Sugar addiction...where do I start...

I find lower calorie alternatives with whole grain, high protein, or vegetables / fruit that are still sweet. And then I sweeten them so they taste like desert.

An example would be sweetening some 100-calorie whole wheat blueberry muffins with truvia. Or my favorite, plain greek yogurt mixed with a tablespoon of cocoa powder and 3 - 4 packets of the stuff. Truvia is based on stevia, a naturally sweet plant and erythrytol (misspelled), a sugar alcohol with a high tolerance that is basically absorbed and excreted by the body unchanged. I also try naturally sweet vegetables, like mashed sweet potatoes with a bit of pumpkin pie spice.

It it's fresh fruit, don't worry about the sugar levels unless you have a medical reason to do so.

Life feels so much better without the sugar spikes and crashes. I don't miss white sugar at all, but I do get a lot of sugar through fruit - just remember to eat it with a protein rich product to minimize the effects.

Life feels so much better without the sugar spikes and crashes. I don't miss white sugar at all, but I do get a lot of sugar through fruit - just remember to eat it with a protein rich product to minimize the effects.

So true. Life is different once you aren't constantly crashing.

I LOVE sweet stuff and now days when I NEED the sweet fix I drink 8oz of silk pure almond vanilla unsweetened milk with a tsp of stevia.

Going cold turkey is the answer for me. Today is day one for me. I did 28 days once and I felt better. It took about 3-4 days to get through withdrawal......headache, hard to focus...etc. but worth it. Good luck!:flowerforyou:

I am also a sugar addict. I did a 21-day challenge of no sweets. I still ate lots of fruit, but no cake, candy, cookies, etc. The first few days were really hard, but it definitely got easier as time went on. I finished in early March, and don't crave sugar like I used to. I feel WAY better now.

Ok, so I am obviously addicted to sugar. Any suggestions on how to start reducing sugar besides the obvious? No Cokes, no candy etc....frustrated that it has become a cycle.

Thanks for your help

It you can't cut it completely use a sweetener or substitute it with honey.

just cut out most....its not as hard as it seems, more meat more veggies nothing too sweet fora while till you get a hold of it

good luck with this its a hard one to cut out but you can do it
Like a few others said go cold turkey
drink lots of Lemon water it will help with the detox you will feel like CRAP for the first few days as your body will react to not having sugar in your body
I would still have fruit but watch your intake on that also as it may be a natural sugar its still a sugar and stay away from the higher sugar ones i eat apples and berries as they are lower on the scale and i will only eat 1 apple and 1 serving of berries and that serving can be 1.5 cup some days i will have more berries it depends on what cardio i am doing that day

Gonna agree with the cold turkey approach. Plan your next several days of meals so you don't get caught looking for quick things to eat. High proteins and complex carbs to fill you up. Find some fruit you enjoy and snack on it between meals. Drink lots of water. I find it best to avoid artificial sweeteners as well, for me they trigger a sweet tooth response, but you'll have to find your own comfort level with that. Eventually, your craving for sweets will go away, and when you do indulge, you'll see that a smaller amount is satisfying, or some things will just be too rich to finish. Good luck.

I just tried to limit my sugar intake to 30 grams per day. Some days I met the goal and some days I didn't, but at the end of 21 days, I do not crave sugar, it actually tastes not so great. Real food tastes soooo much better. It is one of the best things I've ever done for myself.

Same deal as quitting smoking - go cold turkey.
Yes, it'll hurt for a for a while, but if you keep your wits about you, ultimately you'll defeat the addiction.

i thought i was addicted to sugar once upon a time... i would crave it all the time, i would have to make sure that there was some kind of chocolate/cake/cookie/candy in the house at all times, i ate desert every night even if i was full and if i didnt have any i would leave to buy something. then i quit drinking every day, and now i dont really care about sugar at all. i dont know the science behind this, just sharing a personal experience... for me it was directly related to alcohol consumption. i drank several glasses of wine/beers a night at one point and needed sugar. now i drink maybe a glass of wine a week, and the one chocolate bar i buy every time i do a weekly shopping often gets forgotten in the cupboard.

I am doing this currently and am on day 5 - I feel a lot better already. But can anyone advise on yoghurt? I only have plain natural organic stuff for breakfast with seeds and oats - is that ok or should I be cutting out yog completely?

Thanks

Cold turkey will help you stay on a DIET.

The probelm with that strategy is this ....... will you be on a diet for the rest of your life? Are you willing to give up sugar forever? Not me .....I have to develop strategies to reduce my sugar dependence. I love cereal, but I look for something really low sugar. #1. because low sugar cereal still tastes good & # 2. I want to "save" my sugar for something that counts .... a piece of chocolate.

Nail down the "thing" that you crave .... allow yourself that thing (a small portion anyway). I typically save this until late in the day.
Get rid of as much unnecessary sugar as you can.

My friend Emily recommended taking Bio-Chromium. I've been taking it for about a month and I still get sugar cravings sometimes and I do still eat sweet things but I think it's less so than before. It might be worth a try. Here's one of the pages I read before deciding to buy some:

http://uk.pharmanord.com/contentServlet/bio_chromium.htm

All the best!