Sugar Rush....
Iona_EllenRose
Posts: 18 Member
Hi,
I started off just the occasional comfort eating which always involved something sugary. One year on & I am (in my eyes) a bad emotional eater, the binges are becoming more & more regular. I can easily have over 6000cals in sugar from doughnuts to choc bars. I am also lacto intolerant (which really doesn't help much.)
I used to smoke (for approx 7yrs) & I swear giving up/cutting down sugar is alot more challenging than smoking. It's everywhere & in everything.
Has anyone else given up/cut down or wanting to?
Any advice/help would be great
!
I started off just the occasional comfort eating which always involved something sugary. One year on & I am (in my eyes) a bad emotional eater, the binges are becoming more & more regular. I can easily have over 6000cals in sugar from doughnuts to choc bars. I am also lacto intolerant (which really doesn't help much.)
I used to smoke (for approx 7yrs) & I swear giving up/cutting down sugar is alot more challenging than smoking. It's everywhere & in everything.
Has anyone else given up/cut down or wanting to?
Any advice/help would be great
! 2
Replies
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I just stopped buying foods I didn't want to eat.6
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Iona_EllenRose wrote: »Hi,
I started off just the occasional comfort eating which always involved something sugary. One year on & I am (in my eyes) a bad emotional eater, the binges are becoming more & more regular. I can easily have over 6000cals in sugar from doughnuts to choc bars. I am also lacto intolerant (which really doesn't help much.)
I used to smoke (for approx 7yrs) & I swear giving up/cutting down sugar is alot more challenging than smoking. It's everywhere & in everything.
Has anyone else given up/cut down or wanting to?
Any advice/help would be great!
What you describe sounds like you could have binge eating disorder, which would not be about the sugar but about what is going on inside of you. If you don't believe you can moderate, you need to ask your doctor for a referral to a support group and/or treatment program. This might be something you can't do alone.
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Iona_EllenRose wrote: »Hi,
I started off just the occasional comfort eating which always involved something sugary. One year on & I am (in my eyes) a bad emotional eater, the binges are becoming more & more regular. I can easily have over 6000cals in sugar from doughnuts to choc bars. I am also lacto intolerant (which really doesn't help much.)
I used to smoke (for approx 7yrs) & I swear giving up/cutting down sugar is alot more challenging than smoking. It's everywhere & in everything.
Has anyone else given up/cut down or wanting to?
Any advice/help would be great!
It was exactly like quitting smoking for me so the same skills apply. Be determined, know that the cravings and impulses come in waves and will pass. The first few days are the hardest - get through it any way possible. After that work on correcting or replacing the bad food habits you've developed and a couple months later you'll be golden.
Just don't give up and it will not only get better it will be easy as hard as that is to imagine. You absolutely can do this. Good luck. 0 -
Iona_EllenRose wrote: »Hi,
I started off just the occasional comfort eating which always involved something sugary. One year on & I am (in my eyes) a bad emotional eater, the binges are becoming more & more regular. I can easily have over 6000cals in sugar from doughnuts to choc bars. I am also lacto intolerant (which really doesn't help much.)
I used to smoke (for approx 7yrs) & I swear giving up/cutting down sugar is alot more challenging than smoking. It's everywhere & in everything.
Has anyone else given up/cut down or wanting to?
Any advice/help would be great!
Uploaded a video on youtube, just for you.
Try it. It really does work.
https://youtu.be/CigdFQUHLhQ 0 -
Eating more protein made a big difference to me. I sometimes wonder whether there was a little impairment in my body's ability to control blood glucose levels, and it was the swings in blood glucose that led me to feel as though sugar had some drug like properties. Protein really helps to keep my cravings away (and, I assume, helps keep my blood glucose levels steady).1
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Iona_EllenRose wrote: »Hi,
I started off just the occasional comfort eating which always involved something sugary. One year on & I am (in my eyes) a bad emotional eater, the binges are becoming more & more regular. I can easily have over 6000cals in sugar from doughnuts to choc bars. I am also lacto intolerant (which really doesn't help much.)
I used to smoke (for approx 7yrs) & I swear giving up/cutting down sugar is alot more challenging than smoking. It's everywhere & in everything.
Has anyone else given up/cut down or wanting to?
Any advice/help would be great!
Uploaded a video on youtube, just for you.
Try it. It really does work.https://youtu.be/CigdFQUHLhQ
Interesting.
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Yeah, I've struggled with emotional eating, although not bingeing. As someone else said, if it's that serious it could be BED, and it's possibly worth looking into therapy. (I'm really pro therapy for other reasons, although I didn't use it for eating-related stuff specifically.)
What I think helps as a starting point is to focus on WHEN you are eating these foods and WHY. Is there a specific place or trigger or trigger food? Can you avoid them or just not eat them for a while? Can you find other strategies that make it easier for yourself? A lot of people find it easier to keep them out of the house (personally, in the house was never really my problem, work was, or I'd impulse buy on the way home, maybe). (For me, being overly tired, which I chronically am, makes it harder too.)
What works for me is structure -- I eat 3 main meals, maybe an afternoon snack depending on my workout plans, and these are generally planned. Not necessarily in advance (the snack is), but I have an idea of what I want from a meal that fits my calories and nutrition goals -- protein, vegetables, and often either fruit or some kind of whole-food starch or whole grain. After that, if I have calories, I might have a small dessert (sometimes sweet, not always) after dinner. If that is triggering for you, maybe avoid it for now or use some other kind of non triggering food as a little extra or dessert if you want one (I find good cheese -- not just string cheese or the like, but I'm picky about cheese -- works for this for me).
Another thing that helped me a lot was working on the emotional eating triggers: trying to be really conscious of it, doing other things to manage stress, reminding myself why I wanted to eat, that I wasn't really hungry, learning to be more accepting of discomfort and bad feeling.1 -
kommodevaran wrote: »I just stopped buying foods I didn't want to eat.
This is a good idea also if one can't practice moderation yet (portion control and moderation take time to learn. It took me months)0 -
I used to be an emotional eater but now manage stress with exercise.
Eating more protein in relationship to carbs helped eliminate the physical desire for sugar - I was surprised to find that reducing carbs reduced the cravings for them.0 -
I was an emotional eater for years. Not sure how I was able to overcome it; other than, I worked really hard on trying not to let things sit with me too long. If something bothers me, I try to resolve it pretty quickly and move on. During those times, I encourage myself to get over it because it is not worth the long term toll that stress and emotional situations can have in the long run. So, I haven't had an emotional eating episode in a really long time. Hopefully, I won't. Now, I do have hormonal eating where my stomach feels like a bottomless pit. That generally lasts a day and then back to normal. I wish you all the best. It's really hard to overcome issues with food.0
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The sugar addiction/cravings get better after a week, and even better after 2 weeks... then they are subtle. . I still treat my self after every dinner with a small treat, and have you tried dark chocolate? It's very satisfying for the few squares you eat.
You are right it's easier to quit smoking vs quit sugar/happy eating.
I quit smoking a year ago (after 15 years), and no more beer either. My wife and I said "we quit smoking and stopped drinking, let's at least eat a bit freely and not worry so much" So we ate like pigs, and now that I'm back on a diet I feel that sugar addiction again. I've done this before and the craving/addiction ALWAYS subsides, gets better after a week, even better after 2....
Good luck and congrats on quitting smoking. Your lungs and heart are happier, now feed them good nutrients!
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Well, I thought I was an emotional eater and it turned out I just needed taste, which I didn't get from diet food, so I overate junk food to compensate. Having a structured (but not rigid) meal plan, eating all the food I love, but not keeping trigger foods around, made it possible to turn my eating habits and attitudes towards food upside down. I'm eating what I want when I need it, and I don't worry at all anymore about not eating "healthy" enough or eating the "wrong" food.
I too stopped smoking easily. But I couldn't stop eating! Luckily, I just had to stop overeating. That's cool, because I never really liked that anyway.
I fail to pick up any hints that you're in need of therapy, OP, or have you raised concern in other threads? I had a quick search, you were the one who told me about Paul McKenna and I'm reading his book now, it's so in line with what I've been learning for the past 2-3 years (not the tapping and mirror exercises, but his opinions). Have you read it yourself?0 -
All of the posts here are great.. but its admittingly 6000 calories and described as binges and binges that happen more and more often?
OP, is this being triggered by something in your life (you stated emotional eater)..? this sounds a bit alarming and may take control of you if you do not take control of it..
Without knowing much more about this, have you considered talking to someone about this, as in a therapist, your family, etc..
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Iona_EllenRose wrote: »Hi,
I started off just the occasional comfort eating which always involved something sugary. One year on & I am (in my eyes) a bad emotional eater, the binges are becoming more & more regular. I can easily have over 6000cals in sugar from doughnuts to choc bars. I am also lacto intolerant (which really doesn't help much.)
I used to smoke (for approx 7yrs) & I swear giving up/cutting down sugar is alot more challenging than smoking. It's everywhere & in everything.
Has anyone else given up/cut down or wanting to?
Any advice/help would be great!
@Iona_EllenRose wow that sounds familiar except for the smoking part.
Finally the first of Oct 2014 with health crashing at age 63 and the doctors wanting me to start Enbrel injections for pain management the first of Nov 2014 I left sugar and all forms of all grains cold turkey. Pain dropped from levels of 7-8 to 2-3 in just 30 days. Started to lose weight after 45 days. IBS of 40 years was completely gone after 180 days and I could go on and on about the good things still happening to my health two years later. Below are some of my lab numbers before and after.
Pre LCHF (two years ago) labs were:
Total Cholesterol - 226
HDL - 38
LDL - 146
Triglycerides - 209
9 months of LCHF (one year ago) labs were:
Total Cholesterol - 404
HDL - 56
LDL - 323
Triglycerides - 121
17 months of LCHF (today) labs were:
Total Cholesterol - 257
HDL - 63
LDL - 186
Triglycerides - 36
The first two weeks was hellish in that case but then the cravings and hungry just faded away and I can eat all that I want as long as I keep my carbs under 50 grams a day and protein in the 70-90 gram range daily which I find easy due to the rewarding results of eating this way.
The first 90 days was a learning experience for sure and I am still tweaking two years later.
Best of success if you decide to commit to your future health in this manner.0 -
Yeah, calories from fast food add up fast, so I didn't think much of it - but I tried logging some "old favorites" now, and 6000 calories in one sitting is a generous portion
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All of the posts here are great.. but its admittingly 6000 calories and described as binges and binges that happen more and more often?
OP, is this being triggered by something in your life (you stated emotional eater)..? this sounds a bit alarming and may take control of you if you do not take control of it..
Without knowing much more about this, have you considered talking to someone about this, as in a therapist, your family, etc..
@RoxieDawn sure this is not idea but there are many that do/did this daily. I think mine started due to trying to eat more to "feel" better but that did not work out for me. In my case it was only 40 years later when I cut out sugar and all grains did my pain drop like a rock and my health started to recover as you can see in my labs above.0
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