I eat an embarassingly large amount of sugar on a daily basis (candy, etc.). The last few months since Halloween have been particularly bad because I’m in marathon training and am able to keep the weight off almost no matter what I eat. I know that my body is dependent on sugar because when I don’t partake, I feel “off”. Other than this, my diet is pretty good. Has anyone ever weaned themselves off the sugar habit? Cold turkey? Some sort of gradual process?
Don’t have it your house to keep. Throw that shit out and don’t buy it.
Keep plenty of fruit around for healthy sugar.
Treat yourself once a week. Period.
Also, watch those low fat/fat free foods, like low fat PB, or yogurt, it’s usually chock full of SUGAR. Stick to natural PBs and yogurts, or yogurt sweetened with fruit juices.
AmyCO,
I feel your pain. No, I have not been able to kick the sugar habit. Although my problem is not consistent. I tend to go through periods where I must have chocolate, or maybe ice cream. I’ll go a few days where my sweet tooth is simply insatiable. I have not been able to figure out why. The Halloween candy is never that big of a deal to me, although my kids no that I get dibs on the Almond Joys, Mounds and Special Darks. There usually aren’t too many of them, and they hate those candy bars.
The bigger monkey on my back is caffeine. I am a terrible diet soda drinker and take in an obscene amount of caffeine in a day. When you say that you feel “off” if you don’t get your sugar fix, I know exactly what you mean. It certainly has turned into a chemical addiction. I keep telling myself that I will stop, but I know how hard and painful it is to do. I gave up caffeine for Lent last year, and the first week was literally Hell on Earth. It got easier towards the end. I wish that I had never started back up, but I did. Now, I keep trying to tell myself I should quit again, and I have tried several times. But at the first sign of the headache I go right back to it. And I justify it by saying that I don’t want to be in a bad mood around my family or at work or something crazy like that. Really, it is just because I am weak and undisciplined when it comes to this.
Sorry for the hijack. I hope you can quit if that is what you really want to do. I would think that a gradual process is not really going to be effective. I suspect that with any physical/chemical addiction you really just have to have a desire to quit and then you just do it. I suppose you might have reduced withdrawal symptoms if you could wean yourself down. But then you are also lengthening the time that you have any symptoms at all. The downside is that by weaning yourself, you are leaving the door open to indulge yourself once in awhile. For me, this would be a BAD problem because it probably would not be long before I was indulging myself every day and so on. But maybe you are stronger than I am in this regard. Good luck.
Bernie
I have.
I just stopped eating sugary foods - no candy, cocoa, cookies, nada. If I start eating that stuff I get into a sugar cycle and can’t stop! My advice is to just clear your house of that stuff, bring healthy snacks instead of getting things from vending machines. You’ll feel better!
I eat an embarassingly large amount of sugar on a daily basis (candy, etc.). The last few months since Halloween have been particularly bad because I’m in marathon training and am able to keep the weight off almost no matter what I eat. I know that my body is dependent on sugar because when I don’t partake, I feel “off”. Other than this, my diet is pretty good. Has anyone ever weaned themselves off the sugar habit? Cold turkey? Some sort of gradual process?
Hi Amy… I work with people all the time on this stuff.
There’s a possibility that you crave sugar because you are low in another nutrient… usually a deficiency magnesium or zinc causes certain carb cravings… Or perhaps you have a systemic yeast infection (that doesn’t mean you have that itchy girl thing happening).
Here’s one way you can test for the systemic yeast thing: stick out your tongue in a mirror. If your tongue is whitish (if should be pink), that may mean you have an excess of yeast (maybe in your gastro area) which makes you crave the sugar. The yeast lives off the sugar and if it doesn’t get it, the yeast kinda yells at you. This may translate as cravings, headaches, etc.
This sounds hard, but the real answer is “Go cold turkey”. That being said, that’s not realistic unless you are the type of person who can do cold turkey and/or want to.
I recommend that you start cutting down your sugar and replacing it with lower-glycemic sources which can provide some of the sweetness with less of the sigar. Blueberries are good, and apples, and other things which can be sweet but can start turning your habit around. Try to wean off that sugar habit until it’s only “for fun” and never daily. You don’t need to be a slave to any habit, especially sugar.
Secondarily, I’d advise that you add some magnesium to your day. There’s a particular way to discover what your own magnesium needs are (everyone is different, and especially at different times of their lives). Bear with me (it’s long):
Go get pharmaceutical-grade magnesium in 200mg capsules (not tablets) at the Vitamin Shoppe or other vitamin store. Start with 1 capsule (200mg), and each successive day, add another 200mg capsule. You will be adding your mag pretty fast, but when you get a runny stool, stop the additional mag (your body has reached mag saturation) and back off 1 capsule — and try that level of mag for a while until you get a runny stool again (That means that ytour body had reached mag saturation again and you have to back the mag down again)… The good thing is that mag helps your calcium uptake as well as helps your body in all other ways (go look up some of the ways) as an athlete.
Those are two ways to discover why you are craving the sugar… and how to start solving it. Don’t forget to keep drinking lots o water in case you have the gastro yeast problem – the starving dead yeasties will need to be flushed away.
Hope this helps.
Lauren
The bigger monkey on my back is caffeine. I am a terrible diet soda drinker and take in an obscene amount of caffeine in a day. When you say that you feel “off” if you don’t get your sugar fix, I know exactly what you mean. It certainly has turned into a chemical addiction. … Now, I keep trying to tell myself I should quit again, and I have tried several times. But at the first sign of the headache I go right back to it. And I justify it by saying that I don’t want to be in a bad mood around my family or at work or something crazy like that. Really, it is just because I am weak and undisciplined when it comes to this.
Slowbern,
I guess I am accepting your hijack but it’s important that you (and others) know that there is more to diet soda than simply caffeine. There’s something in diet soda which translates into dopamine in the brain as much (or more) than caffeine does… it’s phenylalanine.
Phenylalanine, without getting too technical, converts to tyrosine in the brain, which activates the neurotransmitter receptors. That means that it gets you high. Caffeine, on the other hand, stimulates the adrenal receptors which in turn stimulate the neurotransmitters eventually.
That being said, your brain is getting hijacked by the diet soda ingredients - which you didn’t need me to tell you.
It’s not that you are “weak”… it’s that you are ‘under the influence’ just the same as anyone on drugs or other addiction is influenced. It takes MORE self-will to undo the drugs’ power after addiction.
I hope you will excuse the intrusion when I recommend that you do everything you can to undergo the physical stress of trying to break this chemical chain. You can start weaning down AFTER you tell your family and co-workers and have everything in place to start your detox. It IS a detox… and it can be done. It’s just hard and you deserve the suppotrt of family and co-workers in the same way as if you had to stop smoking. Your body needs to re-fabricate healthy cells to start living anew. Seriously. But I’d bet that if you have had any anxiety while “on the soda”, eventually you will feel clean inside.
If you need any advice I’d be happy to help if you felt like PM’ing me.
Best,
Lauren
heh, heh, I read this thread just as I was finishing 1/2 a piece of molten chocolate cake left over from a dinner party last night! I’ve never tried to kick sugar completely out, it would be very difficult since it’s in everything. I do have chocolate cravings fairly often, but they can be satisfied with sugar free hot choc or pudding even raisens seem to do the trick. I just don’t buy candy, cookies, ice cream etc, because I like it, and if I have it, I’ll eat it, simple as that. And in turn I feel like crap if do indulge in too much sugary stuff. When I was a kid my mom would always look at what other people had in their baskets at the grocery store and say “can you belive all the crap people eat?” That made me not want to buy “bad food” for fear of being embarrassed. One advantage I have is that I am single, so I shop only for myself which makes it easier.
As for caffine, I transitioned from one huge cup of coffee and one diet coke per day to green tea or mate. I never thought I could kick the coffee habit, but I did. Slowly, not cold turkey.
Good Luck.
I just realized I have some sugar, but not much. I drink chocolate milk after a really hard or long workout (a couple of times a week) - that’s about it.
My wife and I allow ourselves one treat a day, but that size portion of that treat is what the product allows. Over the months of doing this it has become easier to not even need that sugar for a day or two. The one time treat a week thing just gets too long for us. I am an Ice Cream junkie and this plan has made training and eating not so much a gilt trip.
Just one treat a day (whenever) and only the portion size that the product recommends. Over time you can then have days that your half the portion. After all is said and done get rid of the gilt factor and enjoy your training.
I eat lots of sugar, but i got into the habit of eating it in the form of fresh fruit. You could give some dried mango or other fruit from wild oats, or some of those clementines in the box a try. YUM!
mmmm fresh fruit
I usually crave that rather than chocolate when I get those sugar cravings.
After you have stopped the sugar intake for two days, go on a detox fast and it will completely clean you out. I have found that once you get “pure” again and empty yourself of the toxins, it is easier not to go back to the bad habits.
I won’t get into all the particulars of the fast, you can check online or in some books to see what might work best for you. Good luck!
I feel your pain, too. I’m a TOTAL addict.
I kicked it once, about 10 years ago, for about a year. I’d get Rice Dream for desset, (It’s a non dairy, rice based ice cream sorta thing. I think it’s sweetened with molasses). I still had honey regularly too, but that was the only processed sugar I was having. It didn’t last. And I’m a total addict again.
I drink lowfat chocolate soymilk to help with the chocolate cravings. Or have Jello sugar free chocolate pudding. Sometimes that works, sometimes not.
Cold turkey is probably best. But then you run the risk of backlash.
I’ve recently cut out all the gummi-candy type stuff, (don’t know if this will last), but I’m still hooked on lollipops. At least they last a while, so I figure I’m taking in less sugar overall, (rationalize much?).
I dunno if everybody will be happy to hear how easy it is for you to keep the weight off, (although that’s certainly great for you) - just a friendly tip 
Good luck.