The truth about sugar addiction from a former sugar addict

For most of my life I ate a high carb, low fat, low protein diet. I didn't like meat or fatty foods as a kid. We were a skim milk and margarine household. In high school I became a vegetarian, which made my diet even more disproportionate. I snuck food ever since I was a kid, and I was always a big candy eater. I was pretty active though and my weight was fairly steady.

In my senior year of high school, I stopped playing sports. Around the same time, I started to really overdo it on snacks and desserts. For example, my mom would buy boxes of Twix from Costco and I would eat bar after bar after bar. I put on 30 lbs that year.

For the next 18 years I struggled with sugar and refined grains. On my worst days I could go through a couple of big bags of candy, a box of cookies, and 2-3 boxes of mac & cheese. Feeling stuffed but hungry the whole time.

About 3 years ago I decided that this was an addiction, and I needed to go completely unprocessed. For about 4-6 months I was extremely committed and ate a near ideal diet. I wasn't counting calories, but I still lost about 45 lbs. It was pretty amazing, and very quickly my sugar cravings went away. However, on those occasions that I did have "processed" foods or even "healthy" versions of sugary foods, I would feel a sense of panic and compulsion to eat more.

Gradually, these happened more often. Over the next 2 years I put all of the weight back on.

Fast forward to this year. I had a major health scare and finally took accountability to do something about my eating and health. This time was different. I logged onto MFP. I committed to log everything and hit my calorie goals. I logged a binge on my second day. Logging that was extremely hard, but afterwards I knew there was no going back. I didn't cut out any foods. I eat 3 meals a day. Usually about 2 snacks. I keep my portions of starchy foods to about half a cup per meal, and then have increased my protein and fat intake. I did moderate my sugary/refined grains intake and generally have those types of foods only a few times a week. However, some weeks I have them more often. Over the holidays I had them every day and I could feel an increased drive for sugary/snack foods, but all I needed to do was make sure it fit in my goals, log, and then when those two weeks were over I went back to my more regular way of eating.

I was a sugar "addict" for 20+ years. With a reasonable, moderate diet and daily exercise my sugar cravings are non-existent. As in, there were cinnamon rolls at work all last week and I had barely any interest at all. Cinnamon rolls!!

I can't just eat "anything" at any time without consequence, but with a good pattern of eating and a commitment to my long-term progress, I've firmly kicked my "addiction."