Feeling Terrible on Day 2 of Healthy Eating

You are probably going through sugar withdrawal. Sugar is very addicting. It will take a couple days for your body to get over it (i did the same thing), but getting rid of processed sugar is great! And your cravings will go away! Although don't forget to eat your fruit.

diannethegeek wrote: »

doodlebuggin18 wrote: »

You are probably going through sugar withdrawal. Sugar is very addicting. It will take a couple days for your body to get over it (i did the same thing), but getting rid of processed sugar is great! And your cravings will go away! Although don't forget to eat your fruit.

I don't know how you can come to this conclusion with so little information given? From her other post, she's cut calories quite low, which can sometimes cause low energy and lethargy, and has cut her carbs quite a bit as well, which definitely can cause low energy and can sometimes have a "low carb flu" effect (especially if someone isn't boosting their electrolytes to help with the imbalance). To ignore all of the information she's given here and on her other thread and come to the conclusion that she's some kind of addict is just odd to me.

And to add, I want some of that sugarless fruit.

To be fair I had withdrawal when I first cut processed sugar from my diet aswell. A friend of mine put it perfectly (I'll see if I can not lose it in translation).. She said the body will try to replenish what it's running out of and so no sugar = bad, and so chocolate, bbq sauce, etc would show up as cravings. Now I have bananas regularly and my favourite vanilla protein (which has a little sweetener in it), but that's it. No cravings for sugar at all. I can enjoy it at times, but it's no must anymore.

No sugar withdrawal symptoms. I had them for two weeks.

Not sure I agree with the whole sugar is sugar thing though. I'm not saying I'm right here, but it seems to me at least that the process in which they make the white crystalized sugar vs for example what's in an apple/orange/banana would be different, and thus would take different energy levels for the body to process, and maybe even have a different effect on the body? Maybe this is not accurate at all, but I have heard at least that fruit sugar = good sugar. Maybe someone with a degree in nutrition can help out here. It could be the amounts aswell, considering just how much sugar in all this ready-to-go stuff in the stores.

I mean I can enjoy fruit in troves but I have no sugar craving at all since I dropped the processed stuff.

Ah sweet (no pun intended), good to know!

elenjay140 wrote: »

Isn't there such a thing as withdrawals from processed sugars? Candy, chocolate, etc.?

Actually, there kind of is, yes. Sort of.

There's some research on this, of varying kinds. I know one thing that has been found is that mammals can develop a kind of addiction to sugar, so that their body reacts to it basically like an opioid (think morphine) and will have withdrawal symptoms if they no longer have it. One key factor seems to be the amount of sugar consumed, especially if it's intermittent, and as processed sugar allows a much higher dose of sugar per food item, perhaps that might contribute to this developing. (a collection of some of the research: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2235907/ )

There is not a LOT of study on it, so whether dropping processed sugar alone would help eliminate the cravings/addiction issues or not, I couldn't say.

But I can say that I've experienced this. Where trying to not eat sugar is an awful, 24/7 experience of feeling horrible, hung over, craving sugar every second of the day, heck, dreaming about sugar all night. It's awful. The only way I managed to eventually avoid the craving is to avoid ANY concentrated sugar - processed sugars and syrups, as you might expect, but even honey will be enough to have me constantly craving anything sweet, all day long. It takes weeks before I start to feel better, and stop craving sugar all the time, once I stop eating it. Even if I only eat it once (like, oh, I don't crave sugar anymore, I could just have a small hard candy, that wouldn't start the craving up again - except it does, immediately. ugh).

I know some people really WANT sugary tastes, and miss it if they ditch processed sugar, but after talking to a lot of people, once you get down to the nitty-gritty details, it gets pretty clear that some people have a mild craving for the pleasant taste of sugar, and some people are feeling like an addict denied their hit. It seems like a very different experience.

I mention that because sadly, it also seems that many people who have the craving assume that people who have the addiction going on just 'have less will power,' and can be kind of jerks about it, honestly.