sugar is the devil!!!

Everything in moderation. Track your calories and log your food honestly. All of it. The good, the bad, the ugly. Have your diary viewable to friends so they'll hold you accountable. A good diet is one with balance and variety so you can stick with it for life. I still have processed sugars.. And pizza, and chocolate and other things -- in controlled portions

Everyone loves chocolate, cakes, and other sweet things. I love chocolate so much I had 2 bars of it last night - and still came under my calories and macros. Everything in moderation. If you plan your meals affectively there is no reason why you have to avoid these foods. The only 'devil' is someone who has no self control when it comes to sugar and food in general!

Ooops I forgot it's Protein today Protein is the Devil it says so in the Papers so it must be true........ or maybe it was Sugar

Oh boy :yawn:

I don't cut anything entirely from my diet, but I do refrain from eating treats and things as often.

I make sure I log everything so that I'm accountable to myself. This is also good to look back on the days eating and realize - OMG, I ate that much junk? I need to eat better, and this mentally sticks with me for the next day.

When eliminating (or at least reducing) anything, you either go cold turkey, or you taper. In this case, it's a taper proposition. Maybe find some smaller snacks to replace the ones you're having now. This way you still get your sweets as often, just in smaller quantities. I did this with chewing gum, werthers originals and other hard candys, and on the chocolate front, get a box of those lindt truffles and make it last a month (amazon subscribe and save can help you throttle yourself here).

Another thing that helps is ensuring you are maintaining blood sugar levels by eating regularly throughout the day. I'll snack on instant oatmeal, and Nature's Bakery Fig Bars in place of candy bars. Still quite a bit of sugar though.

You may also want to couple treats with other behaviors. For example, when a craving comes on, tell yourself you will wait 5 minutes. Sometimes that craving will go away on its own. If it doesn't, then drink a half liter of water with the sweet. This will help you feel fuller and hopefully reduce the amount of sweets consumed.

Ultimately though, you have to be committed to yourself. You have to be able to say no and yes.

Hope some of these suggestions help. Best of luck

I understand what you mean OP. You can't say sugar on this site without getting a bunch of useless posts saying sugar isn't bad.

As the one guy said though, moderation is key. This is something you'll have to sustain for the rest of your life. If you can't manage to eat items with sugar in them in small quantities find a strategy. There are books like Mindless Eating and such which describe different things you can do to help with things like that.

and this post was sooo useful....

Actually most people if not all said moderation is the key.

Say what?

You will drive yourself nuts if you start seeing certain foods negatively, I know I did. I find I want it more if I tell myself ''only once a week may you have ice cream'' etc. then I binge on ice cream.
instead I focus now on what I should be eating instead of what I shouldn't be ,I eat what I like within my calories and choose to make healthy decisions and not so healthy decisions , but whatever it is, I choose not to feel guilty about it because this is a lifestyle change and when I think about it, a piece of chocolate isn't nearly as bad as the whole bar I would once consume .

It's true that we shouldn't villanize a particular food group, but let's face it - sugar leads to troubles. I don't just mean SUGAR, but everything we might eat that DOES turn into sugar. And if we're on this forum and if we're logging into MFP we might be trying to lose weight. And let's face it, if we limit our sugar our bodies just might start burning our excess fat as energy.

End of lecture.



bloop!

Sugar is not evil.
Carbs are not evil.
No food, eaten in moderation, is evil.

Even eating something NOT in moderation doesn't make it evil. Food is food and has no moral anything attached to it.
Remind yourself that you are in control of picking up food and putting it in your mouth. Willpower/self control is like a muscle in that it gets stronger the more you use it.

People actually need about 9 teaspoons of sugar per day. The problem is that the average American consumes about 21 teaspoons. While fruits and veggies help provide essential vitamins and sugar your body needs without spiking your insulin level, processed sugar offers no nutritional benefits and more easily leads to insulin spikes and hormonal imbalances because it is easier to eat more of it. Additionally the artificially sweet processed foods we eat leave us just wanting more sugar.

I had a small sweet after lunch and a bowl of ice cream almost every night for a decade. I had regular sugar cravings, acne, problems sleeping, and energy peaks and plummets. I recently cut all processed foods out of my diet (including refined sugar and artificial sweeteners) and was astounded to find that my cravings for sweets all but disappeared (likely due to more consistent insulin levels). Don't get me wrong, from time to time I still intellectually want a sweet because they are tasty but it is much easier to move on from the thought and maybe grab a bowl of frozen cherries or blueberries with a few dashes of cinnamon instead (yum!). I do from time to time have a treat (note not a cheat day) when there is a food that is culturally or emotionally significant (i.e. My mom came to visit and baked me my favorite birthday cake). This is every month or so though, not everyday. Again, I found something small everyday caused more cravings than nothing at all. Before I started cutting out processed food my husband and I had a kitchen clean out day. Not having foods I know I shouldn't eat in the house makes overcoming temptation so much easier.

A book I strongly recommend you read (I get nothing from the authors for this endorsement) is 'It Starts with Food.' It does a fantastic job of talking about total nutritional health and how sugar and the other things you eat impact your body in ways you never imagined. It explains the science behind it but breaks it down so the average person can understand it. It poses the question I now ask myself regularly, "Is this food going to make me healthier?" If it is not, don't eat it. Here is a link to the book on Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/It-Starts-Food-Discover-Unexpected/dp/1936608898/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1396964552&sr=8-1&keywords=the+whole+30

Best of luck on your journey to healthy eating and a healthy life!

Everything in moderation! Thats why I find these, low carb, low fat, no dairy, no gluten, fad type diets to be a waste. Sure they work, but as soon as you start eating it again, you gain it all back. Go with what MFP says to eat, and never go below 1200 calories. Stick to your macros, and just enjoy life! If you restrict yourself of something, you are more likely to binge on it.

And here I thought Lucifer was the devil. whodathunkit.