Sugar addiction

[rebecca57]

Hi all. I’m a newbie and I’m really looking forward to participating with the community. I’ve lost 2&1/2 stone but my sugar craving is constant and I’ve started to gain again

[Stoozie]

More good fats will help

[IndigoBlue61]

Hello and welcome to the Weight Loss Forum rebecca57 😊

Very well done on your weight loss so far, that’s a significant loss that will have improved your health and well-being considerably 👏

With regards to sugar cravings, this is a reaction to blood sugar highs and lows, caused by an excess of sugar or carbohydrates in the blood. See this for an alternative approach to weight loss phcuk.org/wp-content/upload...

If you haven’t already, then please read the Welcome post here which has lots of useful information about all the things we have on offer healthunlocked.com/nhsweigh...

Follow this link to our chat thread and a list of all the activities we run. We've found active participation to be key to success, especially with our weigh-ins and Daily Diary

healthunlocked.com/nhsweigh...

For your own privacy and safety online you can lock your posts by selecting ‘members of my community’ when you write a new post. Please read our security post here healthunlocked.com/nhsweigh... especially as your post isn’t locked

Best wishes and have a good first week

Indigo 😊

[rebecca57 in reply to IndigoBlue61]

Thank you for the info indigo I can see I have a lot of reading. for the afternoon. That will take my mind off sugar cravings 👍😉

[IndigoBlue61 in reply to rebecca57]

You’re welcome 😊

[Rhosyn2]

Hi Rebecca!

What I realised was that I had a mental rather than a bodily dependancy on sugar, so your results may vary. I challenged myself to go low sugar and I can really feel the difference this is making to my health and body. I prefer feeling this good to the sugar!

What times do you usually crave sugar? What's going on just before that? I was able to link my 'need' for sugar with stress, and now I'm experimenting with other ways of meeting my mental needs without resorting to abusing food. I cannot eat recreationally any more as I like to say!

Good luck and looking forward to seeing how you get on. Welcome.

[IndigoBlue61 in reply to Rhosyn2]

Great reply 😊

[rebecca57 in reply to Rhosyn2]

Thank you for your advice. Your correct it is about changing my mindset. I think this very supportive group is just what I need. I will think of this group until the habit is broken and like many of you say I need a good clear eating plan.

[rebecca57]

Hi Rhosyn

Thanks for taking the time to msg. I decided after only one msg I better go and eat something. Lovely salad and asparagus with a treat of garlic bread. I’m very similar to your views and I’m aware that I really need to work on my self-esteem. I’m down 2 sizes but I just see the fat me.

My binges are always late evening and during the night. I can wake up several times and have to eat something sweet. For example At 2.30am today I

[rebecca57]

I’ve just lost my reply Rhosyn?? Anyway I just wanted to thank you for responding and sharing. I have my cravings at night and. Mean at night. Eg this morning I woke at 2.30am and had 2 cream cakes. A huge slice of panatonie and then a large maxi bag of maltessers. Now that’s a binge. This is normal for me and I’m not vomiting 🤮. A couple of weeks ago someone brought me 10 cream eggs. I ate them all in one night.🤪🤨 the last month I have put on 10lb. It’s as if I’m trying to sabotage my good work when I’ve lost weight. This has been going on for years. I know this gaining and losing is very bad for my body and I really need to break out of this habit. I think maybe I really need to strip back and read everything on here. I have no close friends where I live now so it has been extremely difficult and stressful too. I’m surrounded by 3 major languages that I can’t speak so I’ve been winging it a bit when shopping. Which is exhausting when one doesn’t understand.

So I’m really looking forward to see what folk have to say.

Thanks again.

Ps I didn’t reply straight away as I thought I should eat 😉 which I find difficult before 4pm

[BridgeGirl Administrator 2 stone in reply to rebecca57]

What I'd say is start by eating three full, healthy meals and see if that has any effect on you eating add odd times. And don't bring the sweet stuff into the house.

[rebecca57 in reply to BridgeGirl]

That’s what my husband says. Just don’t buy sweet things. I’m going to have to delegate the shopping to him for a while.

[IndigoBlue61 in reply to rebecca57]

I agree with Bridgegirl, if you eat enough calories at mealtimes it really helps the hunger and cravings. Have a good read, include some fat in your meals for satiety 😊 And try to stay in bed when you wake, you may not actually sleep but it’s still resting which is the best thing to do 😊

[S11m]

You need to stop needing sugar and start NEADing - that is Not Eating All Day. Wean yourself off sugar by eating plenty of good fats - and set a time in the evening after which you do not eat.

[rebecca57 in reply to S11m]

Thank you for the advice. I tried to eat nothing after 6pm. It caused me such anxiety. I will try this again but change time to 8pm

[S11m in reply to rebecca57]

It does not matter where you start - just make a start.

[Mogul1 in reply to rebecca57]

Hi Rebecca,

I hope you are enjoying progress.

Sugar is so addictive. If I go to the grocery store and see ice cream on sale, I cant stop myself from buying it. Lately, Breyer’s has been on sale, 2 for $2.99 each, must buy 2 or more. Then, I have some for desert that night and then, I’m in the kitchen between 2 and 4AM knocking down some vanilla fudge swirl. I love it!

Now this ice cream substitute has come out, I think it is called “Gold Top”. A pint is only 280 calories. When it was introduced, it was priced at $5.99, but consistently on sale for $3.99/Pint. Oh yea! I can rationalize that! I was practically living on the stuff because I wasn’t gaining weight, but now it’s never on sale and I can get nearly a gallon of Breyer’s for the same price as one of those wimpy little pints?! Breyer’s, Baby!

What is the solution? Many years ago I discovered with the help of an outstanding counselor, that for me, rationalization is a form of insanity. When I rationalize, I tell myself it’s okay to do something that is not okay to do. In essence, I discovered I was lying to myself, and the first time I became aware of this and admitted it to myself, I was literally shocked and stunned...”How could I do that to myself?” That is CRAZY!! My counselor brilliantly guided me to a point of understanding where I could be honest with myself about genuine honesty. No white lies. Our society rationalizes white lies and we all consider ourselves very honest. I found there were times when I didn’t want to be truthful or open up about myself whether it was my weight, my health, whatever! I had to go through the trial and error process of proving to myself that it was ok to be open and honest, and when I wasn’t, I had to bust myself for rationalizing. This has worked very well for me. People find me more approachable, but hey, nobody bats .1000, so if I blow it, I quickly try to correct myself.

An example of all this was rationalizing being 5’9” and weighing between 210 and 215lbs. As I aged the weight took its toll. I blew out both ACL’s skiing and was not exactly a picture of nimble grace on the sailboat I was racing on.

I yo-yo’d for years at one point getting down to 185 in a weight loss competition at work, but it didn’t last.

My wife suggested I join WeightWatchers. I couldn’t believe it! So I went on line to research what was the most successful weight-loss program. It was the classic “In your face”, the answer kept coming up Weight Watchers, so I bit the bullet and gave it a try, but it didn’t work for me. Then, about a year and a half later, I gave it another shot. At the meeting, everyone had their smartphones out and open to the WW app. I was lost, but when the meeting ended, the lady who was running the meeting came over and showed me how the app worked. Fabulous! I could scan the bar code of any food I bought and see how many points were in a serving. Cool. This is easy except for the fact that their serving sizes are pretty small. I found I was good at preparing the right meals but not so good at sticking to the serving size, but the weight started coming off. My primary exercise was walking the dog with my wife and trying to get to 10,000 steps on my fit bit. I used to practice Tai Chi, and still do, occasionally, but having been diagnosed with Parkinson’s 10 years ago, my balance is nothing to write home about, but if my meds are working properly and I’ve had a good nights sleep, I can go through the form as if I didn’t have Parkinson’s.

Thanksgiving came along and this is a huge gathering for our large family. I had made up my mind well in advance that I was not going to miss out on any of that turkey, cranberry sauce, pie, whip cream, ice cream. The plan was to dig in, and I did!

When I stepped on the scale the next morning, I had not gained a single pound.

I stuck with WW and went from 210 to 176lbs. All my slacks had to be altered. I bought Levi’s with a 34” waist instead of 38”. People who hadn’t seen me for a while would yell my name when they saw how much I had changed.

There was another key tie in to all this. Back in2006 I was racing on a 70’ sailboat in stormy conditions. We were on the final leg of a 150 mile race. It was around 2AM and we were sailing downwind with the spinnaker up doing 20 knots, which is fast for a sailboat (23 mph), when the wind shifted from astern more

[Mogul1 in reply to Mogul1]

Darn Parkinson’s. Victim of another unplanned finger tap/unintended launch. Sorry this is so long, but I am enjoying getting it down on paper.

Anyway, the wind shifted foreword dramatically increasing the loads on the sails, rigging, and hardware. I was trimming the mainsail and sitting between the winch for the mainsail and a large winch just aft of me controlling the after guy or brace which is the line that goes through the outboard end of the spinnaker pole to control the spinnaker which was suddenly under extreme load. Suddenly, the boom vang broke then I heard a loud”boom” and found myself airborne flying across the deck to the boat’s low side and 50 degree water. I landed on the side deck with my head and shoulders over the edge of the deck and my ear an inch from the rushing water. I couldn’t breathe. The wind had been knocked out of me. I knew I had some broken ribs so I began tasting the saliva in my mouth checking for blood which would indicate a punctured lung...no blood. One of the crew jumped down to grab me and with all the noise, he was yelling, “are you alright?” All I could do was mouth the word “No!” Still no air in my lungs.

The force of the wind on the spinnaker had traveled down the after guy to the winch that was controlling it and ripped the drum in half. That Kevlar-cored line had a 60,000lb breaking strength. Later, my doctor compared it to being hit by an “ied” in Iraq. If I hadn’t been sitting right next to that winch it would have flown forward and taken a crewman’s head off.

I ended up with two broken lower ribs and two ruptured discs (L4/L5). We won the race, but sadly, my golf clubs stayed in the car and were not used for quite a while.

The painful result was sciatica. I could barely walk a city block before I had to sit down. One of my golfing buddies referred me to a local chiropractor who convinced me to take a Calcium/ Magnesium supplement. About 1,500mg calcium and 1,000mg magnesium. It worked! The pain was gone and I have just kept taking it.

There was a fare amount of lower back pain that began a few years ago and cortisone couldn’t clear it up so my neurologist lined me up with a neurologist surgeon and surgery was going to be sometime in March. We had to cancel our trip to Kauai. That hurt! But the crazy thing was that three weeks before the surgery, the pain went away! I kept trying to make sense of why this happened and finally realized that the only thing that had changed was my weight loss. No surgery and golf has now become my key indicator of how my Parkinson’s is doing. My weight has leveled off around 180lbs.

Well, that is the most I have ever said on this sight. My apologies if it was too long, but I enjoyed it, and I hope all goes well for you Rebecca.

I have a dentist appointment today!!!