Quitting Sugar - any success stories out there
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I can relate, OP. I think of myself as a sugar addict. I mean it truly, in the sense that I am one of these people who can't have a high carb diet because I will eat and eat and eat...candy and carby snacks all day...my dad developed diabetes late in life and I am basically headed that way if I don't change my eating habits. I am about 25lb overweight now having lost about 10lb in the last month through a high fat, moderate protein and low sugar diet. I'm 36. You have to remember that white bread and potatoes and candy are all sugar in our digestive system.
I'd suggest that you look into a blood sugar-stabilizing diet, like some form of a vegetarian high fat diet...I am not vegetarian so it's easy for me to follow a high fat/medium protein diet...forget about calorie counting for now...that won't work.
From my experience, energy levels are all about stabilizing blood sugar and keeping the insulin levels low. I am not diabetic (yet!), but it has made total sense to me. I also think that if you happen to have had depression in the past (I have), you just HAVE to cut out sugar...I haven't felt this good in years. Sugar is all about mood swings.
I have a maximum of 50 g of carbs (aka "sugars") a day and that is the equivalent of three slices of whole wheat fiber bread. I tend to "spend" my carbs on greek yogurt in the morning (with chia seeds and almonds) and a slice of bread here and there. The rest is veggies and residual carbs from cheeses (which are now a big part of my diet). I also have coconut milk and chia pudding with stevia in the fridge at all times (and excellent "sweet" and high fat snack).
Good luck!
As someone who is a former pre-diabetic, who comes from a family tree full of obesity and T2 diabetics and has lost several relatives to the disease, and as someone who was heading down that road at a very fast pace, I can tell you that calorie counting and eating at a calorie deficit absolutely DOES work.
When my fasting glucose number got in the 120 range and my oral glucose tolerance test also came back high, my doctor told me losing weight was my best bet to prevent T2. He did NOT tell me to cut back on sugars, carbs etc-just lose the weight. I took his advice, started eating at a weekly calorie deficit and not only did I lose almost 60lbs but my health improved in the process, including getting my glucose number back down in the normal range.
September 2012 fasting glucose number, when I was almost 180lbs: 120
April 2013 fasting glucose number, when I was 135lbs and just starting to transition into maintenance: 89
May 19, 2015 fasting glucose number, with my maintenance range in the 120-125lb range (was 123lbs the morning of my blood work), and in maintenance for just over 2 years: 86
Calories, math and eating at a deficit=weight loss. OP-I didn't quit sugar to be successful, I simply ate at a calorie deficit, lost the extra weight and greatly improved my health in the process
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Not sure if the OP is trying to eliminate all sugars or just refined sugar. I have a particular problem with sweet dessert items (cookies, cake, pie, eclairs, cannolis, anything with chocolate, etc.). So I have to stay away from those or at least learn to be satisfied with a very small amount (two squares of a Camino 71% chocolate bar = 48 cal). I substitute things I love that are "dessert-like," usually plain 0% Greek yogurt with my favorite fresh fruit (strawberries, blueberries, peaches). I find that overdoing it on sweets (or white bread or white pasta) knocks me out energy-wise; at times when I've been successful at dramatically cutting back on these, my energy level goes way, way up.0
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If you aren't full blown diabetic, the best way to lose weight is everything in moderation. Of course healthy is best for your body, but getting rid of a specific type of food will probably be your down fall. Why not enjoy things you like to eat, just don't go crazy. Work out and eat nutrient dense food, and every now and then eat something you really enjoy. Now if you have diabetes, refined sugars is not good. If you do eat carbs, it should be complex carbs from veggies and whole grains. The body doesn't differentiate the type of sugar once its absorbed, but it does have a huge effect on someone who is already diabetic. Complex carbs last longer and keep your glucose more steady for longer periods. While eating sweets and white rice will spike your glucose very high and quickly.
I agree that if you eat at a deficit, and are pre-diabetic, depending on how bad it is, you can lose weight and keep yourself from becoming diabetic, even if you eat refined sugars. But this depends on how far along the person is to getting the disease. I am eating at a deficit, but because my sugar is so bad, I am forced to eat less refined sugars. But that is strictly because when I do, I spike very high, regardless of losing weight. Someone who is not diabetic, can easily eat refined sugars, and lose weight as long as you are in a deficit.0 -
I can relate, OP. I think of myself as a sugar addict. I mean it truly, in the sense that I am one of these people who can't have a high carb diet because I will eat and eat and eat...candy and carby snacks all day...my dad developed diabetes late in life and I am basically headed that way if I don't change my eating habits. I am about 25lb overweight now having lost about 10lb in the last month through a high fat, moderate protein and low sugar diet. I'm 36. You have to remember that white bread and potatoes and candy are all sugar in our digestive system.
I'd suggest that you look into a blood sugar-stabilizing diet, like some form of a vegetarian high fat diet...I am not vegetarian so it's easy for me to follow a high fat/medium protein diet...forget about calorie counting for now...that won't work.
From my experience, energy levels are all about stabilizing blood sugar and keeping the insulin levels low. I am not diabetic (yet!), but it has made total sense to me. I also think that if you happen to have had depression in the past (I have), you just HAVE to cut out sugar...I haven't felt this good in years. Sugar is all about mood swings.
I have a maximum of 50 g of carbs (aka "sugars") a day and that is the equivalent of three slices of whole wheat fiber bread. I tend to "spend" my carbs on greek yogurt in the morning (with chia seeds and almonds) and a slice of bread here and there. The rest is veggies and residual carbs from cheeses (which are now a big part of my diet). I also have coconut milk and chia pudding with stevia in the fridge at all times (and excellent "sweet" and high fat snack).
Good luck!
You absolutely do not "have" to cut out sugar. Nope.
And how will calorie counting not work? And why are you suggesting the OP adopt a vegetarian diet??
The OP said she is vegetarian.She does not eat meat.
Well I am speaking from experience here as a sugar addict. I am not the type of person who can lose weight only cutting calories. I have lost a lot more weight by counting carbs instead of counting calories. I can't have sugar "in moderation" meaning it can't be part of my diet. I go up and now with the sugar moods if I make it part of my diet. I can have it once in a while at a party or some other exceptional occasion. But I have found that I am better off cutting it off completely if I can to follow the "keto"/atkins-style model. I have done the calorie diets and also weight watchers...it just doesn't work as well for me. The weight loss if I have a "normal" carb diet is very slow and I end up just eating a few more chips or popcorn bags than I intended. PS: I do 50 mins of hardcore spinning 6 days a week.0 -
I can relate, OP. I think of myself as a sugar addict. I mean it truly, in the sense that I am one of these people who can't have a high carb diet because I will eat and eat and eat...candy and carby snacks all day...my dad developed diabetes late in life and I am basically headed that way if I don't change my eating habits. I am about 25lb overweight now having lost about 10lb in the last month through a high fat, moderate protein and low sugar diet. I'm 36. You have to remember that white bread and potatoes and candy are all sugar in our digestive system.
I'd suggest that you look into a blood sugar-stabilizing diet, like some form of a vegetarian high fat diet...I am not vegetarian so it's easy for me to follow a high fat/medium protein diet...forget about calorie counting for now...that won't work.
From my experience, energy levels are all about stabilizing blood sugar and keeping the insulin levels low. I am not diabetic (yet!), but it has made total sense to me. I also think that if you happen to have had depression in the past (I have), you just HAVE to cut out sugar...I haven't felt this good in years. Sugar is all about mood swings.
I have a maximum of 50 g of carbs (aka "sugars") a day and that is the equivalent of three slices of whole wheat fiber bread. I tend to "spend" my carbs on greek yogurt in the morning (with chia seeds and almonds) and a slice of bread here and there. The rest is veggies and residual carbs from cheeses (which are now a big part of my diet). I also have coconut milk and chia pudding with stevia in the fridge at all times (and excellent "sweet" and high fat snack).
Good luck!
You absolutely do not "have" to cut out sugar. Nope.
And how will calorie counting not work? And why are you suggesting the OP adopt a vegetarian diet??
The OP said she is vegetarian.She does not eat meat.
Well I am speaking from experience here as a sugar addict. I am not the type of person who can lose weight only cutting calories. I have lost a lot more weight by counting carbs instead of counting calories. I can't have sugar "in moderation" meaning it can't be part of my diet. I go up and now with the sugar moods if I make it part of my diet. I can have it once in a while at a party or some other exceptional occasion. But I have found that I am better off cutting it off completely if I can to follow the "keto"/atkins-style model. I have done the calorie diets and also weight watchers...it just doesn't work as well for me. The weight loss if I have a "normal" carb diet is very slow and I end up just eating a few more chips or popcorn bags than I intended. PS: I do 50 mins of hardcore spinning 6 days a week.
Ah, I didn't see where OP said she was a vegetarian.
And while you may have a problem with self-control around sugar, not all people do. So your telling the OP that she has to cut it out is unnecessary.-1 -
I'm looking at the label of my 0% fat free Greek yogurt and it shows 0 fat, 18g protein and 5g sugars, so there ya go.0
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I totally understand about the all or nothing approach with sugar. When I had it, I wanted to eat it all the time, couldn't seem to control myself at all. When I would try to get off it, it was like getting off an addiction. I craved it constantly, literally every moment when I wasn't actively focused on something else, I would think of having something sweet. I would dream about it nightly. And I wasn't cutting calories, even, just sugar, and it was still awful.
I did it a few times. It always took 2-3 weeks of NO added sugar at all before things began to settle, but then I would always feel much better. But past that, just one piece of candy and bam, I was back in a bad place and craving it again. Seriously, an addiction. I know that is not how it affects everyone, but for those who do experience sugar this way, I can understand wanting to just drop it completely.
It was helpful for me to find out that for some of us, sugar really will trigger an addiction response, especially if we've had that 'all or nothing' eating pattern where we consume it in greater amounts periodically. The body can react to avoiding sugar it like it reacts to withdrawal from morphine or nicotine, actually.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12055324
Somehow, knowing that the cravings I was experiencing were more withdrawal than hunger made it easier to fight it off, or at least to power through it, because I knew it would END, you know?0 -
Sarasmaintaining wrote: »Sabine_Stroehm wrote: »
I don't eat HFCS. My doc is always impressed with my numbers. (My triglycerides are 40, currently. I have often told him I think it's because I limit heavily refined carbs. Perhaps I'm right.megsmith45 wrote: »Sabine_Stroehm wrote: »megsmith45 wrote: »Years ago I cut out high fructose corn syrup to help manage my triglycerides.
Did your triglycerides go down?
They went from 1,100 to 430 just by cutting high fructose corn syrup (it's a known thing - there are lots of studies on NIH's site). Now that I walk for an hour a day they are down to 210. After being 800 or higher since I was 10 years old, that 210 feels like a huge victory.. If you get all the HCFS out of your diet, you can probably see a better test result in 30 days.
I eat refined carbs, hfcs etc etc and my triglycerides are a 49, which is still an excellent number (blood work done last week). Go figure
It's a great number. Congrats.0 -
Sabine_Stroehm wrote: »Sarasmaintaining wrote: »Sabine_Stroehm wrote: »
I don't eat HFCS. My doc is always impressed with my numbers. (My triglycerides are 40, currently. I have often told him I think it's because I limit heavily refined carbs. Perhaps I'm right.megsmith45 wrote: »Sabine_Stroehm wrote: »megsmith45 wrote: »Years ago I cut out high fructose corn syrup to help manage my triglycerides.
Did your triglycerides go down?
They went from 1,100 to 430 just by cutting high fructose corn syrup (it's a known thing - there are lots of studies on NIH's site). Now that I walk for an hour a day they are down to 210. After being 800 or higher since I was 10 years old, that 210 feels like a huge victory.. If you get all the HCFS out of your diet, you can probably see a better test result in 30 days.
I eat refined carbs, hfcs etc etc and my triglycerides are a 49, which is still an excellent number (blood work done last week). Go figure
It's a great number. Congrats.
Thanks 0 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »Sabine_Stroehm wrote: »A year ago, I stopped eating sugar - I don't eat anything with more than 5g of sugar (this means pretty much no milk, etc). Try it and you'll realize how much sugar there is in everything. I dropped 100 pounds in a year. I didn't do much else, besides avoid sugar.
Congrats on the loss! Sounds like a pretty simple way to approach it.
Cutting out fruit and dairy, seriously?
Has she replied about fructose?
Dunno.
But meh: eliminate foods with more than 5grams of sugar, versus counting, weighing, measuring....
whatever works for folks.0 -
NorthWoodsMomma wrote: »
Greek yoghurt specifically! It has roughly double the protein of other yoghurt IIRC.
I initially found plain unsweetened yoghurt hard to take as I was used to all-natural (no artificial thickeners like starches or agar) organic vanilla flavoured yoghurt, which of course has sugars added to it. But after a week of slowly transitioning I like it just fine now, and of course it's more versatile. With some spices it's salad dip one moment, plain over blueberries for breakfast the next.0 -
NorthWoodsMomma wrote: »When does the energy level return?
I know it's only been a few more days @NorthWoodsMomma but how is this going? Noticing any changes yet?
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lulucitron wrote: »I'm looking at the label of my 0% fat free Greek yogurt and it shows 0 fat, 18g protein and 5g sugars, so there ya go.
So this means no greek yogurt comes in different sizes or has fat?0 -
Sabine_Stroehm wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »Sabine_Stroehm wrote: »A year ago, I stopped eating sugar - I don't eat anything with more than 5g of sugar (this means pretty much no milk, etc). Try it and you'll realize how much sugar there is in everything. I dropped 100 pounds in a year. I didn't do much else, besides avoid sugar.
Congrats on the loss! Sounds like a pretty simple way to approach it.
Cutting out fruit and dairy, seriously?
Has she replied about fructose?
Dunno.
But meh: eliminate foods with more than 5grams of sugar, versus counting, weighing, measuring....
whatever works for folks.
If her example was dairy, which has no added sugar, I see no reason to assume she didn't mean fruit too.
I keep seeing lots of newbies with fear about fruit, which I think is bothersome.
If someone wants to cut out fruit, whatever, I don't care, but let's not encourage that as some super healthy way to go or consistent with things like the WHO recommendation. It's just CICO.
For the record, I think there are lots of alternatives to logging et al that work if that bothers you (including what you do). Focusing on sugar grams on packaged goods (if THAT's what's meant) for me would have basically cut out dairy, with no other effects, so I don't see it as the be-all, end-all to creating a balanced diet.0 -
NorthWoodsMomma wrote: »I am drastically reducing the sugar I eat and noticed much less energy this week for exercise. I would say I'm more tired than normal. Drinking about 60 ounces of water a day and my calorie limit is 1270. Barely made a two mile walk this evening and would like to hear from others who have quit sugar. When does the energy level return? Maybe I'm just tired from fighting the urge to dive into the ice cream lol!!
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I agree...we American are in love w our sugar! I was craving some tonight. especially after a meal i get the craving bad! We threw out all the bad stuff & now have apple sauce, granola bars or yogurt to choose from. We actually have some outshine frut & veggie bars,.lemon yogurt edy bars & weight watcher dark choc & dulce de leche bars. Just try to pick up low fat & low sugar, more natural sweet alternatives.
Def don't go to Dairy Queen! made that mistake yesterday! Had a waffle cone w cotton candy blizzard. Entered it on Fitness Pal.& it was 855 cal for a mall.w 16+ fat grams!!!! I was in.shock. Trying not to beat myself. up...
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I cup of organic Greek yoghurt, plain/unflavoured/unsweetened, in my refrigerator contains 2.7g naturally occurring sugars, 16g carbs total; 21.3g protein; 5.3 fat. There are only two ingredients: milk and cultures.
The organic Vanilla flavoured yoghurt I used to favour lists cane sugar as its second ingredient and contains 32.4g of sugar in one cup, and only 8.1g of protein. More ingredients but no starches or thickeners.
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I cup of organic Greek yoghurt, plain/unflavoured/unsweetened, in my refrigerator contains 2.7g naturally occurring sugars, 16g carbs total; 21.3g protein; 5.3 fat. There are only two ingredients: milk and cultures.
The organic Vanilla flavoured yoghurt I used to favour lists cane sugar as its second ingredient and contains 32.4g of sugar in one cup, and only 8.1g of protein. More ingredients but no starches or thickeners.
No one is saying there's anything wrong with greek yogurt, I don't think. I just thought the claim that it had no fat inherently was odd. (Like I said before, nothing wrong with fat anyway.) Greek yogurt has more protein and fewer carbs than greek (fat percentage varies in both sorts depending on what you choose). Flavored yogurt will have fruit and often sugar added also.
2.7 grams in 1 cup seems off, though, especially with 16 grams of carbs. What kind of yogurt is this? What other carbs would it have?
I prefer plain Fage, of various levels of fat depending. Whole/4% Fage has 9 grams of sugar, 9 grams of carbs, 220 calories. 2% has about the same sugar, 150 calories, since the only difference is that some of the fat is skimmed out.0 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »2.7 grams in 1 cup seems off, though, especially with 16 grams of carbs. What kind of yogurt is this? What other carbs would it have?
Not sure; it has a minor amount of fibre which will count to the total. Maker's website shows a similar confusing mix. Others available typically are 5-6g carbs comprised of 5-6g sugars / 175ml (roughly 3/4 cup). Danone plain Greek likewise lists 4g sugars, 8g carbs. No explanation.
I'm not particularly worried provided the ingredient list is essentially two, as it should be.
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