Easiest Way to reduce sugar intake
coachfrey
Posts: 4 Member
I'm starting over again on MFP and I am going to have a lot of weight to lose (about 70 pounds). I know my most immediate challenge is going to be sugar, as I stopped to look at how much sugar I'm consuming in a day and its generally somewhere between 200-350 grams a day (yes I realize that's terrible). I know when I try to just stop cold turkey it makes me feel like I want to die. Is there any other method or will I just have to go through the come down for a few days?
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Replies
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What food type are you overeating
What food has the highest proportion of calories
You will find when you concentrate on calories and feeling full at a defecit your sugar intake will naturally go down anyway5 -
I'm not really sure because today will be my first day of logging, so I'm not sure what I'm overeating. But I do know that I constantly have a coke in my hand, I don't drink nearly enough water, and I drink coffee from Starbucks daily, which is LOADED with sugar.0
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There you go. Reduce the calories you drink and you'll make a huge impact.4
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You could switch to water, start having your coffee unsweetened, or both. It's not complicated.2
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Yeah...no more sodas.. drink at the least a gallon of water a day! That alone will make a big impact! But eat healthy and smart, protion control on cheat meals! You got this!
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I totally understand how to reduce it, my concern is with the impacts I have when I reduce it. The headaches are unbearable to the point that I get sick to my stomach. Is that normal after removing that much bad crap from your system?0
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I'm not really sure because today will be my first day of logging, so I'm not sure what I'm overeating. But I do know that I constantly have a coke in my hand, I don't drink nearly enough water, and I drink coffee from Starbucks daily, which is LOADED with sugar.
Swap your coke to Coke Zero7 -
Also, how do I determine how much water to drink a day? I always heard 64 ounces a day, but a good friend of mine who is a dietitian told me that at my weight (265) I should be drinking way more than that a day.1
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Diet soda is your friend. The taste is odd to get used to but it'll totally keep your caffeine intake up. If you want to reduce caffeine, tackle by slowly reducing.3
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I totally understand how to reduce it, my concern is with the impacts I have when I reduce it. The headaches are unbearable to the point that I get sick to my stomach. Is that normal after removing that much bad crap from your system?
Caffeine withdrawal
Taper down and take painkillers
Substitute with black coffee with sweetener or diet cokes
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cold turkey. start on a weekend and just do it. get it over with already!2
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Try taking chromium picolinate 3 times a day before meals. They say it helps with carb and sugar cravings. I read the book "Lose Weight without Dieting or Working Out" which recommends a 21 day jump start with no caffeine, sugar, white carbs, animal protein or alcohol. Instead, you replace those with healthy oils, vegetables and whole grains. I did it and it was surprisingly easy. I haven't eaten refined sugar for 4 weeks! Attended a dinner party tonight with pie, cake and ice cream at desert, and I didn't even want it!!!1
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Just get your logging straight first. Spend a couple weeks in a deficit, look at your diary, see where your sugar is. If it is still very high even in a deficit, take a look at what foods you are eating that are causing it.
I eat low sugar on the regular. I don't believe sugar is the devil but I am a very hungry little girl and pastries, added sugar, etc do not fill me up. I just accidentally ended up this way because I found a way of eating that works for me. I add 2 packets of sugar in the raw to my coffee per day. The rest of the day is diet soda and water, no grains/bread/pasta. No pastries.
I have a treat per day, such as a rice krispie treat before I train. I am still at 25g-50g tops per day because I'm generally not adding a lot of sugar.1 -
I totally understand how to reduce it, my concern is with the impacts I have when I reduce it. The headaches are unbearable to the point that I get sick to my stomach. Is that normal after removing that much bad crap from your system?
When I stopped drinking Coke (cola), I switched to unsweetened tea. This reduced the caffeine withdrawal headaches, but I still had issues. They took 2 weeks to resolve, and then I was ok. If you switch to diet soda, you may not have as many issues.
Also, unless you have a health issue that requires it, you don't need to reduce to such a low level that you feel like crap. Make small changes, start logging so that you know where you stand (and use a scale to get an accurate measure), and go from there.1 -
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I had exactly the same and the easiest way is diet coke. Its the lack of cafeïne what gives you the headaches, not the lack of sugar. Also paracetamol with cofeïne can help. I am slowly cutting down on the diet coke0
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The easiest way is to be gradual about it. Drinking your calories is surely a huge source of extra calories. If you are drinking say, 5 cups of soda a day have one of them be a diet soda and increase gradually. Same for coffee, have one black coffee a day and increase gradually. Before you know it you can actually start replacing some of the diet soda with water (if you want).
After that you can start introducing more nutrient rich foods to your diet within your calorie range, which will naturally displace more high calorie sugary foods until you reach a balance you are happy with.3 -
I'm starting over again on MFP and I am going to have a lot of weight to lose (about 70 pounds). I know my most immediate challenge is going to be sugar, as I stopped to look at how much sugar I'm consuming in a day and its generally somewhere between 200-350 grams a day (yes I realize that's terrible). I know when I try to just stop cold turkey it makes me feel like I want to die. Is there any other method or will I just have to go through the come down for a few days?
Transition slowly by substituting low glycemic versions of foods you like now. The extra fiber might help keep your cravings for more sugar down somewhat.1 -
Remember it is a process and you don't have to get it perfect today. Start off just reducing the soda etc where you feel you can, and focus on logging everything honestly and accurately.
Just logging it all can help you see where you can cut back.
Then you can work on reducing sugar - I found it much easier once I could really see where my calories were going and then I didn't want to "waste" my precious calories on too many sweet things (I still fit in chocolate though!)4 -
You can get withdrawal symptoms from caffeine, but not from sugar. You can also get headaches from dehydration if you don't replace your usual drinks. Replace sugary caffeinated drinks with unsweetened/artifically sweetened, and/or reduce caffeine gradually. Water is best, but you can drink anything you like. Drink until you aren't thirsty anymore. The amount you need depends on your size, your activity level, temperature, how much liquid you get through food, your sugar and salt intake. Don't guzzle down, you can have too much water too, and that can also give a headache.
You can go "cold turkey" from added sugar. There's no need to try to avoid added sugar completely, though, because there will always be sugar in food, and it's the same sugar as naturally occurring in food. What you should be aiming for, is probably a more nutritionally dense diet, so get in a variety of whole, natural foods - fruit and vegetables, grains (choose whole grains more often) and starchy vegetables, beans, meat and fish, eggs and dairy, nuts and seeds, butter and oils. It often means switching to more home cooked food and bringing your own lunches. It does not mean giving up social life or cooking separate meals from your family.
How do you know how much sugar you have been ingesting if today will be my first day of logging? Log first, then draw conclusions.
Don't fall for hypes such as jump starts, cleanses, detox, diets, good/bad foods/carbs/fats, low this, low that, supplements - unless doctor's orders, don't cut out anything you like, don't force yourself to eat things you don't like. Do this: Set an appropriate calorie goal. MFP's suggestion is fine. Log your food and hit your calorie goal - this is all it takes, but it's important that you do it correctly. Weigh everything, double check daabase entries, log the amount you eat/drink, don't cheat, forget or give up.10 -
I quit drinking soda a long time ago and I don't really remember the withdrawals or anything like that, but black coffee has the caffeine, and ibuprofen is your friend. If that doesn't work, try Tylenol according to the directions (and no more). Cutting sugar to below 25 g (the WHO recommendation) helped me a lot. I used to drink Diet Coke for preference but cut that out too because I don't care for artificial sweeteners.
If you crave the carbonation, which I sometimes do, you can drink mineral water or get a Soda Stream. A squeeze of lime in some carbonated or mineral water is a beautiful thing.
For the water, there are formulas for how much you should drink and it's not always just 64 oz a day. I drink about 96 oz a day and I am short (5'4"). Also you have to watch electrolytes when you increase your water, and this may be why you have headaches. Honestly I think you should see your doc and have your baseline blood tests checked, that was a great thing for me.
And finally to address your actual question about cutting sugar -- don't eat processed foods. Like, nothing packaged. Cheese and sausage are probably fine, but the rest, throw it out. You might feel *kitten* for a bit, but it's worth it. Keep drinking water and replenishing electrolytes. This is what I did, and my sugar is always below 25 g a day now and I feel so much better. Sugar isn't evil, but overdoing it isn't good, so I just don't add it to anything. There's plenty in my normal diet to give me what I need.
Good luck!2 -
I dropped my junk food/processed crap habit and felt ill for two days. I just tried to ride it out, drink lots of water and get through it. Feel amazing now. Don't give up with it, just try and ride it out!!1
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First of all I think you nailed it with the coke consumption. I think swapping to diet coke or coke zero would be a great idea as it would allow you to reduce calories (and sugar) without the potential caffeine withdrawal.
In addition to this, I think it's a good idea to generally put your emphasis on what you SHOULD be eating rather than focusing on what you need to avoid.
You can keep this simple too. Figure out what proteins you enjoy, find a vegetable or two that you enjoy, some fruit, and go grocery shopping for those things.
And I'm not suggesting you limit your diet to those items, you just want to think inclusively about eating those types of foods "most of the time" to promote fullness.9 -
Easiest way is to avoid processed, packaged foods, juice and sugary drinks.
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kommodevaran wrote: »You can get withdrawal symptoms from caffeine, but not from sugar. You can also get headaches from dehydration if you don't replace your usual drinks. Replace sugary caffeinated drinks with unsweetened/artifically sweetened, and/or reduce caffeine gradually. Water is best, but you can drink anything you like. Drink until you aren't thirsty anymore. The amount you need depends on your size, your activity level, temperature, how much liquid you get through food, your sugar and salt intake. Don't guzzle down, you can have too much water too, and that can also give a headache.
You can go "cold turkey" from added sugar. There's no need to try to avoid added sugar completely, though, because there will always be sugar in food, and it's the same sugar as naturally occurring in food. What you should be aiming for, is probably a more nutritionally dense diet, so get in a variety of whole, natural foods - fruit and vegetables, grains (choose whole grains more often) and starchy vegetables, beans, meat and fish, eggs and dairy, nuts and seeds, butter and oils. It often means switching to more home cooked food and bringing your own lunches. It does not mean giving up social life or cooking separate meals from your family.
How do you know how much sugar you have been ingesting if today will be my first day of logging? Log first, then draw conclusions.
Don't fall for hypes such as jump starts, cleanses, detox, diets, good/bad foods/carbs/fats, low this, low that, supplements - unless doctor's orders, don't cut out anything you like, don't force yourself to eat things you don't like. Do this: Set an appropriate calorie goal. MFP's suggestion is fine. Log your food and hit your calorie goal - this is all it takes, but it's important that you do it correctly. Weigh everything, double check daabase entries, log the amount you eat/drink, don't cheat, forget or give up.
Great post. OP pay close attention to this one.
My advice is also to make gradual changes. Start with either the Coke or the Starbucks habit, not both at the same time. You don't have to give either up completely, but find a substitute or reduce the amount of sugar in the coffee gradually. Logging accurately what you are currently eating/drinking will be the best way to determine where you can make little changes that add up to big ones..1 -
Definitely start with either the coke or the starbucks at first. You didn't start out drinking both as much as you currently do - I assume it was a gradual process. As a fellow caffeine addict, I completely get how hard it is to cut back. So, I would start with the Coke - switch to Coke Zero or Diet Coke (I like Zero better - to me it tastes more like Coke). If you're having a hard time with it, maybe drink a half and half combination of regular coke and diet/zero and slowly decrease the amount of regular coke until you can eliminate it. After that, I would taper down the amount of coke you're drinking - and keep some tylenol or excedrin on hand for those caffeine withdrawal headaches - they can be a bear.
As far as starbucks goes, I don't know what your drink is, but they have sugar-free syrups - maybe you can start with asking for sugar-free syrups and then taper down like you did with the Coke. I'm a huge fan of black coffee - probably drink about 4 cups per day. But it has no sugar in it. Just plain coffee.
As for water, as you're tapering down on the coke and the starbucks, you can increase your water intake gradually as well. I think I'd aim for the standard 64 oz and if you find you're still thirsty, then you can always drink more.
The big thing to remember in this is to keep your changes slow and steady. That's really the only way you're going to make lasting changes.2 -
I totally understand how to reduce it, my concern is with the impacts I have when I reduce it. The headaches are unbearable to the point that I get sick to my stomach. Is that normal after removing that much bad crap from your system?
The headaches could be from the lack of caffeine, so a painkiller can help with that as you are cutting back. It does go away after a few days. As for feeling crappy when reducing sugar, sugar is a carb, so if in the process of reducing your sugar intake you also end up reducing your carb intake (not replacing those sugary foods with something else), that could also account for why you feel like crap.
Low carb users on the site report a "carb flu" when they reduce carbs. It's usually for a much lower carb intake, but some people are more sensitive to carbs and experience symptoms (tired, feeling crappy) when they dip below a certain threshold. I know people who need at least 150-200g carbs to feel normal, so that could account for some of the adverse reactions you experience.0 -
There aren't any peer reviewed studies to support this.lisabridwell wrote: »Try taking chromium picolinate 3 times a day before meals. They say it helps with carb and sugar cravings.
So in other words reduce your calories to lose weight. There are SO MANY books, articles and blogs that all tout the same thing. Unless you're willing to abstain and live that way for LIFE, then the odds are you will regain weight when you introduce them back into your diet.I read the book "Lose Weight without Dieting or Working Out" which recommends a 21 day jump start with no caffeine, sugar, white carbs, animal protein or alcohol. Instead, you replace those with healthy oils, vegetables and whole grains. I did it and it was surprisingly easy. I haven't eaten refined sugar for 4 weeks! Attended a dinner party tonight with pie, cake and ice cream at desert, and I didn't even want it!!!
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
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This is a great approach. Inclusion instead of exclusion.First of all I think you nailed it with the coke consumption. I think swapping to diet coke or coke zero would be a great idea as it would allow you to reduce calories (and sugar) without the potential caffeine withdrawal.
In addition to this, I think it's a good idea to generally put your emphasis on what you SHOULD be eating rather than focusing on what you need to avoid.
You can keep this simple too. Figure out what proteins you enjoy, find a vegetable or two that you enjoy, some fruit, and go grocery shopping for those things.
And I'm not suggesting you limit your diet to those items, you just want to think inclusively about eating those types of foods "most of the time" to promote fullness.
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
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Swap out for diet soda for now, take baby steps. Keep a 32oz water bottle with you at all times and try to drink at least 3 a day.
When you feel ready, swap out your Diet Coke for a flavored seltzer water. Eventually you will just want water, that is how I did it anyway.
You said you are new to logging, obligatory: USE A FOOD SCALE! Soooooooo many rookies (myself included) make this mistake of trying to eyeball their portion sizes. SPOILER ALERT: Your eyeball estimates are wrong!1
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