"The problem with sugar is your problem with sugar"

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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.

Some of us have changed our relationship with food. We broke it off. The foods I choose not to eat are in my house, at my job, in every grocery store and restaurant I go to. I can eat them morning, noon, and night, if I CHOOSE to and do not obsess over them. I have free will. I choose to exercise it in the way the suits me best. I do not feel deprived, I feel EMPOWERED. Obviously in the same way you do. And most likely we would find our day to day behaviors were not that much different from one another. Except when it comes to wine. But that is another story.

And maybe in the same way that some who feels that they are addicted and successful in abstinence does. There is obviously more than one path to success...

This says it beautifully.

Remember all the talk about Oreos a few pages back? I used to be able to down half a package of them in a sitting. I no longer touch them and don't really miss them. I don't obsess over them just because I've stopped eating them. I can walk by them in the grocery store and not be compelled to pick any up. I can even have them in the house and not feel compelled to eat any. The thought of them hadn't even occurred to me until it got brought up here. I have found, though, that if I do eat one, the craving for more is there. So I don't eat any. Besides, I'd rather spend my calorie allotment on good chocolate.

Also, the processed sources of sugar, such as Oreos, are actually engineered to cause a physiological addictive response (these are known as "highly palatable foods"). They're made to have just the right combinations of sugar, salt, and fat to maximize the dopamine response. It's that dopamine high that addicts of all sorts chase. And just like those who frequently take drugs, those who eat the highly palatable foods in order to get the dopamine response have to consume more to get the same response. Likewise, if you cut off the supply for a length of time, and try to consume at the amounts that you had, previously, you end up with worse effects (in the case of highly palatable foods, that's often an upset stomach at amounts that didn't used to affect you). Additionally, like drugs, the highly palatable foods (and all stimulation, really) alter the neural pathways in the brain, and consuming the item in question reinforces those pathways. Abstaining from them helps diminish them, but whether a person can reintroduce the item depends on how strong and easily re-established those pathways are.

It may be also worth noting that people who go from a high carb intake to a low carb intake almost invariably experience some level of "carb flu," which has symptoms not unlike what's seen in other withdrawal situations, and that these symptoms are often worse when going from a diet heavy in highly processed carbs (ie - lots of the "junk food" and not much in the way of vegetable and fruit based carbs) to one that is primarily naturally-sourced carbs (which don't provide the same dopamine response, even at the same levels of carbs).

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/23/health/23well.html?_r=0
http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/addiction/drugs/

the oreo was invented in 1912. i highly doubt anyone was "engineering foods to cause a physiological addictive response" more than 100 years ago.

"The problem with sugar is your problem with sugar"

Yep, I'll take that. Although HFCS /the highly processed sugars we have today are a completely different creature to the naturally occurring sugars found in fruit.

If I could cheaply buy pot, coke & Ecstasy pretty much EVERYWHERE I would have a problem with them too.

Well, not so much a problem as just a minimal relationship with sobriety.

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If I could cheaply buy pot, coke & Ecstasy pretty much EVERYWHERE I would have a problem with them too.

:noway:

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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.

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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.

Oh there's a pattern all right :laugh:

There is absolutely NO nutritional value for the body by consuming raw sugar in ANY form. I avoid it like the flu. I use stevia if I need the powder form or I use honey. LOVE LOVE LOVE honey, and I treat myself to honey from Germany. It is a lot more flavorful than ours and totally worth buying. But as for me and sugar---never never,

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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.

Oh there's a pattern all right :laugh:

I was 80+ lbs overweight...guess pattern is broken...speaking of people who seek confirmation bias

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There is absolutely NO nutritional value for the body by consuming raw sugar in ANY form. I avoid it like the flu. I use stevia if I need the powder form or I use honey. LOVE LOVE LOVE honey, and I treat myself to honey from Germany. It is a lot more flavorful than ours and totally worth buying. But as for me and sugar---never never,

Do you also avoid sex unless you are certain it will result in pregnancy?

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This thread has also started me wondering where the heck I can get my hands on a piece of sugar cane.

at your local caribbean ethnic store!...you chew it up, suck the juice and spit the fibrous material out.
It's monstrously good stuff.

Oh, believe me, I know how wonderful it is. I just can't think of a single store down here that would carry it. I know of at least one person who grows the stuff, but I'll be darned if I can remember the name. Maybe if I corner the next West Indian or Jamaican that wanders through they'll know...

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There is absolutely NO nutritional value for the body by consuming raw sugar in ANY form. I avoid it like the flu. I use stevia if I need the powder form or I use honey. LOVE LOVE LOVE honey, and I treat myself to honey from Germany. It is a lot more flavorful than ours and totally worth buying. But as for me and sugar---never never,

you realize honey has sugar in it, right?

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There is absolutely NO nutritional value for the body by consuming raw sugar in ANY form. I avoid it like the flu. I use stevia if I need the powder form or I use honey. LOVE LOVE LOVE honey, and I treat myself to honey from Germany. It is a lot more flavorful than ours and totally worth buying. But as for me and sugar---never never,

you realize honey has sugar in it, right?

...but it's natural...

...so it's chemically different...

...and doesn't count...

...because science.

so let me get this straight..its naturally, chemically, different? sounds legit....kind of like lucky charms are magically delicious...?

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There is absolutely NO nutritional value for the body by consuming raw sugar in ANY form. I avoid it like the flu. I use stevia if I need the powder form or I use honey. LOVE LOVE LOVE honey, and I treat myself to honey from Germany. It is a lot more flavorful than ours and totally worth buying. But as for me and sugar---never never,

you realize honey has sugar in it, right?

...but it's natural...

...so it's chemically different...

...and doesn't count...

...because science.

so let me get this straight..its naturally, chemically, different? sounds legit....kind of like lucky charms are magically delicious...?

I always pick the marshmellows out of my lucky charms. Because disgusting.

Conclusion: No, they aren't magically delicious.

This is why you and I can never be friends.

I used to eat all the cereal out of my Lucky Charms so I would have a big pile of marshmallows to enjoy. The cereal was completely obligatory (because my parents would whip my *kitten* if they caught me throwing it away).

ETA: Wait a second...this is why we *should* be friends...so you can eat the cereal and I can eat the marshmallows. Win-win!