How do you cure a sugar addiction?

lilialley
lilialley Posts: 15 Member
edited November 13 in Health and Weight Loss
I know it's not technically an addiction, but jeeze, it's feels like one!

Back before I started losing weight, salty snacks were my Achilles heel. I didn't like sugar as much, so my treats were sugary, in order to risk triggering a binge with a handful of popcorn or chips. Now it's backfired on me, and I crave sugary treats all of the time. I'm usually within my 1200 calorie goal. However, I feel like way too many calories a day are spent on basically processed sugary junk - maybe 600 of them are spent on things like orange juice, candy, ice cream, etc. I know it's all about the calories for weight loss, but I am sure that this amount of processed sugar is not good for my body and could lead to some health consequences.

I'm looking for people who managed to cut sugar out of your diets - how did you do it? Did you do it all at once or did you taper it off? What sort of foods did you eat when you had a craving?

Background info, in case it helps: I am 19, 5'4, ~150lb. I eat 1200 calories a day. I eat a mostly vegan diet. I live with my parents and there is no way to stop them from buying sugary foods and keeping them in the kitchen. I tried chewing sugar-free gum for awhile to curb sugar cravings, but it hurts my teeth (sigh).

Thank you for any help and advice!

Replies

  • Sabine_Stroehm
    Sabine_Stroehm Posts: 19,263 Member
    I went cold turkey for a few weeks. It wasn't an addiction, but my desire for sweets made any kind of deficit plan challenging. So I went cold turkey: no refined carbs (added sugar and white flour).

    fwiw: there are three or four recent threads asking the same question. Lots of great advice there.
  • lilialley
    lilialley Posts: 15 Member
    Sabine_Stroehm wrote: »
    I went cold turkey for a few weeks. It wasn't an addiction, but my desire for sweets made any kind of deficit plan challenging. So I went cold turkey: no refined carbs (added sugar and white flour).

    fwiw: there are three or four recent threads asking the same question. Lots of great advice there.

    Cold turkey sounds difficult. Were there any foods you ate that made your cravings less pronounced, or did you just eat more of everything else?

    Great! I'll check those out (I don't go on the forums often enough, lol). Thank you!
  • Sabine_Stroehm
    Sabine_Stroehm Posts: 19,263 Member
    ignisira wrote: »
    Sabine_Stroehm wrote: »
    I went cold turkey for a few weeks. It wasn't an addiction, but my desire for sweets made any kind of deficit plan challenging. So I went cold turkey: no refined carbs (added sugar and white flour).

    fwiw: there are three or four recent threads asking the same question. Lots of great advice there.

    Cold turkey sounds difficult. Were there any foods you ate that made your cravings less pronounced, or did you just eat more of everything else?

    Great! I'll check those out (I don't go on the forums often enough, lol). Thank you!

    Nope. I just went cold turkey on sweets for a few weeks. No substitutes etc. Good luck.
  • wizzybeth
    wizzybeth Posts: 3,578 Member
    This is a long wordy post. Sorry. LOL. If you read it all, thank you. ;) The condensed version: I made it my goal to be healthy first, treats come 2nd. So that's how I ignore the sugar cravings. The more drawn out version:

    I have had a life-long habit of eating sugary sweet foods with abandon. It never caught up to me until I was 25 and pregnant with my first child. I never really paid attention to what I ate, and always reached for the sweets as often as I could. Heh. Then I ended up here at 245 lbs., about 100 lbs overweight. Yay me... :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

    What helps me cut back on sugary foods now is my focus on my goal of losing weight. I have spent 15 of the 20 years I have been married seriously obese. Probably another 2 years of that at overweight. I'm now in my mid-40s and do realize how much of life I'm missing out on because I am obese. I want to live a full, fun, energetic life: I want to go hiking, biking, kayaking...all over the place - and I can't do that very well being obese.

    I also want to be healthy. That involves more than losing weight; it involves making nutritionally sound choices much more often. When I did Weight Watchers and was only concerned about "points" for foods, I would save points till the end of the day so I could eat as much junk food as I wanted while still remaining in my deficit to lose. It was somewhat of a fail - I was not nourishing my body, I was tired, and I still managed to overeat more often than not.

    I went thru a few phases where I was worried about the kinds of food I was eating...GMO's, organic, vegetarian vs. not..etc...But I was still obese and still wanted sweet food. LOL

    When I joined MFP I became aware of tracking my macros to make sure I am nourishing my body properly. It is really a challenge to meet all your nutritional needs - let alone trying to meet them with sweets/high calorie/low nutrition food.

    Since I made myself commit to eating healthy, I only allow myself to indulge in treats if I have met MOST of my macro nutritional needs for the day. I don't have to be at 100% but if I am at 80% of protein, iron, potassium, calcium, etc...and I still have calories left over, I allow myself something sweet that fits into my remaining calories. Or if it's a special occasion, I may say to heck with my calories (JUST FOR THAT DAY.)

    My way of life is to eat as healthy as I can the majority of the time. If I meet that, then I can have a treat of something sweet I enjoy. Today is one of those days. I ended the week being 500 calories or so under my net goal for the week - I made most of my nutritional macro goals. Today I am indulging in some sweets that I've had around (Thin Mints, mostly) and some wine - I'm not going to go over my calories for the day but just for today,, I'm not going to worry about the macros.

    But tomorrow - I'm back to following nutrition first.
  • zoeysasha37
    zoeysasha37 Posts: 7,088 Member
    Is there a chance that your seeing your daily calorie goal too low, so it's causing you to feel deprived thus causing you to crave treats?? If I feel deprived, I tend to want treats even more!
    So I don't deprive myself. If I want a sugary snack, I make it fit into my day. Nothing is off limits. If I can fit it, I'll have chocolate, cake, whatever.....
    I've never believed in cutting out anything. Instead I learned portion control and moderation. It took a while, as I was used to eating a whole bag of cookies instead of just one serving. But in time, it became easier and I was able to reach my goal without crazy cravings and binges.
  • milaxx
    milaxx Posts: 1,122 Member
    The fewer processed foods I ate, vegan or vegetarian the less I graved sweets. I found I could then eat a piece of fruit and be perfectly satisfied. Not drinking soda also made a tremendous difference. In fact 95% of the time I drink plain old water.
  • Hollywood_Porky
    Hollywood_Porky Posts: 491 Member
    Sabine_Stroehm wrote: »
    ignisira wrote: »
    Sabine_Stroehm wrote: »
    I went cold turkey for a few weeks. It wasn't an addiction, but my desire for sweets made any kind of deficit plan challenging. So I went cold turkey: no refined carbs (added sugar and white flour).

    fwiw: there are three or four recent threads asking the same question. Lots of great advice there.

    Cold turkey sounds difficult. Were there any foods you ate that made your cravings less pronounced, or did you just eat more of everything else?

    Great! I'll check those out (I don't go on the forums often enough, lol). Thank you!

    Nope. I just went cold turkey on sweets for a few weeks. No substitutes etc. Good luck.

    Did the same last year and I salute you on yours as well. Eventually added fruit back into the diet. The only other thing I would eat that would contain any sugar would be pure dark chocolate, but that's actually very good for you nutritionally in small quantities.

    You can taper down or just quit. Quitting cold is really tough - I was eating refined sugary products at the time - but after a few days, you feel great and eventually you build up such a good track record of being sugar-free that you don't want to break it.

    Fruit is great - it's processed foods and refined sugar you need to avoid.
  • PeachyCarol
    PeachyCarol Posts: 8,029 Member
    I went cold turkey. I didn't even eat fruit because I didn't want to trigger myself that way.

    I felt awful for a few days, then I felt great. When I had a craving for sweets, eating something fatty like a few nuts or a small amount of nut butter or a little bit of sharp cheese got rid of the craving.

    That was quite a few years ago now. I've come out the other side and can eat sweets (and starchy carbs) in moderation without them triggering cravings or binges. My tastes buds have changed. I'm far more sensitive to sweetness. and don't like things that are overly sweet any more.

    You can try different approaches. You can try cutting back to just one or two small amounts a day by pre-logging your food and sticking to it. If you find that not working, try the cold turkey thing to give your taste buds a chance to reset themselves.
  • Akimajuktuq
    Akimajuktuq Posts: 3,037 Member
    There is only one thing to do: reduce sugar intake to a very low amount. How low depends on what works for you. Me, I try to stay under 15 grams per day. Nope, not hard at all after the first week or so.

    And yes, prolonged over-comsumption of sugar can lead to addiction. Foods cause reactions in the body just like any substance. Since high amounts of sugar are a recent addition to the human diet our bodies are not designed to deal with it. Lower your carbs and see what happens: extreme withdrawal.
  • Lourdesong
    Lourdesong Posts: 1,492 Member
    With a 1200 cal goal, half of your calorie intake being things like sugary juice, candy and ice cream is not going to be sustainable. Something has got to give, you could raise your calorie goal by a fair amount so that 600 calories of goodies doesn't take up such a large percentage of your diet; or you could reduce the amount of calories you're willing to allot for goodies. I think a combination of those two would be a good idea, raise your calorie goal a bit AND reduce the amount of calories you'll allot for goodies.

    There's nothing wrong with sugary goodies as part of a balanced diet. What's wrong with your diet, as you describe it, is it is not balanced.
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