amazing how heavily the deck is stacked against us when we try to be healthy, and how tough it is to find the actual truth!

I have no problem with sugar and people making choices that don’t line up with their health goals occasionally.

What really grinds my gears is when sugar is snuck into products and falsely marketed as healthy. We’re going to fight, and it starts by educating ourselves on how much sugar we’re actually eating.

Over the next week, your mission is to read the labels on the food and beverages you’re consuming. Specifically keep an eye on how many grams of sugar you’re consuming. Then over the next few weeks, try to drop that amount down by 10% each week. And then let me know how you did!

I want to hear from you: did you find this post useful? Hit reply and let me know if this article is actually gonna help you start to remove more sugar from your life!

-Steve

PS: We’ve recently overhauled our monthly story-driven experience, Rising Heroes. We’ll be opening doors for it next Monday, a few weeks later than normal – if you were waiting to get in, sorry for the delay. I promise it’ll be worth it – we’ve unrolled some big updates! 🙂

PPS: If you want to learn about the history of sugar and a contrarian viewpoint to “calories in, calories out no matter what they are,” check out Taube’s book “The Case Against Sugar.” It’s thought provoking and entertaining.

###

photo credit: Julien.Belli: Always Coca-Cola, wuestenigel: Macro of Decoration Crystals

http://ift.tt/2phA9sT http://ift.tt/2r30Ei3

http://ift.tt/2prEPwj

http://ift.tt/2r3HWKR http://ift.tt/2rdx4qa

[johnclapperne]

That Time I Worked For the Sugar Industry…

Hey, I was young. I didn’t know any better!

And the money was good. So, how could I turn it down? As a high school kid, you make money any way you can, even if it’s something you’re not thrilled about.

And that’s how I ended up spending two summers with my older brother Jack working for Coca-Cola, which I talked about on Steve’s Instagram:

That’s right, your boy Steve – a guy who once wrote an article explaining why Sugar is Worse than Jar Jar Binks – used to work for the enemy!

For two summers, my brother and I would wake up at 5AM, put on the sweet Coke polo shirts pictured above, hop into our Coca-Cola cars (old station wagons with Coca-Cola logos on the side), and stock shelves full of Coke products for 50-60+ hours a week on Cape Cod.

Now, hopefully you know that the above “enemy” comment is in jest.

If you happen to be currently employed by Coca-Cola or a company that sells products or services that are unhealthy, I don’t mean to pick on you or your employer…kind of. After all, Coca-Cola is a company that aims to make a profit by selling products that are delicious. I get it. Give me an ice-cold Mexican Coke made with real sugar in a glass bottle on a hot day, and it’s heaven. I also know they donate lots of money to charity, employ thousands, and do plenty of good things, and blah blah blah.

Okay! Now that that’s out of the way…

Twelve years after working indirectly for Big Sugar and seven years after starting Nerd Fitness, I now know just how detrimental sugar can be to our health, and it brings me to the point of today’s article!

We know sugar is bad for us (right? I hope?), but I wasn’t aware just how insidious this stuff has become in society and until I learned the history behind sugar’s rise in our day-to-day lives – and the rise in our obesity rates.

The History of Sugar

The history of sugar is both fascinating and pretty messed up. For starters, in the 1960’s the sugar industry actually paid scientists to downplay the connection between sugar and heart disease and instead promote saturated fat as the culprit.

Screw facts and data; there’s money to be made!

This is how we ended up with hilariously depressing ads like the one below from the 1970’s, touting sugar as a great path to weight loss and healthy living:

If you know anything about sugar, you can’t help but look at that ad and start laughing. “Use sugar to help you BUILD willpower? And NOT overeat.” Seriously!?

Fortunately, these days we’re MUCH better off and way smarter, and silly tricks like that can’t work anymore.

Right?

Wrong! As pointed out in “The Case Against Sugar” by Gary Taubes: “Academic researchers in 2015 were doing the bidding of Coca-Cola by taking its money to fund a Global Energy Balance Network and ‘shift blame for obesity away from bad diets, and instead only focus on not enough exercise.’”

We know here at NF that you can’t outrun your fork (it’s one of our Rules of the Rebellion), and you can’t out-train a bad diet, so telling people to ONLY focus on exercising more without worrying about what you put in your bodies is horrible advice.

Luckily, this group was shut down amidst widespread scrutiny and pressure by the public!

Also, pesky things like “facts” and “experimentation” kept getting in the way.

With all of the information coming out about how unhealthy soda can be in recent years, soda sales have steadily dropped to 30 year lows. This is AWESOME news, but don’t expect Coke and Pepsi to go quietly into the night.

Like any animal or company that’s been cornered or attacked, they’re adapting and fighting to stay relevant.

Thus, the strategy they’ve adopted is marketing “healthy” soda alternatives to find another pathway to connect their sugar water with our bloodstreams.

If you’ve picked up a Vitamin Water, a Naked Juice: Green Machine, or a Smoothie King fruit smoothie lately, and patted yourself on the back for making the healthy choice, your head is in the right place…but your blood sugar level will say otherwise!

These beverages, despite everything you’re told on their labels and what they advertise, are as bad for you (or worse) than drinking a soda:

20 oz Vitaminwater Power-C: 120 calories and 31 grams of sugar

20 oz Smoothie King “Pure Recharge” Mango Strawberry: 210 calories and 50g of sugar

20 oz Naked Juice Green Machine (100% real juice, no sugar added): 270 calories and 53 grams of sugar

At least when you drink a soda you know you’re making an unhealthy choice!

Shame on these other companies for convincing you their products are pure and healthy when they often have as much or more sugar as a can of Coke.

If you’re currently pissed off that you’ve been dutifully chugging Vitaminwater for the past few months instead of soda, assuming it’s healthier, I don’t blame you! The marketing and packaging leave you no choice BUT to assume it’s healthy and good for you.

What’s as funny as it is depressing is that even Coca-Cola executives themselves know their “healthy” marketing of these beverages is horseshit.

In 2015, when taken to court over the unsubstantiated health claims of Vitaminwater, Coca-Cola actually used the following defense (seriously): “No consumer could reasonably be misled into thinking Vitaminwater was a healthy beverage.”

I read that quote and my eyeballs almost fell out of my head. Are you furious yet? I am. Let’s fix it.

How to Not Let Sugar Run Your Life

I get it. Sugar is awesome. It’s delicious and makes us happy…temporarily.

It also makes us fat.

And holy **** is it addicting. It targets the pleasure centers in our brains, and is more available now than it has ever been in the history of our species. Unfortunately, our lizard brains have not adapted to its widespread availability instead of scarcity, which means our bodies can’t say “no” or “just a little.” This means we can ACTUALLY get hooked on the stuff. There are even studies that claim sugar can be as addicting as cocaine.

So the solution is simple: do more cocaine, less sugar!

Hahahaha, kidding. I’m not a doctor, and I don’t currently have pants on as I type this, but my advice would be to probably avoid both sugar and cocaine as much as possible.

Unfortunately, avoiding sugar is more than just giving up soda (though that’s a DAMN good start!). Other problems arise because sugar is in EVERYTHING and often hidden.

Why can’t we just tell the truth, people?

We talk a lot about a nefarious shadow organization making us fatter and lazier in our monthly story-driven adventure, Rising Heroes.

I thought it would be fun to create a dragon to slay. However, when you read that stuff above about:

scientists being paid off

calorie sugar bombs being marketed as healthy

companies claiming “there’s no way anybody could consider these drinks healthy,”

It’s like there really is a conglomeration of bad guys aiming to make us unhealthy.

Here’s how you can fight back. Follow these 4 quick rules to keep sugar from ruining your life:

1) Whenever possible, minimize liquid calories. This includes frappucinos and sodas, but also “real fruit smoothies” and “healthy” Naked Juice drinks, Gatorade, and even things like apple juice, orange juice, grape juice, cranberry juice, etc. Every once in a while? Sure. Just make it a rare treat (“treat yo’ self!”) – you’ll actually enjoy it more and be healthier!

I personally prescribe to the “out of sight, out of mind” philosophy because I have the willpower and restraint of a 5-year kid in a candy store. I don’t keep sugary beverages in my house so I’m not tempted and have to waste willpower trying not to drink them.

I’ve found that drinking sparkling water like LaCroix can really help me THINK I’m drinking soda, and provide me with the same level of happiness and fizzy satisfaction – without the sugar.

To answer your next question: here’s a whole article on “Is Diet Soda bad for me?” High five!

Still here? Good. Here’s a picture of a puppy:

Okay, back to business.

2) Don’t trust the front of the label, and learn to recognize sugar’s aliases. A label is required to list ingredients by amount, so by adding multiple types of sugar with weird names, a company can get away with moving sugar down the list.

Look for the following names: Agave nectar, Brown sugar, Cane crystals, Cane sugar, Corn sweetener, Corn syrup, Crystalline fructose, Dextrose, Evaporated cane juice, Organic evaporated cane juice, Fructose, Fruit juice concentrate, Glucose, High-fructose corn syrup, Honey, Invert sugar, Lactose, Maltose, Malt syrup, Molasses, Raw sugar, Sucrose, Sugar Syrup.

If you only look at two numbers on the back of a box, look at grams of sugar and total calories. You want minimal sugar and fewer calories. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good. Do the best you can!

Oh, and if a product says “no sugar added” on the front of it, you can bet your life savings on it having a RIDICULOUS amount of sugar.

Note: please don’t bet your life savings on this.

3) Be skeptical, because sugar is in practically everything. When in doubt, eat things with fewer ingredients. We consume 130 pounds of sugar per year on average (holy crap), which means the white stuff in in way more foods than we realize. Not just candy and soda, but practically everything.

Nature Valley Granola Bars? Plenty of sugar. In fact, most “protein bars” have tons of sugar. And, until outraged customers complained, “Nature Valley” Granola Bars were made with high fructose corn syrup. Mmmm, nature.

Pasta sauce? Should just be tomatoes right? Nope. Add in heaping tablespoons of high fructose corn syrup too and you’re getting closer.

Wheat bread? That’s gotta be healthy, right? Check the ingredients. I bet one of the top 5 is “high fructose corn syrup” too.

Hell, look at what’s advertised as a “balanced breakfast” these days on TV! Cereal and skim milk, fruit, a glass of orange juice, and toast. Or, in other words: sugar and sugar water, sugar, sugar water, and pile-o-carbs.

4) Track your sugar intake, and minimize it over time. As I cover in “Star Wars Explains Why We’re Fat,” everybody has a different amount of “gimme gimme gimme” in our brains that craves instant gratification.

This means we all have different abilities to get addicted to things, including sugar. Some people can eat sugar (or have one drink, or try drugs) and not get hooked, while others struggle with addiction instantly – once is enough to get hooked for life.

This comic explains human behavior and addiction quite well…with dinosaurs.

If you are somebody who is actually hooked on sugar, start by tracking your sugar intake each day (actually look up the sugar content of everything you consume!), and see how many grams you’re eating every day. Don’t worry about total numbers, just focus on eating less sugar than the day before. Repeat.

Michael Pollan, author of the Omnivore’s Dilemma said it succinctly: “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.” Eat real food (meat, vegetables, unprocessed stuff), keep your calorie total down, and stick to mostly plants along with healthy protein. Done!

We’ll continue digging into this battle against Big Sugar, shadow organizations, and false advertising in future posts. It’s amazing how heavily the deck is stacked against us when we try to be healthy, and how tough it is to find the actual truth!

I have no problem with sugar and people making choices that don’t line up with their health goals occasionally.

What really grinds my gears is when sugar is snuck into products and falsely marketed as healthy. We’re going to fight, and it starts by educating ourselves on how much sugar we’re actually eating.

Over the next week, your mission is to read the labels on the food and beverages you’re consuming. Specifically keep an eye on how many grams of sugar you’re consuming. Then over the next few weeks, try to drop that amount down by 10% each week. And then let me know how you did!

I want to hear from you: did you find this post useful? Hit reply and let me know if this article is actually gonna help you start to remove more sugar from your life!

-Steve

PS: We’ve recently overhauled our monthly story-driven experience, Rising Heroes. We’ll be opening doors for it next Monday, a few weeks later than normal – if you were waiting to get in, sorry for the delay. I promise it’ll be worth it – we’ve unrolled some big updates!

PPS: If you want to learn about the history of sugar and a contrarian viewpoint to “calories in, calories out no matter what they are,” check out Taube’s book “The Case Against Sugar.” It’s thought provoking and entertaining.

###

photo credit: Julien.Belli: Always Coca-Cola, wuestenigel: Macro of Decoration Crystals

http://ift.tt/2phA9sT

[almajonesnjna]

That Time I Worked For the Sugar Industry…

Hey, I was young. I didn’t know any better!

And the money was good. So, how could I turn it down? As a high school kid, you make money any way you can, even if it’s something you’re not thrilled about.

And that’s how I ended up spending two summers with my older brother Jack working for Coca-Cola, which I talked about on Steve’s Instagram:

That’s right, your boy Steve – a guy who once wrote an article explaining why Sugar is Worse than Jar Jar Binks – used to work for the enemy!

For two summers, my brother and I would wake up at 5AM, put on the sweet Coke polo shirts pictured above, hop into our Coca-Cola cars (old station wagons with Coca-Cola logos on the side), and stock shelves full of Coke products for 50-60+ hours a week on Cape Cod.

Now, hopefully you know that the above “enemy” comment is in jest.

If you happen to be currently employed by Coca-Cola or a company that sells products or services that are unhealthy, I don’t mean to pick on you or your employer…kind of. After all, Coca-Cola is a company that aims to make a profit by selling products that are delicious. I get it. Give me an ice-cold Mexican Coke made with real sugar in a glass bottle on a hot day, and it’s heaven. I also know they donate lots of money to charity, employ thousands, and do plenty of good things, and blah blah blah.

Okay! Now that that’s out of the way…

Twelve years after working indirectly for Big Sugar and seven years after starting Nerd Fitness, I now know just how detrimental sugar can be to our health, and it brings me to the point of today’s article!

We know sugar is bad for us (right? I hope?), but I wasn’t aware just how insidious this stuff has become in society and until I learned the history behind sugar’s rise in our day-to-day lives – and the rise in our obesity rates.

The History of Sugar

The history of sugar is both fascinating and pretty messed up. For starters, in the 1960’s the sugar industry actually paid scientists to downplay the connection between sugar and heart disease and instead promote saturated fat as the culprit.

Screw facts and data; there’s money to be made!

This is how we ended up with hilariously depressing ads like the one below from the 1970’s, touting sugar as a great path to weight loss and healthy living:

If you know anything about sugar, you can’t help but look at that ad and start laughing. “Use sugar to help you BUILD willpower? And NOT overeat.” Seriously!?

Fortunately, these days we’re MUCH better off and way smarter, and silly tricks like that can’t work anymore.

Right?

Wrong! As pointed out in “The Case Against Sugar” by Gary Taubes: “Academic researchers in 2015 were doing the bidding of Coca-Cola by taking its money to fund a Global Energy Balance Network and ‘shift blame for obesity away from bad diets, and instead only focus on not enough exercise.’”

We know here at NF that you can’t outrun your fork (it’s one of our Rules of the Rebellion), and you can’t out-train a bad diet, so telling people to ONLY focus on exercising more without worrying about what you put in your bodies is horrible advice.

Luckily, this group was shut down amidst widespread scrutiny and pressure by the public!

Also, pesky things like “facts” and “experimentation” kept getting in the way.

With all of the information coming out about how unhealthy soda can be in recent years, soda sales have steadily dropped to 30 year lows. This is AWESOME news, but don’t expect Coke and Pepsi to go quietly into the night.

Like any animal or company that’s been cornered or attacked, they’re adapting and fighting to stay relevant.

Thus, the strategy they’ve adopted is marketing “healthy” soda alternatives to find another pathway to connect their sugar water with our bloodstreams.

If you’ve picked up a Vitamin Water, a Naked Juice: Green Machine, or a Smoothie King fruit smoothie lately, and patted yourself on the back for making the healthy choice, your head is in the right place…but your blood sugar level will say otherwise!

These beverages, despite everything you’re told on their labels and what they advertise, are as bad for you (or worse) than drinking a soda:

20 oz Vitaminwater Power-C: 120 calories and 31 grams of sugar

20 oz Smoothie King “Pure Recharge” Mango Strawberry: 210 calories and 50g of sugar

20 oz Naked Juice Green Machine (100% real juice, no sugar added): 270 calories and 53 grams of sugar

At least when you drink a soda you know you’re making an unhealthy choice!

Shame on these other companies for convincing you their products are pure and healthy when they often have as much or more sugar as a can of Coke.

If you’re currently pissed off that you’ve been dutifully chugging Vitaminwater for the past few months instead of soda, assuming it’s healthier, I don’t blame you! The marketing and packaging leave you no choice BUT to assume it’s healthy and good for you.

What’s as funny as it is depressing is that even Coca-Cola executives themselves know their “healthy” marketing of these beverages is horseshit.

In 2015, when taken to court over the unsubstantiated health claims of Vitaminwater, Coca-Cola actually used the following defense (seriously): “No consumer could reasonably be misled into thinking Vitaminwater was a healthy beverage.”

I read that quote and my eyeballs almost fell out of my head. Are you furious yet? I am. Let’s fix it.

How to Not Let Sugar Run Your Life

I get it. Sugar is awesome. It’s delicious and makes us happy…temporarily.

It also makes us fat.

And holy **** is it addicting. It targets the pleasure centers in our brains, and is more available now than it has ever been in the history of our species. Unfortunately, our lizard brains have not adapted to its widespread availability instead of scarcity, which means our bodies can’t say “no” or “just a little.” This means we can ACTUALLY get hooked on the stuff. There are even studies that claim sugar can be as addicting as cocaine.

So the solution is simple: do more cocaine, less sugar!

Hahahaha, kidding. I’m not a doctor, and I don’t currently have pants on as I type this, but my advice would be to probably avoid both sugar and cocaine as much as possible.

Unfortunately, avoiding sugar is more than just giving up soda (though that’s a DAMN good start!). Other problems arise because sugar is in EVERYTHING and often hidden.

Why can’t we just tell the truth, people?

We talk a lot about a nefarious shadow organization making us fatter and lazier in our monthly story-driven adventure, Rising Heroes.

I thought it would be fun to create a dragon to slay. However, when you read that stuff above about:

scientists being paid off

calorie sugar bombs being marketed as healthy

companies claiming “there’s no way anybody could consider these drinks healthy,”

It’s like there really is a conglomeration of bad guys aiming to make us unhealthy.

Here’s how you can fight back. Follow these 4 quick rules to keep sugar from ruining your life:

1) Whenever possible, minimize liquid calories. This includes frappucinos and sodas, but also “real fruit smoothies” and “healthy” Naked Juice drinks, Gatorade, and even things like apple juice, orange juice, grape juice, cranberry juice, etc. Every once in a while? Sure. Just make it a rare treat (“treat yo’ self!”) – you’ll actually enjoy it more and be healthier!

I personally prescribe to the “out of sight, out of mind” philosophy because I have the willpower and restraint of a 5-year kid in a candy store. I don’t keep sugary beverages in my house so I’m not tempted and have to waste willpower trying not to drink them.

I’ve found that drinking sparkling water like LaCroix can really help me THINK I’m drinking soda, and provide me with the same level of happiness and fizzy satisfaction – without the sugar.

To answer your next question: here’s a whole article on “Is Diet Soda bad for me?” High five!

Still here? Good. Here’s a picture of a puppy:

Okay, back to business.

2) Don’t trust the front of the label, and learn to recognize sugar’s aliases. A label is required to list ingredients by amount, so by adding multiple types of sugar with weird names, a company can get away with moving sugar down the list.

Look for the following names: Agave nectar, Brown sugar, Cane crystals, Cane sugar, Corn sweetener, Corn syrup, Crystalline fructose, Dextrose, Evaporated cane juice, Organic evaporated cane juice, Fructose, Fruit juice concentrate, Glucose, High-fructose corn syrup, Honey, Invert sugar, Lactose, Maltose, Malt syrup, Molasses, Raw sugar, Sucrose, Sugar Syrup.

If you only look at two numbers on the back of a box, look at grams of sugar and total calories. You want minimal sugar and fewer calories. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good. Do the best you can!

Oh, and if a product says “no sugar added” on the front of it, you can bet your life savings on it having a RIDICULOUS amount of sugar.

Note: please don’t bet your life savings on this.

3) Be skeptical, because sugar is in practically everything. When in doubt, eat things with fewer ingredients. We consume 130 pounds of sugar per year on average (holy crap), which means the white stuff in in way more foods than we realize. Not just candy and soda, but practically everything.

Nature Valley Granola Bars? Plenty of sugar. In fact, most “protein bars” have tons of sugar. And, until outraged customers complained, “Nature Valley” Granola Bars were made with high fructose corn syrup. Mmmm, nature.

Pasta sauce? Should just be tomatoes right? Nope. Add in heaping tablespoons of high fructose corn syrup too and you’re getting closer.

Wheat bread? That’s gotta be healthy, right? Check the ingredients. I bet one of the top 5 is “high fructose corn syrup” too.

Hell, look at what’s advertised as a “balanced breakfast” these days on TV! Cereal and skim milk, fruit, a glass of orange juice, and toast. Or, in other words: sugar and sugar water, sugar, sugar water, and pile-o-carbs.

4) Track your sugar intake, and minimize it over time. As I cover in “Star Wars Explains Why We’re Fat,” everybody has a different amount of “gimme gimme gimme” in our brains that craves instant gratification.

This means we all have different abilities to get addicted to things, including sugar. Some people can eat sugar (or have one drink, or try drugs) and not get hooked, while others struggle with addiction instantly – once is enough to get hooked for life.

This comic explains human behavior and addiction quite well…with dinosaurs.

If you are somebody who is actually hooked on sugar, start by tracking your sugar intake each day (actually look up the sugar content of everything you consume!), and see how many grams you’re eating every day. Don’t worry about total numbers, just focus on eating less sugar than the day before. Repeat.

Michael Pollan, author of the Omnivore’s Dilemma said it succinctly: “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.” Eat real food (meat, vegetables, unprocessed stuff), keep your calorie total down, and stick to mostly plants along with healthy protein. Done!

We’ll continue digging into this battle against Big Sugar, shadow organizations, and false advertising in future posts. It’s amazing how heavily the deck is stacked against us when we try to be healthy, and how tough it is to find the actual truth!

I have no problem with sugar and people making choices that don’t line up with their health goals occasionally.

What really grinds my gears is when sugar is snuck into products and falsely marketed as healthy. We’re going to fight, and it starts by educating ourselves on how much sugar we’re actually eating.

Over the next week, your mission is to read the labels on the food and beverages you’re consuming. Specifically keep an eye on how many grams of sugar you’re consuming. Then over the next few weeks, try to drop that amount down by 10% each week. And then let me know how you did!

I want to hear from you: did you find this post useful? Hit reply and let me know if this article is actually gonna help you start to remove more sugar from your life!

-Steve

PS: We’ve recently overhauled our monthly story-driven experience, Rising Heroes. We’ll be opening doors for it next Monday, a few weeks later than normal – if you were waiting to get in, sorry for the delay. I promise it’ll be worth it – we’ve unrolled some big updates!

PPS: If you want to learn about the history of sugar and a contrarian viewpoint to “calories in, calories out no matter what they are,” check out Taube’s book “The Case Against Sugar.” It’s thought provoking and entertaining.

###

photo credit: Julien.Belli: Always Coca-Cola, wuestenigel: Macro of Decoration Crystals

http://ift.tt/2phA9sT

[ruthellisneda]

That Time I Worked For the Sugar Industry…

Hey, I was young. I didn’t know any better!

And the money was good. So, how could I turn it down? As a high school kid, you make money any way you can, even if it’s something you’re not thrilled about.

And that’s how I ended up spending two summers with my older brother Jack working for Coca-Cola, which I talked about on Steve’s Instagram:

That’s right, your boy Steve – a guy who once wrote an article explaining why Sugar is Worse than Jar Jar Binks – used to work for the enemy!

For two summers, my brother and I would wake up at 5AM, put on the sweet Coke polo shirts pictured above, hop into our Coca-Cola cars (old station wagons with Coca-Cola logos on the side), and stock shelves full of Coke products for 50-60+ hours a week on Cape Cod.

Now, hopefully you know that the above “enemy” comment is in jest.

If you happen to be currently employed by Coca-Cola or a company that sells products or services that are unhealthy, I don’t mean to pick on you or your employer…kind of. After all, Coca-Cola is a company that aims to make a profit by selling products that are delicious. I get it. Give me an ice-cold Mexican Coke made with real sugar in a glass bottle on a hot day, and it’s heaven. I also know they donate lots of money to charity, employ thousands, and do plenty of good things, and blah blah blah.

Okay! Now that that’s out of the way…

Twelve years after working indirectly for Big Sugar and seven years after starting Nerd Fitness, I now know just how detrimental sugar can be to our health, and it brings me to the point of today’s article!

We know sugar is bad for us (right? I hope?), but I wasn’t aware just how insidious this stuff has become in society and until I learned the history behind sugar’s rise in our day-to-day lives – and the rise in our obesity rates.

The History of Sugar

The history of sugar is both fascinating and pretty messed up. For starters, in the 1960’s the sugar industry actually paid scientists to downplay the connection between sugar and heart disease and instead promote saturated fat as the culprit.

Screw facts and data; there’s money to be made!

This is how we ended up with hilariously depressing ads like the one below from the 1970’s, touting sugar as a great path to weight loss and healthy living:

If you know anything about sugar, you can’t help but look at that ad and start laughing. “Use sugar to help you BUILD willpower? And NOT overeat.” Seriously!?

Fortunately, these days we’re MUCH better off and way smarter, and silly tricks like that can’t work anymore.

Right?

Wrong! As pointed out in “The Case Against Sugar” by Gary Taubes: “Academic researchers in 2015 were doing the bidding of Coca-Cola by taking its money to fund a Global Energy Balance Network and ‘shift blame for obesity away from bad diets, and instead only focus on not enough exercise.’”

We know here at NF that you can’t outrun your fork (it’s one of our Rules of the Rebellion), and you can’t out-train a bad diet, so telling people to ONLY focus on exercising more without worrying about what you put in your bodies is horrible advice.

Luckily, this group was shut down amidst widespread scrutiny and pressure by the public!

Also, pesky things like “facts” and “experimentation” kept getting in the way.

With all of the information coming out about how unhealthy soda can be in recent years, soda sales have steadily dropped to 30 year lows. This is AWESOME news, but don’t expect Coke and Pepsi to go quietly into the night.

Like any animal or company that’s been cornered or attacked, they’re adapting and fighting to stay relevant.

Thus, the strategy they’ve adopted is marketing “healthy” soda alternatives to find another pathway to connect their sugar water with our bloodstreams.

If you’ve picked up a Vitamin Water, a Naked Juice: Green Machine, or a Smoothie King fruit smoothie lately, and patted yourself on the back for making the healthy choice, your head is in the right place…but your blood sugar level will say otherwise!

These beverages, despite everything you’re told on their labels and what they advertise, are as bad for you (or worse) than drinking a soda:

20 oz Vitaminwater Power-C: 120 calories and 31 grams of sugar

20 oz Smoothie King “Pure Recharge” Mango Strawberry: 210 calories and 50g of sugar

20 oz Naked Juice Green Machine (100% real juice, no sugar added): 270 calories and 53 grams of sugar

At least when you drink a soda you know you’re making an unhealthy choice!

Shame on these other companies for convincing you their products are pure and healthy when they often have as much or more sugar as a can of Coke.

If you’re currently pissed off that you’ve been dutifully chugging Vitaminwater for the past few months instead of soda, assuming it’s healthier, I don’t blame you! The marketing and packaging leave you no choice BUT to assume it’s healthy and good for you.

What’s as funny as it is depressing is that even Coca-Cola executives themselves know their “healthy” marketing of these beverages is horseshit.

In 2015, when taken to court over the unsubstantiated health claims of Vitaminwater, Coca-Cola actually used the following defense (seriously): “No consumer could reasonably be misled into thinking Vitaminwater was a healthy beverage.”

I read that quote and my eyeballs almost fell out of my head. Are you furious yet? I am. Let’s fix it.

How to Not Let Sugar Run Your Life

I get it. Sugar is awesome. It’s delicious and makes us happy…temporarily.

It also makes us fat.

And holy **** is it addicting. It targets the pleasure centers in our brains, and is more available now than it has ever been in the history of our species. Unfortunately, our lizard brains have not adapted to its widespread availability instead of scarcity, which means our bodies can’t say “no” or “just a little.” This means we can ACTUALLY get hooked on the stuff. There are even studies that claim sugar can be as addicting as cocaine.

So the solution is simple: do more cocaine, less sugar!

Hahahaha, kidding. I’m not a doctor, and I don’t currently have pants on as I type this, but my advice would be to probably avoid both sugar and cocaine as much as possible.

Unfortunately, avoiding sugar is more than just giving up soda (though that’s a DAMN good start!). Other problems arise because sugar is in EVERYTHING and often hidden.

Why can’t we just tell the truth, people?

We talk a lot about a nefarious shadow organization making us fatter and lazier in our monthly story-driven adventure, Rising Heroes.

I thought it would be fun to create a dragon to slay. However, when you read that stuff above about:

scientists being paid off

calorie sugar bombs being marketed as healthy

companies claiming “there’s no way anybody could consider these drinks healthy,”

It’s like there really is a conglomeration of bad guys aiming to make us unhealthy.

Here’s how you can fight back. Follow these 4 quick rules to keep sugar from ruining your life:

1) Whenever possible, minimize liquid calories. This includes frappucinos and sodas, but also “real fruit smoothies” and “healthy” Naked Juice drinks, Gatorade, and even things like apple juice, orange juice, grape juice, cranberry juice, etc. Every once in a while? Sure. Just make it a rare treat (“treat yo’ self!”) – you’ll actually enjoy it more and be healthier!

I personally prescribe to the “out of sight, out of mind” philosophy because I have the willpower and restraint of a 5-year kid in a candy store. I don’t keep sugary beverages in my house so I’m not tempted and have to waste willpower trying not to drink them.

I’ve found that drinking sparkling water like LaCroix can really help me THINK I’m drinking soda, and provide me with the same level of happiness and fizzy satisfaction – without the sugar.

To answer your next question: here’s a whole article on “Is Diet Soda bad for me?” High five!

Still here? Good. Here’s a picture of a puppy:

Okay, back to business.

2) Don’t trust the front of the label, and learn to recognize sugar’s aliases. A label is required to list ingredients by amount, so by adding multiple types of sugar with weird names, a company can get away with moving sugar down the list.

Look for the following names: Agave nectar, Brown sugar, Cane crystals, Cane sugar, Corn sweetener, Corn syrup, Crystalline fructose, Dextrose, Evaporated cane juice, Organic evaporated cane juice, Fructose, Fruit juice concentrate, Glucose, High-fructose corn syrup, Honey, Invert sugar, Lactose, Maltose, Malt syrup, Molasses, Raw sugar, Sucrose, Sugar Syrup.

If you only look at two numbers on the back of a box, look at grams of sugar and total calories. You want minimal sugar and fewer calories. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good. Do the best you can!

Oh, and if a product says “no sugar added” on the front of it, you can bet your life savings on it having a RIDICULOUS amount of sugar.

Note: please don’t bet your life savings on this.

3) Be skeptical, because sugar is in practically everything. When in doubt, eat things with fewer ingredients. We consume 130 pounds of sugar per year on average (holy crap), which means the white stuff in in way more foods than we realize. Not just candy and soda, but practically everything.

Nature Valley Granola Bars? Plenty of sugar. In fact, most “protein bars” have tons of sugar. And, until outraged customers complained, “Nature Valley” Granola Bars were made with high fructose corn syrup. Mmmm, nature.

Pasta sauce? Should just be tomatoes right? Nope. Add in heaping tablespoons of high fructose corn syrup too and you’re getting closer.

Wheat bread? That’s gotta be healthy, right? Check the ingredients. I bet one of the top 5 is “high fructose corn syrup” too.

Hell, look at what’s advertised as a “balanced breakfast” these days on TV! Cereal and skim milk, fruit, a glass of orange juice, and toast. Or, in other words: sugar and sugar water, sugar, sugar water, and pile-o-carbs.

4) Track your sugar intake, and minimize it over time. As I cover in “Star Wars Explains Why We’re Fat,” everybody has a different amount of “gimme gimme gimme” in our brains that craves instant gratification.

This means we all have different abilities to get addicted to things, including sugar. Some people can eat sugar (or have one drink, or try drugs) and not get hooked, while others struggle with addiction instantly – once is enough to get hooked for life.

This comic explains human behavior and addiction quite well…with dinosaurs.

If you are somebody who is actually hooked on sugar, start by tracking your sugar intake each day (actually look up the sugar content of everything you consume!), and see how many grams you’re eating every day. Don’t worry about total numbers, just focus on eating less sugar than the day before. Repeat.

Michael Pollan, author of the Omnivore’s Dilemma said it succinctly: “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.” Eat real food (meat, vegetables, unprocessed stuff), keep your calorie total down, and stick to mostly plants along with healthy protein. Done!

We’ll continue digging into this battle against Big Sugar, shadow organizations, and false advertising in future posts. It’s amazing how heavily the deck is stacked against us when we try to be healthy, and how tough it is to find the actual truth!

I have no problem with sugar and people making choices that don’t line up with their health goals occasionally.

What really grinds my gears is when sugar is snuck into products and falsely marketed as healthy. We’re going to fight, and it starts by educating ourselves on how much sugar we’re actually eating.

Over the next week, your mission is to read the labels on the food and beverages you’re consuming. Specifically keep an eye on how many grams of sugar you’re consuming. Then over the next few weeks, try to drop that amount down by 10% each week. And then let me know how you did!

I want to hear from you: did you find this post useful? Hit reply and let me know if this article is actually gonna help you start to remove more sugar from your life!

-Steve

PS: We’ve recently overhauled our monthly story-driven experience, Rising Heroes. We’ll be opening doors for it next Monday, a few weeks later than normal – if you were waiting to get in, sorry for the delay. I promise it’ll be worth it – we’ve unrolled some big updates!

PPS: If you want to learn about the history of sugar and a contrarian viewpoint to “calories in, calories out no matter what they are,” check out Taube’s book “The Case Against Sugar.” It’s thought provoking and entertaining.

###

photo credit: Julien.Belli: Always Coca-Cola, wuestenigel: Macro of Decoration Crystals

http://ift.tt/2phA9sT