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Giving up sugar for good

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Replies

  • Posts: 30,886 Member
    AnvilHead wrote: »

    Truth, and I don't think anybody is arguing that point. Abstinence is a viable option for virtually anything that somebody has trouble moderating. The disconnect in every one of these ridiculous sugar threads is the blanket fearmongering about "sugarz iz da debilz!!1!" and how it's poison and just like cocaine and heroin and you're going to end up finding yourself scantily clad on a dark street corner selling your body for your next Twinkie if you so much as taste the demon sugar.

    Exactly.
  • Posts: 200 Member

    Scientists amuse you?

    I'm not even, yeah no, shouldn't had said that on here, I know how you people are >.<

  • Posts: 1,169 Member
    edited January 2017
    AnvilHead wrote: »

    You may want to brush up on your physiology a bit. The human brain relies on glucose (that's a sugar, in case you didn't know) as its main source of energy. The brain accounts for 2% of your body weight, but consumes about 20% of your glucose-derived energy. (All of which may actually help explain some of the posts in this thread.)
    @elsesvan is absolutely correct. There is no dietary requirement in human beings for glucose. (There's also no need to severely restrict it, except if medically advised or by your own choice for behavioural food-addiction reasons.)

    The brain is able to utilize both glucose and ketones for it's metabolic requirements. For those on a ketogenic diet, it will still require a very tiny bit of glucose - but the majority of it's energy needs are met by ketones.

    For someone in a healthy state of ketosis, the human body needs approximately 20-30g of total glucose per day for the following: The brain, kidney medulla, erythrocytes and the male testes. Even if somebody restricts carbohydrate intake to less than that required, the process of gluconeogenesis is more than capable of easily supplying this small amount, even in the most severely glycogen-depleted individuals.
  • Posts: 934 Member
    AnvilHead wrote: »

    Truth, and I don't think anybody is arguing that point. Abstinence is a viable option for virtually anything that somebody has trouble moderating. The disconnect in every one of these ridiculous sugar threads is the blanket fearmongering about "sugarz iz da debilz!!1!" and how it's poison and just like cocaine and heroin and you're going to end up finding yourself scantily clad on a dark street corner selling your body for your next Twinkie if you so much as taste the demon sugar.

    People have argued that point in the past...I haven't read the whole thread here. While I don't doubt that people have said "Sugar is the devil" or that it is "just like cocaine and heroine" I think the debate will better served if the hyperbolic outliers are ignored.

    Saying "I am addicted to sugar" is not the same thing as saying that it is a substance which will create a physical dependence. This seems to be the sticking point for the argument. @RobD520 had a very informative thread which discussed this concept a while back. Unfortunately, this is such an emotionally charged subject that people are reluctant to put forth the effort to consider the actual message.

    For what it's worth, I think Taubes in general paints with too wide a brush in seemingly saying sugar is addictive to all people.
  • Posts: 266 Member
    You just knew this topic was going to die a slow painful death.
  • Posts: 16,049 Member
    eeejer wrote: »
    I love it when people say "I don't eat sugar" then they say "I eat lots of fruits" in the same post.

    I eat sugar, but most of it comes from fruit. And i cant even use the fibre argument as around 580g of watermelon and cantaloupe provide a pathetic 3g of fibre.
  • Posts: 3,563 Member
    I agree that sugar cravings in no way resemble drug addiction. But the prostitute and pimping comments above got me thinking.. Would people who claim to have a sugar addiction, or whatever their problem food is go walk the streets and sell their bodies, steal from family, friends and neighbours, risk imprisonment etc etc if a gram bag of candy cost them $250?? If the answer is yes, then an addiction you may have...

    FTR: I'm not a sugar pusher, my sugar grams go way too high in summer due to fruit, and drop back down in winter.

    This was an interesting point. What price would we be willing to pay for the sweets we love? A major price hike would definitely solve a lot of my problems. ;)

    Ut-oh... that might open up a whole "should sugar be taxed" argument!
  • Posts: 8,911 Member
    blambo61 wrote: »

    No, they may just be a klepto or have a need of a pen. Do they have a need of the co-workers sweets?

    If you simply have need for a pen, you'd usually give it back once you're done. The two most stolen things in the world are pens and lighters, I don't think there's that many kleptos or people so forgetful they don't realize they just borrowed that pen in their hand.
    "Opportunity creates thieves", is that a saying in English too?
    It's free food of low enough value that no one really cares too much when it's gone.
  • Posts: 1,695 Member
    moe0303 wrote: »

    People have argued that point in the past...I haven't read the whole thread here. While I don't doubt that people have said "Sugar is the devil" or that it is "just like cocaine and heroine" I think the debate will better served if the hyperbolic outliers are ignored.

    Saying "I am addicted to sugar" is not the same thing as saying that it is a substance which will create a physical dependence. This seems to be the sticking point for the argument. @RobD520 had a very informative thread which discussed this concept a while back. Unfortunately, this is such an emotionally charged subject that people are reluctant to put forth the effort to consider the actual message.

    For what it's worth, I think Taubes in general paints with too wide a brush in seemingly saying sugar is addictive to all people.

    I don't think this particular thread can move past the hyperbolic; they're not outliers here.

    I agree that abstaining from a substance you struggle to moderate is a fine idea if that's what works for you. I think the point of the comment you originally responded to was that there were plenty of people who claimed to be "addicts" who found they could moderate, showing that it wasn't the substance that was the problem. It was the behavior, and once the behavior was addressed, consumption was properly regulated.

    I think the problem with claiming "I'm addicted to sugar" is that in that statement there's no distinction between a substance dependence and a behavioral disorder, no clarification. While I know some behavior disorders (i.e. gambling) follow a similar pattern as substance addiction, I do kind of wish the DSM-V hadn't taken the first step to integrate them under the addiction umbrella if only because of the debating of semantics that's resulted. While the addiction model works for behavior issues that aren't consumable - gambling, sex, internet - when we get into the whys of overconsumption, it makes discussions like this murky at best and full of extremes and vitriol at worst.
  • Posts: 1,782 Member
    They should deprive the world of aspartame like they deprived the world of peanut butter products.

    Did something happen to peanut butter products that I don't know about?
  • Posts: 1,782 Member
    edited January 2017
    I don't know any high carbers...if anything, I'd say most of the people posting eat high protein diets or moderate amounts of all three macros. I'm pretty balanced myself as I see no need for extremes...

    I'm a high-carber! helloooo :)
  • Posts: 5,132 Member

    I'm not even, yeah no, shouldn't had said that on here, I know how you people are >.<

    Reasonable?
  • Posts: 3,563 Member

    Ah the old dopamine thing that was already talked about. It's still wrong.
    Opiates aren't addictive because they release dopamine. Dopamine release is not what makes an addiction They're way worse than that. They actually have a similar structure to dopamine themselves.
    In easily understandable terms, the opiates pretend they're your feel-good hormones to your brain receptors, only problem is that their effect is much stronger than those hormones, this results in your own body not producing much of those hormones anymore because you have a much better outside source of them. And that's why you get horrible withdrawal symptoms, your body loses its ability to feel good without the drug.

    http://www.howtokickheroin.com/how-heroin-works/

    Here. This is why Heroin is a drug.
    This is why these comparisons are horribly distasteful on top of being factually wrong.

    Thank you so much! I've been sitting here trying to find the right words and you just nailed it :)
  • Posts: 10,330 Member
    edited January 2017
    I agree that sugar cravings in no way resemble drug addiction. But the prostitute and pimping comments above got me thinking.. Would people who claim to have a sugar addiction, or whatever their problem food is go walk the streets and sell their bodies, steal from family, friends and neighbours, risk imprisonment etc etc if a gram bag of candy cost them $250?? If the answer is yes, then an addiction you may have...

    FTR: I'm not a sugar pusher, my sugar grams go way too high in summer due to fruit, and drop back down in winter.

    This reminds me when I was in college and did not manage my weekly budget well, I used to skip meals, sometimes whole days of food, in order to buy cigarettes. I also remember scouring for cigarette butts that still had a stump of grass in them when I was out and it was too late. Then there is taking a cigarette from a friend, a brand that I don't like, and literally gagging because of how disgusting it was but smoking it anyway because I needed to. When I quit I really felt the withdrawal physically although compared to other drugs they're quite mild. I had severe sleep disturbances and mental health changes when I tried to quit cold turkey.

    I've never had problems with added sugar, but I could describe my relationship with nuts as "addiction-like", in the sense that I feel an intense urge to have more and more of them whenever they are around and a sense of loss and emptiness when I first put my foot down and decided to control my intake, with that characteristic addiction-like anxiety. It sucked, but more along the lines of how it sucks when my internet connection goes down (which sucks a lot and creates habit separation anxiety). I don't think I would have eaten rancid nuts if I ran out and it was late anymore than a self-proclaimed sugar addict would guzzle BBQ sauce or salad dressing to get their sugar fix.

    On a different note, I'm curious why people believe sugar addiction is a thing when they have a problem moderating certain foods that happen to contain sugar among other things but my affinity for nuts is not called "oil addiction" and stated in articles to cause obesity and diabetes as a fact? The correlations is there, the research is there... everyone should give up oil for good.
  • Posts: 1,782 Member
    edited January 2017

    A )
    The point being, though, that as far as your body is concerned there's absolutely no difference between the two.
    B )
    And it's just as ridiculous to think that the body treats refined/added sugar any differently than it does naturally occurring sugar.

    You guys don't think the body processes complex and simple carbohydrates differently? Or am I misunderstanding...
  • Posts: 30,886 Member
    edited January 2017
    cwolfman13 wrote: »
    I wouldn't really call them hyperbolic outliers...it's basically the premise from the start of this thread and most sugar threads in general which makes it pretty much impossible to ignore. In my experience, people tend to lean towards extremes and completely discount context and dosage...it's either good or bad, black or white...no middle ground.

    It is well evidenced in this thread...apparently all of us who are arguing against the notion of sugar addiction are all "praising sugar" and must eat all the sugarz which isn't remotely true...it's kind of like when people say that you can have some pizza from time to time turns into, "you must be living off junk food"...to the best of my knowledge, everyone who is arguing against the premise of the OP and the article, do in fact eat overwhelmingly healthy and balanced diets to include sugar in appropriate dosages in the context of the overall diet as a whole as well as activity...like finishing a 1/2 century and having a chocolate milk to aid in recovery for example...I actually had a lady call me out on that once...why would such a fit person put that poison into their bodies? Context and dosage.

    Yes, this.

    I especially love how disagreeing with the idea that sugar is toxic in any amount means we are addicted and in denial. (I am currently eating very little added sugar, as my main source was occasional sweet desserts and I am taking a break from them. But clearly, I'm trying to justify my decision to survive only on candy or some such nonsense.)
  • Posts: 30,886 Member
    edited January 2017
    blambo61 wrote: »

    They mean refined sugar I'm sure you know that. Maybe some don't know that but I'm sure most do.

    To your body, distinguishing between sugar in fruit (fructose, glucose, and sucrose, in varying amounts), and "refined sugar" (sucrose -- which gets broken down to fructose and glucose anyway) makes no sense, as has been pointed out. Are foods which contain intrinsic and added sugar different? Sure, just like not all foods that have added sugar are the same and not all foods with intrinsic sugar are the same. If you really think there's something wrong with sugar itself, though, and that it's important to make a huge point to others of how you don't eat it, surely you'd exclude all sources of sugar?

    (I am not suggesting that there are never other reasons to focus on added sugar. As I've mentioned, I do myself, more at some times that others, and have cut it out for periods of time. Not because I think sugar is bad, though.)
This discussion has been closed.