How to beat sugar addiction?

shaumom

tanny684 wrote: »

I feel like sugar is an addiction.

That's because you are paying attention to how your body feels, and you are not an idiot, IMHO.

I'm sorry that so many here seem to believe that it's just a craving. That's not only dismissive and kind of insulting, it ignores current research, as well. Because there IS scientific evidence that indicates folks CAN develop an addiction to sugar, potentially.

There have been studies about this because preemies actually respond to the taste of sugar (not intravenous, but specifically the taste) as though they were given analgesics. There are studies that show women, but not men, are able to tolerate higher levels of pain if they have sugar. And animal studies have shown that animals look like they can develop an addiction to sugar to the point that they have symptoms of withdrawal like you would see in someone addicted to morphine or nicotine.

Or in other words, you feeling like this is immensely hard, like an addiction, is in all probability NOT just you, just in your head, just you not being able to 'cope' with some little 'craving.' It CAN be an addiction.


That said - I had this. My mom had this. When I would try to go off sugar, I would dream of it, think of the taste of it nearly every minute of the day, and my whole body and mind felt terrible until I could get another 'hit' of sugar. The only way I managed to get it taken care of was to go cold turkey, drop it ALL, and stay that way. Took me 2-3 weeks to get over it. And since then, a few times I've thought - hey, just one little piece of candy wouldn't hurt, now that I don't eat sugar anymore. And literally, that starts it all over again, immediately, and I have to go the 2-3 weeks of misery to get off of it again.

I have met some who just slowly lower their sugar intake, and after some discussion, it seems to me that they do NOT have a sugar addiction, based on how they experience it, and the fact that they can eat a little sugar here and there, and it doesn't trigger that overwhelming need to have more of the taste. Maybe they would LIKE more, but it's not some huge, physical push, you know?



* just one of the studies, if you wish to look, done on rats.
'Evidence that intermittent, excessive sugar intake causes endogenous opioid dependence.'

"The goal was to determine whether withdrawal from sugar can cause signs of opioid dependence."
Results: "Repeated, excessive intake of sugar created a state in which an opioid antagonist caused behavioral and neurochemical signs of opioid withdrawal. The indices of anxiety and DA/ACh imbalance were qualitatively similar to withdrawal from morphine or nicotine, suggesting that the rats had become sugar-dependent."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12055324