Sugar – The Other “White Powder”

Editors Note: We are proud to welcome Christa Cassilis-Hayburn as a new contributor to CopsAlive.com. Christa was a police officer with the Philadelphia Police Department for 11 years until she was forced to leave the job due to chronic pain from an on the job injury. Today Christa leads a healthy, relatively pain-free lifestyle and teaches others how to do the same. In this installment Christa will tell us about the dangers of too much sugar in our diets.

How much Sugar do you think you consume in ONE day?

Police officers and other law enforcement professionals have had a love affair with sugar and caffeine for centuries. A cop with a cup of coffee and donut is the stereotypic image used to typecast law enforcement officers. In this article I want give you an alternative to that nutritional choice and help you find something that will get you through your shift and help you survive the rigors of your career in law enforcement.

Here is another question that will really make you think… Are you ADDICTED to Sugar?

Like heroin, cocaine and caffeine, sugar is an addictive, destructive drug, yet we consume it daily in everything from cigarettes to bread -William Dufty, author of Sugar Blues.

How dare I ask such a question like that but I certainly remember those days where I “knew” that I needed to eat Sugar just to wake me up mid afternoon.

When I went into the police academy I never drank a cup of coffee in my life. After a few months on the job, I was drinking one to two 16 ounce cups of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee. Here was the order that I gave: “Medium coffee with X-tra –X-tra”. That’s right Extra Creamer and Extra Sugar. Did I have any idea what Sugar would do to me in the long run? NO Clue!

As law enforcement officers we need to… Continue reading