A Question for Sugar Addicts
 

I know there's a separate thread for this, but I wanted to capture a larger audience. Asking for a friend :lol: Actually, I am asking for a friend, because I am not a sugar addict, and I want to offer her the benefit of experience from those who know. Here's my question:

WHAT IS YOUR NUMBER ONE STRATEGY FOR STANDING IN THE WAY OF SUGAR ADDICTION?

No real shortcut. Cold turkey and the addiction will fade. Feed it and it comes roaring back to life. It is like any drug really. That first taste is all it takes to backslide, so don't have the first taste.

Now, sometimes I do indulge in non-sugar sweets, but not too often. It doesn't kick off the addiction if I'm careful.

Absolutely! Just say "no". Sugar functions like an addictive drug. You have to give it up cold turkey. What helped me was to tell myself that I am not my cravings along with reminding myself that each craving will pass. I just have to ride each craving out, one at a time. Slowly they fade to almost never. Also it's best to not have anything containing sugar in the house. I haven't had anything with sugar in it for years, except for Thanksgiving when my granddaughter makes me a special treat, one serving only. Thanksgiving is not at my house and I don't take any home plus I consider sugar poison. This small once a year dose won't kill me but if I succumbed to the addiction it would.

Agree with the above, and I think the way I'd frame my main tip is that you have to be brutally honest with yourself about what you can and can't handle. Some people can handle artificial sweeteners, certain junk food in the house, etc; but if you can't, you can't. Figure out where you are on that spectrum.

I'm sort of like Nancy in that I can have non-sugar sweets with discretion. I can also go for a full-on treat IF it's out of the house and in a limited serving, like at someone else's house or a restaurant. Funny thing, though, once you're used to considering things like Greek yogurt + berries a nice dessert... the unhealthy crap really DOES lose its daily appeal. I should know; I work with it daily!

Okay, that was more than one tip, I guess, but... :blush:

Another tidbit that I'll throw in is that the addictive brain is seeking pleasure, comfort or relief from the daily food rotation. When you stop feeding it sugar loaded, processed junk the cravings for these fake foods will fade away to nothing over time. But what I've found since "maintenance" is that my addictive brain is always looking for a substitute.

I get enough pleasure from LC sweetened treats for them to become a problem. I can handle having them every once in a while (an LC cheesecake over the holidays or Quest bars on a hike), but when such things enter my everyday food rotation I will tend to overeat. I can be on point with carbs, eating healthy food, be metabolically healthy, yet still have the scale creeping up in weight over the long haul. The habit of a daily treat or two easily becomes a compulsion. Eating for pleasure overrides any sensation of satiety that I may be experiencing. I agree with the "Brutally honest with yourself" comment by Kristine. We know when some OP thing is becoming a problem. The hard part is accepting that the item that you like too much is a problem and needs to be cut from the daily diet.

I will add that along with brutal honesty you can add a different way of thinking. I tell myself that the way I eat is a gift to myself. I am not depriving myself of anything that is truly beneficial. I don't think of the way I eat as deprivation at all but as giving myself the gift of good health. I eat no artificial sweeteners, another gift directed at good health, nothing sweet to awaken my addiction.

Dr Westman spoke at one of those on-line Kick Sugar Summits, ending today. 60 experts! My first thought was if there was one simple easy solution to sugar addiction….it would not have required 60 different strategies. :lol:
His is simple, keep all carbs to 20g, only use sugar substitutes as needed to transition.

https://www.kicksugarsummit.com

Agree with the valuable comments. Cold turkey is essential in the beginning, because, being an addiction, it continues to feed itself by manifesting in hunger and cravings. Ken's comment that the desire fades away to nothing is something I've experienced, but I had to build a mental brick wall where when I went low carb, I realized it was literally a healthy life or earlier death situation. Therefore, embarking on my journey means no desserts or sweets of any kind. That's the single most important aspect of my eating lifestyle. No caving to cravings. Cravings go away, but being steadfast even when I thought I had overcome the situation has meant everything to my quality of life and good health.

Thanks so much everyone. I feel like I called out the Big Guns here, and I know you speak the truth. Cold turkey. Tough message. It applies not only to "addiction" but also to "habituation" which has dragged me backwards many times. I won't be less than direct with my friend, and she knows it.

She hasn't responded to my latest terms, so I'm pretty sure that right now she doesn't want "thin" more than she wants ice cream. She's never succeeded at Step One and now she's feeling time's up. Hope she will see kindness and not judgment in my way of nudging her towards honesty.

This is SO important! Friend approaches "dieting" as punishment. I'm trying to persuade her of the freedom, satisfaction, and pleasure ahead if she will give herself the gift of a new way of thinking and eating. There are so many ways to make it good.

Now that I'm walking the talk pretty well again, I can hang around as a decent role model anyway. And nobody else can walk it for you, right?

Thanks for your thoughts.

Barbara, sometimes baby steps become big steps. Like using Rebel ice cream instead of Hagen Das. Or finding low carb recipes to start filling the plate. Too easy to fall into the trap of 'afraid to give up the foods we know' for the unknown. Change is scary. Change is difficult.

My new recipe box now contains new low carb recipes for desserts and sweets. My many cookbooks sit idle in favor of low carb cookbooks.

Any small changes is a step in the right direction. I eat mostly low carb but sometimes eat sweets. It's an addiction. No question. So keeping substitutes immediately available really helps. Like Lily's chocolates or HWC with diet rootbeer.

Reading DANDR helped me see the life ahead ( diabetes) if I didn't change NOW.

Agreed on all counts. I get along with stevia, which points up how substitutes can work, or not.

A lot of the artificial sweetener choices out there are labeled to mislead people about the actual carb content. I find they will either upset my digestive system or create cravings.

For me, eating a Lily's chocolate square does not set off the cravings I would be expecting from many other low carb choices; but with sweeteners I know will not work for me. I rely on whey protein mixed in Greek yogurt, which also does not trigger cravings. But then, I have learned to choose my whey powders carefully, too.

Substitutes because it's better than the real POISON, no? Substitutes to kill a craving, not feed it. Like my lowcarb hot chocolate, which is cocoa, heavy cream, and hot water. That is sweet enough for me, because I like to have a good "sweet detector."

Carrots in tomato sauce are like candy to me now. :lol:

Good point, WereBear and Ms. Arielle. I'd like to offer substitute sweets to tide her over for a while, if that will help avoid binges. These are good suggestions. A "root beer float" with HWC sounds really good.

I haven't tried putting whey protein powder in my Greek yogurt. That would be a protein boost for sure! :yum:

It's been so long since I launched a low-carb lifestyle, I've forgotten what it's like to eat bread. Or pasta. I'll snitch the occasional French fry. However, the other night at a restaurant, I wistfully left behind a mountain of perfectly lovely little potatoes. Most Mexican cuisine? Sorry. Never. Pass me the burnt ends.

There's no question in my mind: lifelong maintenance requires lifelong change. That commitment doesn't lend itself to jazzy bestseller books.

The FB groups I'm in now are not strict low carb, and a technique that may help is to Climb down the Carb Mountain in steps.

https://www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb...e-carb-mountain

Increasing protein in dessert-like mini-meals was a huge help for me….whey protein in 0% fat Greek Yogurt, low fat cottage cheese, a mix of these with or without a SF flavor syrup, frozen fruit to replace the sweet taste, etc. Marty has many recipes in this vein, this one has 62 grams of satiating protein. https://optimisingnutrition.com/bla...se-protein-pot/

and Dr Ted Naiman's wildly popular "ice cream" https://www.lowenergydiet.com/Tips.html

My teens enjoy frozen fruit, no sugar added, in Greek yogurt. Those two items mixed together become a frozen dessert.

If put in blender with a liquid, it becomes soft serve ice cream. We use cream or water or milk, what works for an individual's needs.

Sugar of choice can be added. I don't add anything as my taste buds are fine now without, but there was a time when I used up bags of Splenda.

There are tons of YouTube and blog recipes for all kinds of desserts, donuts, breads, pastas......as well as purchased options. HighFalutin' is on YouTube who compares low carb recipes in side by side testing.

I used to be a great bread Baker......and a baker of sweets. It all stopped when I read DANDR and learned I was a carb addict. Like make a cake, eat it, make another one, in one day. The low carb options stop the binging.

I was a very serious sugar-addict. One morning, after a sugar binge the previous evening I woke up and was getting dressed to go to school. I looked in the mirror after finding the baggiest outfit I could and saw how huge I had gotten. I literally fell on my knees and cried.
That very distinct memory, that deep sense of complete self disgust, discomfort, and heartache have thus far kept me from ever wanting to fall into the sugar trap again.

If we consider addiction to sweet things (or an addiction to anything, for that matter), as being like a kind of "pull" mechanism, then to simply "push" back directly against that mechanism alone may not be enough. It can also help to find another "pull" to focus on instead, to such an extent that may help with pushing away from the present issue. After all, you can try to push something away for a while, but without a focused alternative direction, how do you know you're making any progress with your attempt to escape the addiction at all?

For me, it wasn't just about stopping the sweet stuff, it was also about overcoming the fear of other things like fatty meats etc, foods that I'd been taught for literally decades would have been the end of me. Who'd have thought it would instead turn out to be only the beginning?

In short: abandon the sweet, embrace the savoury.

You are so right, Grav. We have to find substitute things to love--not just substitute sugars.

I had a long visit with my friend today. She's a veteran of many rounds with Weight Watchers. We spent some of the time pulling stuff out of her fridge to read the Nutrition Facts labels. She was totally unacquainted with anything but counting calories. She was astonished to find out how many products she thought were diet-friendly were, in fact, based on SUGAR.

Especially (OMG!) she pulled out a box of Atkins Bars. Would you believe the FIRST ingredient on the nutrition list was: Maltitol. The second? Dextrose. We're deep into sugar and haven't even got to the list of other chemicals. :lol:

She has a learning curve ahead in more ways than one. But oh, the shock of finding out that what she has believed and followed for-EVER is...wrong.

Let's hope she feels better quickly when she gets going on the right track.

This is an important point, Grav. Being able to find healthy substitutes for many addictions is often difficult to impossible, for example opiates or alcohol. For food, healthy substitutes are available to enable the "push" to be more effective. Well stated.

For me it wasn't really finding substitutes for sugar. It was more a total reassessment of how I was eating and what would constitute a healthier way of eating going forward so that I would no longer experience the hunger inducing cravings that sugar and other high carb foods induced. What I needed and what I found was a total re-education concerning what constituted heathy eating and eliminated the ravenous hunger that my high carb diet was causing.

Yes, this too. When I told my friend that fruit was at the bottom of the list, she said, "But fruit is healthy!" Ye-e-e-es...but...carbohydrates. When she announced her very healthy supper: "Half a baked yam, acorn squash with butter....Those are healthy, right??" Um....carbohydrates.

So, yes. Un-learning a lifetime of "healthy eating" is a challenge all by itself.

It gives me sympathy for those not immersed in it as many of us tend to be. It's complicated. Different foods have "celebrity profiles" that are nothing more than a press release from marketers.

A baked potato is the peak of healthy. Fruit is candy that is good for you! Any vegetable is "better" than any meat, full stop.

I have never been able to convince anyone to change how they eat over the long term. They may try to change for a short few weeks but then they revert back to habit and these are people who have asked for my assistance and to whom I have given the necessary educational resources to support healthy choice. I think they may see me as being different in some fundamental way from themselves, even though they know I once weighed twice as much as I do now. They don't believe they can give up x,y,z or have some external excuse why changing the way they eat is impossible. To me it is all very sad.

There was a family wedding this weekend that I did not attend. My cousin posted pictures on Facebook and most everyone in the pictures is fat to some degree or other including one cousin who I briefly mentored and who was very enthusiastic for a few weeks and then seemingly forgot about it all, taking several of my books with her, probably all now lost in her move across the country from the east coast to the west coast. Health is fundamental. I value long term health over perceived short term pleasure. Perceived short term pleasure from eating is very short term. At best it rapidly disappears until the next fix. The long term benefits of health do not diminish over time. Yes, we age, that's unavoidable but while we are aging we can support our health or undermine it. It's our choice.

Yes, my friend attributes to me super-powers of self-discipline. I've invited her to make a three-month commitment: no more. She's smart, but more important, desperate. If she drops as much as two pounds in that time (a mere smidgen of her hopes!) I'll give her enthusiastic support.

But...patience never came in a box.

With that, I'm off to lower my "current weight" by one wonderful exciting achievement: one pound (not counting the tenths!) :lol:

I define "substitute" as something satisfying that I now eat instead of previously eating something unhealthy. Dumping sugar, bread, and other stuff was never about finding healthy similar things, as that's a mistake I see many first-time low carbers make; rather, it was about eating something that would diminish the desire to eat a lot (uncontrolled at times) and at the same time improve health.

I'm working with DH on upping his own game about substituting. He has to move in slower steps, because he's more sensitive to the fact that it can wind up very far away from the original :lol:

It's definitely a process that's got a bit of trial and error. Having you provide the guidelines is going to make a big difference, and patience in making course corrections is going to win the day.

Barb, I know you like DietDoctor articles. Just arrived, the Complete Guide to Sugar. Includes video on addiction.

https://www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb/sugar

A friend was recently given a " diet" based on no salt and low fat SAD by her doctor. She doesn't eat much meat, but mostly veg and starches. She eats SAD in small portions , literally 3oz of meat, and IS loosing weight, eating three meals plus a snack if she wants.

I encourage her on the diet because it is working, down 20# . Her stomach doesn't hurt any more though she is still waiting for eval of esophagus and sphincter area.

The encouragement includes changing eating program for life. While her overall food is not ideal, her dinner is spot on keto. Clean meats with a veg. She is checking out new recipes, using AS that she bought. Hoping small changes will bring her to fewer starches.

When she asks about going low carb , with anxiety, I reassure her that she cannot go low carb while on a low fat diet. She needs enough calories, so stick to the doctor given diet.

She is interested and engaged. So I'm hoping she will make wise choices when she is feeling better and high blood pressure is down. I won't push her to do counter to doctor's orders, but hoping with a few good YouTube resources she can see doctors that have a different view point on SAD diet.

Whatever changes she makes, the bottom line is pick a diet she can live with long term. Going back to SAD is deadly. Still working on getting her to see that.

It's funny, but with hunger training all food tastes pretty damn good. Even something as minor as shredded sharp cheddar on a salad tastes out of this world. Treat takes on a new meaning when you're hungry.

:lol: :lol:
I know. Someone asked about my potassium intake, so I looked back to the 6 week Nutrient Optimization class report, and one of the biggest contributors was a mackerel, eggs, egg white and spinach dish…I never even ate mackerel before, much less like it enough to eat multiple days. It's a long road from a chocolate muffin in the morning to craving the nutrients in mackerel. :lol: