Quitting Sugar Once and For All - Tips Welcome!

KaleidoscopeEyes8

I'm a 34-year-old vegetarian who works out daily and eats very healthily overall; however, I have a rather bad sweet tooth. Prior to trying to change it, I'd eat at least one dessert or treat a day, if not more. I could count on my 1 hand the number of days a month that I didn't have dessert, and I wouldn't even need all 5 fingers. About a year ago I started to seriously cut down on my sugar intake, but it's been a bumpy road.

In June I successfully gave up added sugar for a month, and felt much better. It took at least 30 days to get there, but my mood was significantly improved, I was not nearly as bloated as I had been (sugar apparently makes me bloat hardcore), and things I used to like were tasting way too sweet. I was able to notice more flavors in vegetables, and it was awesome. But then my birthday hit at the end of September and I fell off the bandwagon. It started with having dessert at my birthday dinner, which would have been fine if I could have kept it to just the one time. That wasn't the case, though. It felt more like once I gave myself permission to have dessert even just that one time, I started to lack the ability to say no the next time. I didn't backslide nearly as much as I could have, but enough that I'm noticeably bloated, my clothes are fitting more tightly, my face is breaking out, and things are no longer tasting too sweet.

I know the basics about how it's so much better for me to not eat it, and I know how much better I feel when I eat a low sugar diet, but that doesn't always help when faced with a very tempting treat. In an ideal world I'd be able to have a satisfactory substitution available when those moments struck, but that's just not realistic.

I'm back to no added sugar for the month of November, but I'm looking for suggestions from people who have successfully kicked their sugar habit for the long-term. What was your situation like before? How do you keep yourself on track? How long did it take you to notice any differences? What do you do when you're faced with desserts and are just tired of having to control yourself so much? Are you able to have a couple of bites of dessert and not make it set you back or are you all or nothing like I seem to be?