Sugar addiction?

[Karalin]

Is sugar an addiction, a problem? People keep telling me just eat healthier foods and pay attention to when your hungry. I’m just so frustrated hearing that over and over because unfortunately that doesn’t help me. I’ve researched over 200 hours and have become a well versed knower on certain aspects of weight loss and eating disorders. I may know the facts but knowing them doesn’t help me. What workers for you all? I just wish somebody could help me in not a textbook kind of way. Please help.

[IndigoBlue61]

Hello Karalin and welcome to the Weigh Loss Forum

Unfortunately, we are none of us scientific experts and therefore cannot give you an scientific solution. What we CAN do is offer suggestions based on what has worked for us; many of our members have overcome issues around food and sugar and changed their lifestyle and eating behaviours. I see you’ve already responded to a similar post earlier today so the responses there may be of interest too

If you haven’t already then please read the Welcome Message in Pinned Posts here healthunlocked.com/nhsweigh... Please read it carefully so you can find all the information you need to find your way around the forum.

As a peer to peer support group we rely totally upon mutual encouragement. Nothing beats joining in, reading posts and replying to others. Our Group Weigh-in and the Daily Diary are probably the best places to start

If you haven't already taken it, here's a tour of the forum

healthunlocked.com/?tour to help you find your way around.

Best wishes in your weight loss journey

Indigo 😊

[basten]

Hi my problem is medication I'm on. Makes me continually hungry. But I've tried including fats in dinner etc which are supposed to make you not feel hungry.....then I'm still hungry half hour later . Sugar has always been a problem for me. I try to avoid it now but now I'm eating cheese cheese cheese and nuts even after a lunch or dinner. It's very very hard but if you can get over the first few days it may help. Wish you all the best really do

[Lytham 3 stone]

Hi, it might help to join our weigh in today, you've still got till 9pm if you're quick, here's the link, hope to see you there xx

healthunlocked.com/nhsweigh...

[TheAwfulToad Visitor]

Sugar addiction is a lot like any other addiction: the most effective method of knocking it on the head is to go cold turkey. This is actually far less painful than it sounds. A very common experience is that people fear what's going to happen so badly that they never actually try it. They sit on the fence, trying to "cut down", and eventually lapse back into their old habits.

A certain amount of courage is therefore required to say "my name is karalin and I have a problem", and then a certain amount of willpower to say "yes, I am going to do this". The reality is that you'll feel a bit grotty for a few days, and then you'll come out the other side feeling free and in control again. You're not going to be curled up in the corner shivering and craving chocolate cake.

The "treatment" protocol for sugar addiction is very specific. As mentioned, if you try to do it differently it will fail - or at least, it will feel more unpleasant than it should. You'll get a lot of people here telling you "oh, there's no one-size-fits-all, just do whatever suits you best". Clearly, this approach hasn't worked for you. A lot of clinician-hours have gone into developing an effective procedure for breaking sugar addiction which works for most people, so there's no need to reinvent the wheel. It goes like this:

1) Stop eating all sugar and all starch-based foods. "All" means all. No potatoes, sweet potatoes, or rice. No bread, pasta, or anything else made from flour. No breakfast cereals, porridge, jam, or things-in-tins that contain starch- and sugar-based sauces. And obviously no cookies, crisps, sweets, or similar. Get them out of the house before you even start.

2) Eat vegetables, meat, eggs and dairy. Fresh ingredients. "Vegetables" means non-starchy ones. I can't stress this enough: fill up your plate with veg, and make sure there's enough to fill you up. Add meat/eggs/dairy to make a meal. Get creative, and put some effort into it. Don't just gorge on cheese.

3) Replace your starch-calories with fat-calories (if you don't do this, you're just starving yourself, and within 24 hours you'll do a Cookie Monster impersonation). Add butter, olive oil, coconut oil, or meat fat to your meals to taste. Use fattier cuts of meat. You don't need things swimming in grease - add enough to make things taste nice, but don't skimp either. Your body will be using fat as its sole energy source.

There's a very easy-to-follow visual guide here: dietdoctor.com/low-carb/vis...

You need to keep this up for a couple of weeks. After the first week you'll find it's pretty easy to stick to. After two weeks you can start introducing things like carrots, pumpkin, milk and similar things in moderation. After a month you should find that you no longer have much interest in spag bol and doughnuts. At six months, all will be well again.

[Hidden in reply to TheAwfulToad]

That’s been my personal experience. I used to be addicted to sugar. At various times I have cut it right out, but only lost my taste for it when I cut out the carbs too, like bread, pasta, rice and potatoes. Even though I can now look at a coffee shop cake counter with as much enthusiasm as a 14 year old boy views a baby, 6 months on I know I have to plan for weak moments especially when I am out of the house or I have my own home made flapjack in front of me. I do eat cheese in these emergency moments. My go to treat was once rounds of toast/crumpets etc, it’s now a vast plate of bacon & sausages, or coffee with double cream. I allow myself hi eat anything, in any quantity, in my weak moments so long as it’s not sugar or carbs. Willpower is all very well but i like to have something else in my arsenal. I should also say that another the thing that is different for me now is that I do not ‘try not to eat sugar’, I just don’t eat it.

[SofaJockey in reply to Hidden]

I followed a similar patten. No (zero) bread, rice, pasta, potato, pastries, crisps, sweets, chocolate and of course added sugar. Kept that up for the first 3 months (the first 2.5 stone off). Added back in the occasional crackers (with cheese), a pinch of Alpen on breakfast, one Easter Egg at Easter. But largely cold turkey and for me it worked. I don't miss those foods.

[amykp Visitor in reply to Hidden]

Just curious, Slim-F-G... Why do you not eat more cheese? I eat keto and cheese is one of the foods I eat daily.

[Hidden in reply to amykp]

Oh. I eat loads and loads of cheese. Indecent amounts. I must have given a false impression somewhere.,

[amykp Visitor in reply to Hidden]

I think it was the word "emergency". I was feeling sad for you! ;o)

[Hidden in reply to amykp]

Ha ha. The emergency was being hungry...

[SofaJockey]

I've found I've significantly changed my relationship with sugar.

Cutting down on processed and low fat foods with added sugar.

Cutting down on fruit (sugar from trees)

And strangely, eating so much less sugar means I'm no longer craving it. 😄

[Hidden in reply to SofaJockey]

Oh yes. The more I have the more I want and vice versa. The slimming world approach of little treats every day to stop me feeling ‘deprived’ would not work for me at all. I ate a hot cross bun at Easter - planned as it was seasonal- then went on to eat a few of my son’s chewy sweets, because I had sudden my got the taste & craving back. None at all is the at ahead for me.

[TriGirl13]

Yes it is, I have really struggled to knock sugar on the head........however over the last 4 weeks I have had No sugar or sweetener in my coffee and I’m persevering. It may take some time but I’m not giving up

[BridgeGirl Administrator 2 stone in reply to TriGirl13]

Good work, TriGirl

How about giving the Daily Diary a go? It could be a big help in planning your meals for the day, and sticking to your plan

[BridgeGirl Administrator 2 stone]

So what do you think, Karalin? What can you take from the 9 replies you've had?

[Midori]

I found that eating off smaller plates tricks my brain into eating less because the plate looks fuller. Eating more slowly also helps, as it allows the 'full' signal to tell us when to stop eating.

Like most of us during lockdown, I have put on weight again, which is disheartening, but a result of less exercise. It's not doing my knee any good.

Cheers, Midori

[Auldle1th]

As someone else said Willpower Willpower Willpower. I have struggled with lack of it over the years. My health was making me miserable. Heartburn, reflux persistent cough and lack of sleep. My PPI's were increased to twice a day. Put on over a stone to my overweight body in lock down due to home baking and snacking. Fear of contracting Covid was what gave me a reality check. I cut out the snacks stopped baking and eat non starchy veg and low sugar fruit. I make my own salad dressings and cook from scratch. My craving for sugar has gone and my health has improved. PPI's down to one a day and my varicose eczema has improved and not using steroid cream. I have taken to intermittent fasting and have lost a stone this has slowed down so started walking again and gradually return to fitness. I have not followed any particular regime having been a Weight Watchers recidivist know that only me can do it. There is a lot of quackery out there on the internet so be selective in what you decide to do. The food drug health and diet industry are big business and feed of each other very often to detriment of our health. Look up Dr John Yudkin a man whose work is very pertinent to the obesity crises today. Also now that we are leaving the EU we need to pay more attention to our food. The EU did not allow many of the additives that are legal in America .

Good luck once you get the Pure White and Deadly stuff out of your brain you will feel better.

[IndigoBlue61 in reply to Auldle1th]

Hello and welcome to the Weigh Loss Forum Auldle1th

If you haven’t already then please read the Welcome Message in Pinned Posts here healthunlocked.com/nhsweigh... Please read it carefully so you can find all the information you need to find your way around the forum.

As a peer to peer support group we rely totally upon mutual encouragement. Nothing beats joining in, reading posts and replying to others. Our Group Weigh-in and the Daily Diary are probably the best places to start

If you haven't already taken it, here's a tour of the forum

healthunlocked.com/?tour to help you find your way around.

Best wishes in your weight loss journey

Indigo 😊

[Auldle1th in reply to IndigoBlue61]

Thanks for your welcome. There is so much helpful advice here in overcoming sugar addiction.

[IndigoBlue61 in reply to Auldle1th]

You’re very welcome 😊

[BJ2020]

My first though is try to avoid the aisle that has the sugary food in and replace with fruit and or to start making a dish that has both fruit (good sugar) and the other bad sugar foods and maybe you'll find that it reduces it and then move on to just fruit. These are just my thoughts.

[SofaJockey in reply to BJ2020]

All I would suggest is to take care not to overdo fruit quantities as a compensation (one or two pieces max daily maybe?). Some refer to fruit as 'sweets from trees'. 😄

[BJ2020 in reply to SofaJockey]

Agree I normally do have fruit. But thought I'd treat myself then that happened. Just curious as to what it could have been as I had practically been the same weight for 2 weeks

[amykp Visitor]

I concur with the "it's an addiction and you have to break it" camp. Cut out everything, even carby vegetables (like corn and carrots) and fruit. No bread, no potatoes or pasta or beans...no cheating at all. Up your fat until you are not hungry at all--someone here said something about a big buttery plate of eggs and bacon? Yeah! I say, try generous heavy cream in your coffee :o)

Do that for a full month. Be really strict. It will be hard at first and you might even feel a little under the weather as your body adjusts. But I'll bet at the end of the month you will be amazed.

What works for me is "artificial" sweetener, like monkfruit, but that messes some people up, so you might want to wait for a bit to introduce...

[Karalin Visitor in reply to amykp]

Thanks for the advice. I had completed a survey on my diet and health in an Australian university’s website. They said I needed to eat more beans and grains which makes sense for me. I’m in my very early twenties meaning my brain is still developing, so I don’t know if it’s the best thing to cut out such an important source of nutrition for me. I will definitely try to implement as much of that as I can. Thank you for taking the time to respond with such thoughtfulness.

[utep99]

I believe sugar is addictive as your body makes a habit of craving it.

[smartoak 2kg Restart May 2024]

My name is smartoak and I have a problem. I didn't realise I had a problem, in fact I was in complete denial about my addiction until two months ago. Surely something sold at every corner can't be this addictive and bad for my health? After the first fortnight of going cold turkey, I had an epiphany - sugar is my enemy, it turns me into a craving hoover. Cutting sugar and starch out of my diet has given me my appetite back, my enjoyment of food (rather than a compulsion to swallow the next thing in sight) and control over what I choose to eat. I have lost 6kg. I can't go back. I agree with most of the previous posts about what to cut out and why.