Food addiction-Sugar

orangesmarties

I'm sorry that you had to face those comments, I really am. I am struggling with the same kind of issue I think. Its a deeply ingrained one, and one day I just broke down and had to tell someone. On a daily basis, these things have helped me:
- black coffee! Decaf if you prefer. It just reduces my appetite, and gives me a bit of energy, which tends to discourage any sugary snacking.
- Plan meals and times for them. Make sure that you really want them and like them.
- Don't starve yourself, at least not at the beginning. Have reasonable portion sizes, not tiny, and just concentrate on kicking the sugar habit,
- Consider a processed sugar fast. I'm trying this at the moment. I'm on my 3rd day, and then tomorrow I'll treat myself to a flapjack, then go for a further 6 days without sugar, then another flapjack, and then another 12 days, doubling as I go to a point at which I've lost the dependency.
- Exercise, especially running, distracts me and focuses the need for adrenaline that often causes the sugar craving in the first place.
- Get enough sleep. Then that will reduce your sugar craving. We often crave sugar when we're tired, stressed, or run down to give us a little lift. Overall, just focus on your general health.
I hope this helped, I'm so sorry you had to hear what those insensitive people had to say. I'm very much not over my personal struggle with sugar, so I can definitely sympathise.

ndj1979

I definately believe that there is such a thing as sugar addiction. Studies have repeatedly shown that both sugar and the taste of sweet activate beta endorphin receptor sites in the brain, the same receptor sites that are activated by heroin and morphine.
If you think logically, alcohol is nothing more than a form of sugar so if you can get addicted to alcohol you can get addicted to sugar. There is absolutely no difference apart from the fact that alcohol obviously has different outcomes if you have too much due to it being fermented. Anything that causes a person to think about it all the time and crave it constantly is technically an addiction whether it be crack, heroin, alcohol, dope, cigarettes refined sugar, shopping, sex, whatever. It is very naiive to think that an addiction can only occur with illegal substances or is classified as such due to the societal result of that addiction. Not all addictions have to result in a person robbing a 7-eleven to get their fix.

But... of course not everyone will become addicted to sugar just as not everyone will become addicted to drugs or sex or cigarettes etc etc. I know people who can take cocaine sporadically and then not want it or need it at all for ages. Some people have addictive personalities and if you remove one addiction, they will find another to take it's place just as other people can eat sugar but don't crave it or can ignore that half eaten pack of Tim Tams. It must be a chemical inbalance in the brain or something.

Good for those of you who can enjoy sweet foods or junk food in moderation but not everyone can and the best thing in that situation is to not keep those trigger foods around the house.

were these "studies" human based or rodent based?

show me the person that eats table sugar out of bowl day after day and maybe I will change my mind….

you really know squat about addiction, if it was as simple as you think it would be simple to solve
it's not

you know squat about me ..and I am not going to go into detail but all I will say is I base my assertions on personal experience, and will leave it there.

tennisdude2004

I personally don't see sugar addiction as an "excuse" but it does need to be recognised if that is something you see in yourself, I thought they had already proven that sugar was just as addictive as heroin? It triggers the same release of chemicals in your brain's reward center, making you crave more and go through withdrawal without it.

Now I'm sure that not everyone who does heroin becomes addicted, but it is likely if you have an addictive personality. When I quit smoking it was 3 years before I didn't REALLY want a cigarette, even though I have asthma and knew I liked breathing more, it was still really really hard sometimes not to buy a pack while I was at the counter.

There is also parts of our brain that certain food triggers, I stopped eating fast food and soda a few years ago, but if I see a pepsi or McDonalds commercial I want it for a few seconds, I can imagine the taste and texture... but I don't actually want it, I wouldn't eat it, but something in my brain is telling me to, that I believe would be linked to addiction, if my will was not stronger the urge would win. That dang Fillet-o-fish commercial kills me, but I also think McDonalds is disgusting, that's not something I can explain any other way.

And there's no way I will be attempting to go off sugar, but I do try to limit it.

That's not "addiction," that's a very mysterious mental condition known as "a memory."

SHORT DEFINITION OF ADDICTION.
Addiction is a primary, chronic disease of
brain reward, motivation, memory and related
circuitry. Dysfunction in these circuits leads to
characteristic biological, psychological, social and
spiritual manifestations. This is reflected in an
individual pathologically pursuing reward and/or
relief by substance use and other behaviours.

Longer version.

http://www.addictiontoday.org/files/asam-definition-of-addiction-2011.pdf

Holly_Roman_Empire

I definately believe that there is such a thing as sugar addiction. Studies have repeatedly shown that both sugar and the taste of sweet activate beta endorphin receptor sites in the brain, the same receptor sites that are activated by heroin and morphine.
If you think logically, alcohol is nothing more than a form of sugar so if you can get addicted to alcohol you can get addicted to sugar. There is absolutely no difference apart from the fact that alcohol obviously has different outcomes if you have too much due to it being fermented. Anything that causes a person to think about it all the time and crave it constantly is technically an addiction whether it be crack, heroin, alcohol, dope, cigarettes refined sugar, shopping, sex, whatever. It is very naiive to think that an addiction can only occur with illegal substances or is classified as such due to the societal result of that addiction. Not all addictions have to result in a person robbing a 7-eleven to get their fix.

But... of course not everyone will become addicted to sugar just as not everyone will become addicted to drugs or sex or cigarettes etc etc. I know people who can take cocaine sporadically and then not want it or need it at all for ages. Some people have addictive personalities and if you remove one addiction, they will find another to take it's place just as other people can eat sugar but don't crave it or can ignore that half eaten pack of Tim Tams. It must be a chemical inbalance in the brain or something.

Good for those of you who can enjoy sweet foods or junk food in moderation but not everyone can and the best thing in that situation is to not keep those trigger foods around the house.

were these "studies" human based or rodent based?

show me the person that eats table sugar out of bowl day after day and maybe I will change my mind….

you really know squat about addiction, if it was as simple as you think it would be simple to solve
it's not

Well, this is a highly presumptuous statement.

eddiesmith1

Well, this is a highly presumptuous statement.

Not based on his attitude towards it no it's not. I've been addicted and dealt with addicts so maybe i have a different perspective

Holly_Roman_Empire

Well, this is a highly presumptuous statement.

Not based on his attitude towards it no it's not. I've been addicted and dealt with addicts so maybe i have a different perspective

How do you know he hasn't? Or that I haven't? How do you know anything about anyone's experiences?

eddiesmith1

I can read the comments and infer, but it's a lost point on this long thread.

to put it straight
there are peer reviewed studies that show sugar is addictive for the same reason heroin and crack are addictive. nothing to do with his experience or yours (or for that matter mine but I have experience with addiction so possibly know more than others perhaps not - regardless the study I posted is very reputable and has been peer reviewed - I posted the link rpeviously
so slagging it off is plain ignorance of the reality.
not everyone has an addictive personality (ie are prone to it) we are all wired differently, but reality is there will be people addicted to sugar (I even provided a personal example, though that hardly qualifies as a statistic just experience)
If you don't suffer from addictions great good for you, but you can't judge others based on your ability to avoid addiction which may just be part of your chemical makeup and nothing to do with will power or anything else
you can be addicted BTW without sitting eating bowlfuls of pure sugar just like you can be a high level functioning Alcoholic or Heroin Addict (think Keith Richards definitely had addiction issue was still a high level functioning addict - even easier to be a high level functioning sugar addict it's everywhere and cheap and makes you feel good for a short period

Acg67

I can read the comments and infer, but it's a lost point on this long thread.

to put it straight
there are peer reviewed studies that show sugar is addictive for the same reason heroin and crack are addictive. nothing to do with his experience or yours (or for that matter mine but I have experience with addiction so possibly know more than others perhaps not - regardless the study I posted is very reputable and has been peer reviewed - I posted the link rpeviously
so slagging it off is plain ignorance of the reality.
not everyone has an addictive personality (ie are prone to it) we are all wired differently, but reality is there will be people addicted to sugar (I even provided a personal example, though that hardly qualifies as a statistic just experience)
If you don't suffer from addictions great good for you, but you can't judge others based on your ability to avoid addiction which may just be part of your chemical makeup and nothing to do with will power or anything else
you can be addicted BTW without sitting eating bowlfuls of pure sugar just like you can be a high level functioning Alcoholic or Heroin Addict (think Keith Richards definitely had addiction issue was still a high level functioning addict - even easier to be a high level functioning sugar addict it's everywhere and cheap and makes you feel good for a short period

I already responded to your previously posted study, is it your belief that everything found in rodent models is true for humans? You posted a rodent study, one in which they starved rodents to induce binges btw

SlenderSelah

I really believe that it's a matter of terms, addiction, dependency, same thing we crave sugar the same way an addict craves crack. By accepting it and coming out in the open you are one step closer to finding a lasting solution. Don't mind the haters, they obviously had their own "dependancies" otherwise they wouldn't be members of a weightloss/ fitness site

SlenderSelah

I really believe that it's a matter of terms, addiction, dependency, same thing~ we crave sugar the same way an addict craves crack. By accepting it and coming out in the open you are one step closer to finding a lasting solution. Don't mind the haters, they obviously had their own "dependancies" otherwise they wouldn't be members of a weightloss/ fitness site

Slacker16

I'm sorry for the loss of your friend. While I do think food addiction could be a real thing, I don't think a sugar addiction, when it does not include foods with naturally-occurring sugars, is a real thing.

I'm not wading through the entirety of this dumpster fire, but I wanted to say that the above summarizes my opinion.

Eating disorders are known to share many similarities with addictions on a neurological level (from human studies, btw, for those of you with murophobia), and in my experience binging - in the clinical sense of the term - is very similar to drug-seeking behaviour. Without going into detail, I have some personal experience with both.

I suspect this is why people find the notion of "sugar addiction" appealing, they confuse an addictive behaviour (the binge) with an addictive substance (the sugar).

Incidentally though, people definitely don't binge just on sweets, or just on "bad" foods. I've binged on fruit and ham sandwiches are actually a trigger for me.

I'm not necessarily dismissing the possibility that sugar be physically addictive, but so is caffeine (or so I would guess given the withdrawal headaches I had yesterday) and I doubt sugar could be any worse. When speaking of addictive substances that have only very minor psychoactive effects and no chances of OD'ing, moderation is a perfectly valid goal.

margannmks

TI believe that I have a food addiction the only thing I crave mostly is sweets but I find myself mindlessly eating... I wont even realize that I am. Its like once I start I cant stop.

I want to hear from fellow/former food addicts
Any advice?
What helped you?

I am not a huge contributor to these forums for the reason that you have discovered here - people will jump on you and try to prove your feelings or opinions "wrong". In reality, there's more more than one way to skin a cat - or something. I don't think most people mean to come out and say that "calories in/calories out" is wrong but the minute you bring up sugar or some type of food being "bad" or what not everyone jumps on you. I think its very admirable that some people have been able to teach themselves self control and are now qualifed to to tell everyone else how to live... which begs the questions of why they need a site like this if they have their lives so together?

To address you questions, I do believe in food addiction in the sense that products with refined sugars tend to make me crave more and lead to overeating which causes me to consume more calories than I burn. Removing said foods reduce my cravings and make it much easier to stay within my goals. I had lost 100 lbs - mainly by cutting out soda and other refined sugars and other refined carbs. Notice that I am not lumping fruits and veggies in with that because those foods do not have the same effect on me as a chocolate chip cookie, even if they do techincally contain or turn to sugar. As soon as I tried to add certain things back into my diet in "moderation" I lost control again and have regained 60 pounds. (Supid, weak, little me for having no self control. If only I could be as good and strong as some of the memebers on this forum!)

I have PCOS with insulin resistance and high cortisol levels. My endocrinologist reccommends cutting out refined sugars and exercising "moderately" as oppsed to strenuously (due to the cortisol levels - at least until they are brought down). I feel he is probably slightly more qualifed than most of the people on this forum. Of course, they are welcome to chime in and let us know what medical school they graduated from.

I think if you want specifc help or guidance to treat or understand "food addiction" you would be better served to seek out a group such as Overeaters Anon, Food Addicts Anon, or something similar. Sure, maybe it doesn't exist with scientific proof, and maybe people on this forum don't "believe in it", but really who cares? The best diet or lifestyle changes are the one that you can live with and that work for you. If having a slice of cake sets you off on a sugar bender and derails your progress then avoid cake. It doesn't mean the cake is evil or bad, it means for you its not a good thing. I truly don't understand why some people on here cannot make that connection. They really need to learn that people come here for encouragement and help not to be lectured and put down under the guise of being helpful. It's not helpful - it's annoying and makes people not want to comment or come back.

I believe everyone's body reacts differently. I belive that some people have faster metabolisms than others which I think is evident in natural thin people who eat like toxic waste dumbs and people who can't lose weight despite eating 1400 calorie diet, or what have you. Sure, it all comes down to burning more than we take it, but everyone's threshhold may not be the same. Some people can have just one cookie and walk away, and some people will obsess about said cookie until they have another. Who knows why, who cares why...it just is.

You should post more often,that was one of the most perfectly written things ive read on here. Sorry up front to anyone after page 4 didnt get that far yet.

tennisdude2004

I'm sorry for the loss of your friend. While I do think food addiction could be a real thing, I don't think a sugar addiction, when it does not include foods with naturally-occurring sugars, is a real thing.

I'm not wading through the entirety of this dumpster fire, but I wanted to say that the above summarizes my opinion.

Eating disorders are known to share many similarities with addictions on a neurological level (from human studies, btw, for those of you with murophobia), and in my experience binging - in the clinical sense of the term - is very similar to drug-seeking behaviour. Without going into detail, I have some personal experience with both.

I suspect this is why people find the notion of "sugar addiction" appealing, they confuse an addictive behaviour (the binge) with an addictive substance (the sugar).

Incidentally though, people definitely don't binge just on sweets, or just on "bad" foods. I've binged on fruit and ham sandwiches are actually a trigger for me.

I'm not necessarily dismissing the possibility that sugar be physically addictive, but so is caffeine (or so I would guess given the withdrawal headaches I had yesterday) and I doubt sugar could be any worse. When speaking of addictive substances that have only very minor psychoactive effects and no chances of OD'ing, moderation is a perfectly valid goal.

Agreed - like water for instance. Oh no - not water as you can OD on that!!!

Why not agree that as an addition can include a mental dependency on something, and as we are all wired a little differently, that anything can be addictive and that no one thing is addictive to everyone - I'm sure there's a study out there somewhere to prove somebody took heroin and did not get addicted to it.

That being the case the OP has suggested she is addicted to sugar (she mentions sweet thing - maybe she is just addicted to things that taste sweet - not sure) and has asked if anyone else has experienced an addiction (or perceived addiction) to food and how did they handle that.

Why is it not possible to have a thread dealing with the question without turning into an us and them bun fight.

On this particle thread I don't think it got to half a dozen responses before the anti-support team waded in.

FredDoyle

On this particle thread I don't think it got to half a dozen responses before the anti-support team waded in.

So, insisting on evidence based reasoning is "anti-support" now? Got it.

tennisdude2004

On this particle thread I don't think it got to half a dozen responses before the anti-support team waded in.

So, insisting on evidence based reasoning is "anti-support" now? Got it.

6th post - I learned to stop making excuses ie "sugar addiction" and buckled down and stuck to a diet

Sorry but I don't see the question in that post.

Also the thread isn't asking do you believe addictions are real - she's asking for help with her particular issue.

ndj1979

I can read the comments and infer, but it's a lost point on this long thread.

to put it straight
there are peer reviewed studies that show sugar is addictive for the same reason heroin and crack are addictive. nothing to do with his experience or yours (or for that matter mine but I have experience with addiction so possibly know more than others perhaps not - regardless the study I posted is very reputable and has been peer reviewed - I posted the link rpeviously
so slagging it off is plain ignorance of the reality.
not everyone has an addictive personality (ie are prone to it) we are all wired differently, but reality is there will be people addicted to sugar (I even provided a personal example, though that hardly qualifies as a statistic just experience)
If you don't suffer from addictions great good for you, but you can't judge others based on your ability to avoid addiction which may just be part of your chemical makeup and nothing to do with will power or anything else
you can be addicted BTW without sitting eating bowlfuls of pure sugar just like you can be a high level functioning Alcoholic or Heroin Addict (think Keith Richards definitely had addiction issue was still a high level functioning addict - even easier to be a high level functioning sugar addict it's everywhere and cheap and makes you feel good for a short period

FYI - you inference skills need work ..

I don't know how you can infer anything about my history from a thread....but if you can, how about you give me the wining lottery numbers for next week....

cwsreddy

I believe that I have a food addiction the only thing I crave mostly is sweets but I find myself mindlessly eating... I wont even realize that I am. Its like once I start I cant stop.

I want to hear from fellow/former food addicts
Any advice?
What helped you?

I am not a huge contributor to these forums for the reason that you have discovered here - people will jump on you and try to prove your feelings or opinions "wrong". In reality, there's more more than one way to skin a cat - or something. I don't think most people mean to come out and say that "calories in/calories out" is wrong but the minute you bring up sugar or some type of food being "bad" or what not everyone jumps on you. I think its very admirable that some people have been able to teach themselves self control and are now qualifed to to tell everyone else how to live... which begs the questions of why they need a site like this if they have their lives so together?

To address you questions, I do believe in food addiction in the sense that products with refined sugars tend to make me crave more and lead to overeating which causes me to consume more calories than I burn. Removing said foods reduce my cravings and make it much easier to stay within my goals. I had lost 100 lbs - mainly by cutting out soda and other refined sugars and other refined carbs. Notice that I am not lumping fruits and veggies in with that because those foods do not have the same effect on me as a chocolate chip cookie, even if they do techincally contain or turn to sugar. As soon as I tried to add certain things back into my diet in "moderation" I lost control again and have regained 60 pounds. (Supid, weak, little me for having no self control. If only I could be as good and strong as some of the memebers on this forum!)

I have PCOS with insulin resistance and high cortisol levels. My endocrinologist reccommends cutting out refined sugars and exercising "moderately" as oppsed to strenuously (due to the cortisol levels - at least until they are brought down). I feel he is probably slightly more qualifed than most of the people on this forum. Of course, they are welcome to chime in and let us know what medical school they graduated from.

I think if you want specifc help or guidance to treat or understand "food addiction" you would be better served to seek out a group such as Overeaters Anon, Food Addicts Anon, or something similar. Sure, maybe it doesn't exist with scientific proof, and maybe people on this forum don't "believe in it", but really who cares? The best diet or lifestyle changes are the one that you can live with and that work for you. If having a slice of cake sets you off on a sugar bender and derails your progress then avoid cake. It doesn't mean the cake is evil or bad, it means for you its not a good thing. I truly don't understand why some people on here cannot make that connection. They really need to learn that people come here for encouragement and help not to be lectured and put down under the guise of being helpful. It's not helpful - it's annoying and makes people not want to comment or come back.

I believe everyone's body reacts differently. I belive that some people have faster metabolisms than others which I think is evident in natural thin people who eat like toxic waste dumbs and people who can't lose weight despite eating 1400 calorie diet, or what have you. Sure, it all comes down to burning more than we take it, but everyone's threshhold may not be the same. Some people can have just one cookie and walk away, and some people will obsess about said cookie until they have another. Who knows why, who cares why...it just is.

I love how all the IIFYM flamers ignored this post.

and yes, there are PLENTY of studies showing that sugar is addictive, comparable to drugs, and the typical response from this crowd is "the studies were done on rats. has nothing to do with humans", which is laughable.

(for funsies, go through and look at the studies posted by the iifym-ers in any thread, and many will be studies done on rats)

selective science ftw.

Acg67

I love how all the IIFYM flamers ignored this post.

and yes, there are PLENTY of studies showing that sugar is addictive, comparable to drugs, and the typical response from this crowd is "the studies were done on rats. has nothing to do with humans", which is laughable.

(for funsies, go through and look at the studies posted by the iifym-ers in any thread, and many will be studies done on rats)

selective science ftw.

So rodent models, esp those that starve them to induce binging, means sugar must be addictive in humans?

Please post some of these rodent studies posted by supposed IIfym-ers

cwsreddy

I love how all the IIFYM flamers ignored this post.

and yes, there are PLENTY of studies showing that sugar is addictive, comparable to drugs, and the typical response from this crowd is "the studies were done on rats. has nothing to do with humans", which is laughable.

(for funsies, go through and look at the studies posted by the iifym-ers in any thread, and many will be studies done on rats)

selective science ftw.

So rodent models, esp those that starve them to induce binging, means sugar must be addictive in humans?

nothing in science conclusively proves anything, but the results in rodent trials do warrant further human study, because the results were exactly in line with everything we hypothesize in this thread about human interaction with sugar. As such, they can't just be dismissed offhand as y'all are wont to do.

if there's nothing to be gleaned from rodent trials, acg, then why are they performed? perhaps as a precursor to human tests? perhaps because genetically and chemically we're really not so different from rats or any other mammal?

eric_sg61

I love how all the IIFYM flamers ignored this post.

and yes, there are PLENTY of studies showing that sugar is addictive, comparable to drugs, and the typical response from this crowd is "the studies were done on rats. has nothing to do with humans", which is laughable.

(for funsies, go through and look at the studies posted by the iifym-ers in any thread, and many will be studies done on rats)

selective science ftw.

So rodent models, esp those that starve them to induce binging, means sugar must be addictive in humans?

nothing in science conclusively proves anything, but the results in rodent trials do warrant further human study, because the results were exactly in line with everything we hypothesize in this thread about human interaction with sugar. As such, they can't just be dismissed offhand as y'all are wont to do.

if there's nothing to be gleaned from rodent trials, acg, then why are they performed? perhaps as a precursor to human tests? perhaps because genetically and chemically we're really not so different from rats or any other mammal?

The rats were starved, they wanted to eat because they were starved. I would like to think humans have a much stronger mind to make decisions based on information. When I eat broccoli, I can't just stop at one piece, when I eat a piece of cake I can stop at one piece because I have the information at my disposal that the cake will put me over my goal for the day.