I Need Lots Of Help To Eat Less Sugar - Have Eaten Too Much For Years And Years

Ummm are you trying to lose weight? I'm no expert, nor do I know your height and weight and all that, but speaking personally, 2000 calories is too high for me and I would gain weight on that calorie goal.

But, others can focus on that...I'm only chiming in with what works for me, and thats focusing on food as fuel or medicine. Sugar does not fuel me for longer than a sugar rush, nor is it good for me according to my doctor. I'm told whole grains are fine, but to limit dairy, limit, not exclude it.

I'm on 1200 calories. Every bite I take I think of "is this helping or hurting" will it fuel a workout or a recovery, is it nutrition? or is it just a fun food. People here can talk all they want about CICO, but when you're on such a limited calorie goal then those calories better be helping.

Also, I try to remember that limiting sweets does not mean I can never have them, I CHOOSE not to have them right now. Also, why do I have to have what a package says is a serving? Why can't I have just half of that so I get the flavor with lesser calories? For example, I love peanut butter, 2 tablespoons is a serving, but its so calorie DENSE that on a 1200 calorie day with no workout I simply can't fit it in and be satiated. However, pre or post workout, I CAN put ONE tablespoon on a half banana. Its sweet, its peanut butter, and its also a good pre or post workout meal. Depending on the exercise I can often have the whole banana and both tablespoons and just split them up before and after, or save half for that bedtime snack.

Growing up my father owned a Dairy Queen. When I worked there in my early 20's I was at my thinnest, even while exposed to all that deliciousness. Why? Because when I wanted a peanut buster parfait, I just put a bit of vanilla on a spoon, dribbled on some fudge and a few peanuts. Boom! Tiny parfait.

Perhaps portion control on the sweets is a good place to start. You can, and have been choosing to put 700 calories on sweets in a day, try cutting that in half and using the extra 350 for a larger portion of something more nutritious during an earlier meal, or a bedtime snack.

The choices are yours alone, while it would help to have a supportive spouse, you have to remember the choice is still yours alone. Now this is totally unscientific but it also helps me to picture the sugar feeding the fat and potential disease, and the fruits, veggies, protein and whole grain feeding that thin 20-something that I used to be, still am on the inside, and am working toward again. (almost 50 now) Those feed the slim and fit me.

I had issues moderating sweets too. Jujubes and pop were problems for me. I felt like I needed one or the other almost every day. My problem was that I would eat the whole bag or drink more than one can. Huge cravings. It felt almost addictive like. It felt like if I ate I wanted more. I was eating every couple of hours. It got a bit crazy.

I switched to a very low carb diet to control it and improve my blood glucose. I was failing at cutting back on sugar so I decided to cut it out entirely, and limit my carbs very strictly since carbs are just sugar anyways.

It worked. I had a few days of hunger and cravings but then it went away. I was a bit shaky with hypoglycaemia but it was not bad so I powered through. I felt a bit if fatigue as my body switched to relying on fat instead of sugar but it adjusted within a few days. The symptoms of headaches, extreme fatigue, moodiness, muscle soreness and nausea that is often associated with low carbs is usually an electrolyte imbalance. If sodium is increased to 3000-5000mg per day, and potassium and magnesium is supplemented then electrolytes won't get low and one would feel fine.

I have been eating under 20g of carbs per day for about 8 months. If I do indulge, like the carrot cake and veggies i ate while staying with family this past weekend, I do not regain water weight. All I regain is my cravings so it takes me some willpower to cut it back down and not over eat. If I keep carbs low, sugar cravings and habits are a complete non issue.

To be honest, thinking about giving up carbs was harder than doing it. I danced around it by trying moderation again and again and again for about a year. Then I would start lower carb, not fully commit and have more carbs and then it would fall apart. That dabbling in low carb and anticipating the loss of carbs was hard. Once I did it, it was not a big deal. Wish I had done it 20 years ago.
Good luck!

My husband is a junk food master. He is not on a diet. He does have his own cupboard full of crap. No lock on it l'm a big girl if I go into it it's my own fault. I take responsibility for my actions. Granted he now loves having his own cupboard. Lol

arabianhorselover wrote: »

successgal1 wrote: »

Ummm are you trying to lose weight? I'm no expert, nor do I know your height and weight and all that, but speaking personally, 2000 calories is too high for me and I would gain weight on that calorie goal.

But, others can focus on that...I'm only chiming in with what works for me, and thats focusing on food as fuel or medicine. Sugar does not fuel me for longer than a sugar rush, nor is it good for me according to my doctor. I'm told whole grains are fine, but to limit dairy, limit, not exclude it.

I'm on 1200 calories. Every bite I take I think of "is this helping or hurting" will it fuel a workout or a recovery, is it nutrition? or is it just a fun food. People here can talk all they want about CICO, but when you're on such a limited calorie goal then those calories better be helping.

Also, I try to remember that limiting sweets does not mean I can never have them, I CHOOSE not to have them right now. Also, why do I have to have what a package says is a serving? Why can't I have just half of that so I get the flavor with lesser calories? For example, I love peanut butter, 2 tablespoons is a serving, but its so calorie DENSE that on a 1200 calorie day with no workout I simply can't fit it in and be satiated. However, pre or post workout, I CAN put ONE tablespoon on a half banana. Its sweet, its peanut butter, and its also a good pre or post workout meal. Depending on the exercise I can often have the whole banana and both tablespoons and just split them up before and after, or save half for that bedtime snack.

Growing up my father owned a Dairy Queen. When I worked there in my early 20's I was at my thinnest, even while exposed to all that deliciousness. Why? Because when I wanted a peanut buster parfait, I just put a bit of vanilla on a spoon, dribbled on some fudge and a few peanuts. Boom! Tiny parfait.

Perhaps portion control on the sweets is a good place to start. You can, and have been choosing to put 700 calories on sweets in a day, try cutting that in half and using the extra 350 for a larger portion of something more nutritious during an earlier meal, or a bedtime snack.

The choices are yours alone, while it would help to have a supportive spouse, you have to remember the choice is still yours alone. Now this is totally unscientific but it also helps me to picture the sugar feeding the fat and potential disease, and the fruits, veggies, protein and whole grain feeding that thin 20-something that I used to be, still am on the inside, and am working toward again. (almost 50 now) Those feed the slim and fit me.

Thank you for the suggestions. I have made up my mind to cut down on the sweets. For starters, and this is big for me, I am going to try to eat very little candy, cookies, etc. I will try to have no more than a couple of hundred calories of those types of things in a day.

So you're not taking my advice of a week-long sugar-fast?

arabianhorselover wrote: »

successgal1 wrote: »

Ummm are you trying to lose weight? I'm no expert, nor do I know your height and weight and all that, but speaking personally, 2000 calories is too high for me and I would gain weight on that calorie goal.

But, others can focus on that...I'm only chiming in with what works for me, and thats focusing on food as fuel or medicine. Sugar does not fuel me for longer than a sugar rush, nor is it good for me according to my doctor. I'm told whole grains are fine, but to limit dairy, limit, not exclude it.

I'm on 1200 calories. Every bite I take I think of "is this helping or hurting" will it fuel a workout or a recovery, is it nutrition? or is it just a fun food. People here can talk all they want about CICO, but when you're on such a limited calorie goal then those calories better be helping.

Also, I try to remember that limiting sweets does not mean I can never have them, I CHOOSE not to have them right now. Also, why do I have to have what a package says is a serving? Why can't I have just half of that so I get the flavor with lesser calories? For example, I love peanut butter, 2 tablespoons is a serving, but its so calorie DENSE that on a 1200 calorie day with no workout I simply can't fit it in and be satiated. However, pre or post workout, I CAN put ONE tablespoon on a half banana. Its sweet, its peanut butter, and its also a good pre or post workout meal. Depending on the exercise I can often have the whole banana and both tablespoons and just split them up before and after, or save half for that bedtime snack.

Growing up my father owned a Dairy Queen. When I worked there in my early 20's I was at my thinnest, even while exposed to all that deliciousness. Why? Because when I wanted a peanut buster parfait, I just put a bit of vanilla on a spoon, dribbled on some fudge and a few peanuts. Boom! Tiny parfait.

Perhaps portion control on the sweets is a good place to start. You can, and have been choosing to put 700 calories on sweets in a day, try cutting that in half and using the extra 350 for a larger portion of something more nutritious during an earlier meal, or a bedtime snack.

The choices are yours alone, while it would help to have a supportive spouse, you have to remember the choice is still yours alone. Now this is totally unscientific but it also helps me to picture the sugar feeding the fat and potential disease, and the fruits, veggies, protein and whole grain feeding that thin 20-something that I used to be, still am on the inside, and am working toward again. (almost 50 now) Those feed the slim and fit me.

Thank you for the suggestions. I have made up my mind to cut down on the sweets. For starters, and this is big for me, I am going to try to eat very little candy, cookies, etc. I will try to have no more than a couple of hundred calories of those types of things in a day.

What works for me is to only have those types of food after dinner. If I have them during the day, I don't feel satisfied and want to keep eating them.

2snakeswoman wrote: »

Medical doctors practice evidence-based medicine. They learn how to research topics using solid, peer-approved information based on research that can be duplicated with the same, or very near the same, results by any researcher anywhere. Alternative practitioners do not. They often use anecdotal evidence, which means that somebody somewhere once said "this worked for me", so now they try it on you. Believe me, thyroid issues are very well understood by medical doctors. They know how to correctly interpret what the lab studies show them, although some forget that they need a TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone from the pituitary gland) level along with the T3 and T4 levels.

But go ahead and spend money with the alternative practitioner if you want to. Part of healing is believing, and if you believe in her, then at least you've got part of the equation right.

And yes - I know a lot about this from having been a medical transcriptionist for multiple specialties over 38 years, now in medical assistant training. I've done quite a bit of personal research regarding health issues because it interests me. I've learned what differentiates a good source of information from a bad one. Believe me - there's a lot of very bad information floating around out there (and in here).

I just wanted to clarify that nurse practitioners are not alternative practitioners. They are quailfied registered nurses who have completed a masters degree. This gives them the limited ability to diagnose conditions and prescribe a limited amount of medications.