"The problem with sugar is your problem with sugar"

maillemaker

can you please look at my above post and tell me if I was right or not

I can't tell you. I'm currently 6 months into my "diet", which is the longest in my entire life I've stuck with a calorie deficit with the exception of some 20 years ago when I was on the drug "Redux".

What is going to work "long term"? I can't say, because I've never made it to "long term" before.

What I can tell you is that I have hit as low as 30 pounds lost in the last 6 months, and I have done it largely by eliminating tempting foods from my diet.

judychicken

Bump!

ryry_

Speaking of gambling addictions, I'd be willing to bet you ate PF Changs, "broke" your diet, and said F' it pass the Oreos....

Am I close?

Yes, absolutely. As I have said before (and cautioned others against this trap), once you've "blown" a diet, it is trivial to justify further "blowing it" and give in to the pleasure.

This was me pretty much every weekend for a long long time. I would "break" my diet, which was a diet with "allowable" and "naughty" foods. After breaking I would seek to shovel in as much crap into my pie hole from the naughtly list.I would do this all the while knowing calories are what mattered and by overeating I was doing nothing but moving further away from my goal.

My friend, I encourage you to soften your stance on this subject and try a more moderate approach. I can now log 300 calories worth of Oreos and eat those Oreos. It takes practice but it works. I am going to eat half a pint Sea Salt Caramel Talenti gelato tonight. I would have never been able to do that before.

Cindyinpg

To close out my thoughts on the subject.

I was once of the mindset that sugar was evil and abstinence was my only option. I arrived at this conclusion because I binged on these substances when I had them. I lost 80 pounds and kept it off for a time, but eventually my control waned and my desire for sweets grew. Being as I had no idea to control myself, i gained weight rapidly.

This year was the first time I have ever tried to moderate. No ridiculous diet restrictions, just calorie control, meet my macros, work in fruits and veggies, and sweets. It hasn't been perfect, sometimes I eat more than I should but overall it has been a positive experience. I have to realization sugar was not the problem, but my disordered view of food was. Now I rarely if ever binge. I may overreat, but I don't binge. Mostly because I know I can eat it tommorow if I want it. I remember when I did low carb and stuff I would be stuffing my face, even after I was uncomfortably full. There is a half eaten pint of ice cream in my fridge. Its been there for a while. That is just crazy and would have never happened before.

I'm rambling, my thoughts are probably better suited for a blog post.

TL:DR - I agree with the title of the post.

Nail on head!

maillemaker

Ok. You think I am wrong, but I still know that you misunderstand addiction and behavioral health and still need to get a full grasp on it before attempting to educate others about it.

You are not convincing me of your position, and I still think I understand it quite well and have a good grasp on it.

Mcgrawhaha

Wait......maybe I am addicted!!!!

thats my kinda freezer right there!!!

maillemaker

When I think about people I know who have never had a weight problem they usually do not abstain from anything. Overall they eat less and honestly I don't think they spend as much time worried about food. Maybe because they've never had a weight problem, who knows.

I agree with you. In a similar thread I started keeping track of the people who did not think that food behavioral addiction was real vs. those who did, and without exception every single person who did not who had a profile pictures was reasonably fit.

It's anecdotal, but I did see the pattern.

ryry_

can you please look at my above post and tell me if I was right or not

I can't tell you. I'm currently 6 months into my "diet", which is the longest in my entire life I've stuck with a calorie deficit with the exception of some 20 years ago when I was on the drug "Redux".

What is going to work "long term"? I can't say, because I've never made it to "long term" before.

What I can tell you is that I have hit as low as 30 pounds lost in the last 6 months, and I have done it largely by eliminating tempting foods from my diet.

And if its working for you but by all means do what your doing. But if you are like me when i did these...You may end up in this situation...You just binged like crazy, your sickenly fool, feeling guilty, and just kind of bummed out...Just think about this thought for me.

What if these foods, the ones I love, the ones that taste good, the ones in my mind I currently attribute to my failure; What if I was able to reassociate these foods, reassociate them so with practice I could work these into my day and instead of the foods I love that I think in terms of failure, what if I was able eat them with pleasure thinking about how they are part of my success?

The_Enginerd

Yep. Honey in my tea at night and some fruit during the day is enough for me. I don't bother with donuts and whatever else, because these things do make me sleepy and not on my A game. Not to mention the uncomfortable headsplosion/sugar rush I get now when I eat more than about 15g of sugar at once.

Someone snarked at someone else about cane sugar not being natural- I'm fairly certain I read in the recent National Geographic article on sugar that the difference between the cane sugar plant and refined white sugar is comparable to the difference between the coca leaf and cocaine- one is a very highly refined, more potent version of the other.

Honey is 82% sugar, 17% water, and only 1% other, and contain only trace amounts of vitamins and minerals, and contains a similar fructose/sucrose ratio to HFCS. Demonizing table sugar, and then saying natural sweeteners like honey are fine, is EXACTLY one of the problems that this article points out.

I like honey in tea, it tastes awesome, but I don't pretend it's somehow nutritional different because "reasons".

I'm not making claims that honey is structurally different than fructose or sucrose. I think you're nit-picking.

There's a difference between a teaspoon of honey (5g of sugar if we're nit-picking) and the sacred oreo (6g of sugar per cookie if we're nitpicking.)

For one, I can't put oreos in my tea.

Also, oreos don't help my seasonal allergies.

So, there's that. People love to trot out the word 'demonizing.' Please point out what is demonizing about saying "No, thank you, I don't want item 1. It makes me sleepy and gives me a headache. I'd rather have item 2, the one that doesn't do those things to me." As you can see, I'm not a fan of broad generalizations. I'm more of an N = 1 kinda gal. And sure, I'll share my experiences if they might help someone else.

I don't there is a problem with saying you prefer item 1 over item 2. I hardly eat donuts, because they provide so many calories and so little satiety. Your post compared refined sugar with refining cocoa for cocaine, and you talked about being okay with the sugar in the honey in your tea and fruit. It came across as demonizing of table sugar while being okay with other sugars, even though honey is pretty much just sugar.

maillemaker

My goodness. Surely you know by now that just because you can Google something, doesn't make it true.

Of course. Likewise, it doesn't make it false.

Applying the Addiction Model to obesity is very controversial. Applying the Addiction Model to problem behaviors in general has become controversial. I am including an article that does a good job I think, in explaining why applying the Addiction Model to over eating is likely problematic.

I'm wondering if we read the same article, because it supports exactly what I've been saying.

Yes, the science is controversial and not completely explored yet. Binge Eating was only added to the DSM-V within the last few months.

But there are numerous references that support the idea of behavioral addictions and food. Again, just google "behavioral addiction". I've provided these links before.

"I am concerned that many people may potentially latch on to the concept of food addiction as an excuse to explain their overeating”

It is not an excuse unless you use the explanation as a reason not to change your behavior.

Just because people are aware of their reward centers being wired into the pleasurable experience for food does not mean that we have an excuse to keep doing it. Any more than a gambler who's reward centers are triggered by gambling is excused for gambling.

CJ_Holmes

yep...this is how i expected this would go.

Me too, but I considered this a PSA for the few people who were interested in reading and learning something factual and grounded in science, not anecdote- or opinion-based.

Cmeirun: Brains, brawn, class... she's got it all! :flowerforyou:

maillemaker

This year was the first time I have ever tried to moderate. No ridiculous diet restrictions, just calorie control, meet my macros, work in fruits and veggies, and sweets. It hasn't been perfect, sometimes I eat more than I should but overall it has been a positive experience. I have to realization sugar was not the problem, but my disordered view of food was. Now I rarely if ever binge. I may overreat, but I don't binge. Mostly because I know I can eat it tommorow if I want it. I remember when I did low carb and stuff I would be stuffing my face, even after I was uncomfortably full. There is a half eaten pint of ice cream in my fridge. Its been there for a while. That is just crazy and would have never happened before.

This gives me hope. I think that I am on my way to "moderation". It is still safest to not have the "bad" foods around, because I tend to eat them when they are.

But there is still half of a half-gallon of Publix Chocolate Trinity in my freezer. I bought it a couple of weeks ago and ate half of it in a sitting. But it has sat there since then uneaten.

My "moderation" is that I try to see every day as a new day to start over on the "diet". If I fail on any given day it's not really a failure because if you are on a 2-pound-per week deficit that is about a 1000 calorie deficit a day. So you can screw it up pretty bad any given day and just maintain rather than lose for that day. The trick is you cannot use that one day as an excuse to blow off the rest of the week.

So I do "moderate" in that every couple of weeks I will eat "bad food" and blow my deficit. Like last monday was my son's and my birthday party at Chuck E Cheeses. I hate a crap-load of pizza and cake (and continued eating the rest of the cake the rest of the week; consequently I am up 6 pounds from last week).

But by and large, my primary defense is to stay away from tempting food.

maillemaker

You say this yet you yourself can't even abstain. How would you know if learning moderation is harder when you haven't even shown that you can master abstinence.

I've been mostly doing it for the last 6 months. Trust me, if I kept "bad foods" around the house, I'd probably be eating them more often than not. Sometimes I still fail, so I guess you are right that at least total abstinence hasn't worked. My willpower just isn't that strong.

jofjltncb6

When I think about people I know who have never had a weight problem they usually do not abstain from anything. Overall they eat less and honestly I don't think they spend as much time worried about food. Maybe because they've never had a weight problem, who knows.

I agree with you. In a similar thread I started keeping track of the people who did not think that food behavioral addiction was real vs. those who did, and without exception every single person who did not who had a profile pictures was reasonably fit.

It's anecdotal, but I did see the pattern.

I wonder if you have the cause and effect mixed up.

BrainyBurro

You say this yet you yourself can't even abstain. How would you know if learning moderation is harder when you haven't even shown that you can master abstinence.

I've been mostly doing it for the last 6 months. Trust me, if I kept "bad foods" around the house, I'd probably be eating them more often than not. Sometimes I still fail, so I guess you are right that at least total abstinence hasn't worked. My willpower just isn't that strong.

let's see... i have pizza and bagels in the house. cinnamon & raisin bagels are my kryptonite. i had one slice of pizza for breakfast at 8:15AM. i had a banana about 2 hours later. i'm sitting here wasting time on MFP and yet these yummy foods are in my house and i'm not eating them. why exactly am i able to resist going downstairs and eating all of the pizza and bagels and you are not?... that's a didactic question. the answer is that i don't blame the food, i understand that i can and do eat those foods, and i am able to control the amounts i do eat because i'm not constantly depriving myself of them (and thus obsessing over them). try changing your mindset. i bet it will work better for you than what you're currently doing, because "dieting" is never the answer... changing your relationship with food is.

whierd

When I think about people I know who have never had a weight problem they usually do not abstain from anything. Overall they eat less and honestly I don't think they spend as much time worried about food. Maybe because they've never had a weight problem, who knows.

I agree with you. In a similar thread I started keeping track of the people who did not think that food behavioral addiction was real vs. those who did, and without exception every single person who did not who had a profile pictures was reasonably fit.

It's anecdotal, but I did see the pattern.

False, I'm fat and do not believe in food addiction.

Argument destroyed.

nomeejerome

Ok. You think I am wrong, but I still know that you misunderstand addiction and behavioral health and still need to get a full grasp on it before attempting to educate others about it.

You are not convincing me of your position, and I still think I understand it quite well and have a good grasp on it.

Who cares if I am convincing you or not? The purpose of my response was to point out that you make multiple attempts to educate others about addiction and behavioral health, yet you do not fully understand it yourself. You think you understand, but if you truly had the full understanding of addiction and behavioral health, you would see the nonsense in most of your responses.

maillemaker

False, I'm fat and do not believe in food addiction.

Argument destroyed.

OK, we have found one!

maillemaker

Who cares if I am convincing you or not? The purpose of my response was to point out that you make multiple attempts to educate others about addiction and behavioral health, yet you do not fully understand it yourself. You think you understand, but if you truly had the full understanding of addiction and behavioral health, you would see the nonsense in most of your responses.

Again, I think you are incorrect.

LiftAllThePizzas