Sugar Addiction

I went through the same thing myself. Me, it was donuts in mid-afternoon, and chocolate bars or chips in the evening. What got me off sugar was to switch my diet to low-carb (no more pasta, bread, white potatoes, rice, and sugary snacks), and start my day with decaf butter coffee. If I had cravings in the evening, I'd have another decaf butter coffee. It took about a week for cravings to go away.

In the meantime, if I feel like I need a treat, I found a recipe for a quick low-carb dessert that I keep in the fridge at all times.

I would never call it an addiction, eating too much dessert was a bad habit. It is so true about giving up your power to choose. It is just being the boss of yourself. I am not perfect at having just the right amount of dessert, but I'm not going to obstain from desserts for the rest of my life. That's not practical and I enjoy chocolate and whip cream and ice cream in moderation. My cravings subside too when I enjoy them a couple of times of week. I'm a size 6. For a women, I think it goes along with your menstral cycle. I'm a more aware at those times of cravings and distract myself. Also, sometimes a moderate amount of fruit helps the sugar craving.

+1 to the proposal to seek counseling if you're truly bingeing (i.e., uncontrollable) not just over-eating habitually.

There are a couple of things that helped me reduce cravings for simple sugars (candy, baked goods) especially in the evening.

One was making it a point to eat 3 servings of whole fruit daily. That somehow compensated, anAld I was better able to resist candy & baked goods. Eventually, the simple sugars non-nutrient-dense foods came to taste way too sweet, cloying even. I was then also able to eat less fruit (if I wanted to).

The second was experimenting with the timing & composition of my eating, to see what would make me feel less crave-y in the evening. By "timing", I mean not only time of meals/snacks, but which were larger. By "composition", I mean mix of macronutrients (within a healthy range of each).

In practice, satiation and cravings differ for each person, so you would need to experiment for yourself. For me, I found that the best result came from a solid breakfast with plenty of protein, and protein throughout the day, plus some high-volume/low-cal food (such as fibrous veggies) at some time during the day. I saved a few calories for an evening snack (such as home-popped popcorn), but not that many. Your formula would almost certainly be different.

Diary review Is a great tool. You say you're able to avoid giving into cravings sometimes. Look at your diary - not just the day of cravings (or lack), but also the day before. Is there any pattern? More/less exercise? More/less stress? Insufficient vs. adequate sleep? Under- or over-consuming some macronutrient or specific food? Letting yourself go longer while hungry? Alcohol? Boredom? Social triggers?

You may be able to identify circumstances that are a challenge for you, and "write yourself a different script" for handling them. You may be able to institute new habits, such as exercise instead of food as a stress response, or a new hobby (especially one requiring clean hands ) if boredom or habit is a factor, or a nap if lack of sleep is involved, etc.

Be a detective, be an experimenter. You can find a path that works.

Wishing you success!

Read the book Brain over Binge, it will really help**

What an incredibly informative and useful thread this became.

Sorry, but there is no such thing as an addiction to sugar. As with the usual bull floated about in the health and fitness space, it takes a keen eye to discern the truth. Undoubtedly, someone will argue this point and point to an article online where researchers show in mice that sugar activates the same pleasure reward centers in the brain as a shot of heroin, but yet again, it is all about context. For one thing, studies using mice are very often unreliable, as mice have differing carbohydrate and metabolic pathways from humans. Secondly, when is the last time you felt compelled to scarf down a whole bag of sugar? Pretty much never, right? That's because it's not the sugar, but a combination of sugar, salt, and fat that makes these high-caloric foods hard to resist. Let me explain.

Binge eating is not a recent phenomenon, nor the fault of sugar as some people claim. Binge eating is in fact hardwired into our DNA. You see, a long time ago when we were still living in caves, coming across high- calorie dense items was extremely rare. That's why when we came across some honey or anything that had a lot of energy and carbohydrate in it, the item was consumed in massive amounts. This is illustrated today with the practices of the Hazda tribe, a remote tribe in Africa that consumes massive quantities of fruit and honey whenever it can be gathered. Over time, the human brain began to associate foods high in fat or sugar with feelings of pleasure, as a large bolus of a meal would signify to the hypothalamus that the body had enough body fat to survive on through the hormone Leptin.

Cravings arise from the primitive parts of our brain which associated high-calorie dense foods with survival. This is now a really big problem because we have what can be considered an obesogenic society, a society with a large amount of highly-palatable foods and low amounts of physical activity. Efforts to curtail sugar use, however, have failed in preventing obesity from occurring because they do not address the necessary behavior changes needed to successfully maintain weight loss. If you would like to know more, I would recommend checking out "The Hungry Brain."

Many years ago, I ate so many sweets and grain. There wasn't a gummy bear, twizzler or piece of italian bread that I would ever say no to. I went on the South Beach Diet where there is no added sugar or grains for the first two weeks. At the end of the two weeks, my desire for them dissipated. In fact, I still don't eat either of them (with the exception of my favorite desert when I go to New Orleans) and do not miss them at all. Maybe if you try abstaining from them for a couple of weeks it will help with your cravings and since you will have an end date you may not feel the need to binge.

blueeyetea wrote: »

I went through the same thing myself. Me, it was donuts in mid-afternoon, and chocolate bars or chips in the evening. What got me off sugar was to switch my diet to low-carb (no more pasta, bread, white potatoes, rice, and sugary snacks), and start my day with decaf butter coffee. If I had cravings in the evening, I'd have another decaf butter coffee. It took about a week for cravings to go away.

In the meantime, if I feel like I need a treat, I found a recipe for a quick low-carb dessert that I keep in the fridge at all times.

But these are (most) often temporary changes. I can "eliminate" favorite foods (for a time) and lose weight, I've never had a problem losing weight. The bigger challenge for me is maintaining. A huge % of people regain the weight they lost.

At maintenance you can choose low carb for the rest of your life....or you can start over and learn to manage pasta, bread, white potatoes, rice, and sugary snacks.

AlabasterVerve wrote: »

TeaBea wrote: »

blueeyetea wrote: »

I went through the same thing myself. Me, it was donuts in mid-afternoon, and chocolate bars or chips in the evening. What got me off sugar was to switch my diet to low-carb (no more pasta, bread, white potatoes, rice, and sugary snacks), and start my day with decaf butter coffee. If I had cravings in the evening, I'd have another decaf butter coffee. It took about a week for cravings to go away.

In the meantime, if I feel like I need a treat, I found a recipe for a quick low-carb dessert that I keep in the fridge at all times.

But these are (most) often temporary changes. I can "eliminate" favorite foods (for a time) and lose weight, I've never had a problem losing weight. The bigger challenge for me is maintaining. A huge % of people regain the weight they lost.

At maintenance you can choose low carb for the rest of your life....or you can start over and learn to manage pasta, bread, white potatoes, rice, and sugary snacks.

Low carb is no more temporary than anything else... calorie counting, everything in moderation, clean eating, fasting, paleo or anything else. Individual results will vary.

Five years later I can say I'll happily eat a low carb diet for the rest of my life as long as I still benefit from it. No cravings, compulsive or out of control eating and not constantly thinking and obsessing over food? Worth it.

This is why I said....(most) often. Some people will be low carb forever. But the vast majority of us will not be giving up pasta, bread, white potatoes, rice, and sugary snacks forever. People with medical issues have an extra incentive to be low carb for life.

But I was pointing out (to OP) that low carb isn't a cure for her sugar "addiction." Low carb only eliminates the craving for as long as you eliminate the source of the craving.

i stopped eating refined sugars and actually complex carb sugars and the cravings went away. i also learned not to use food as anything but fuel. so yeah i COULD have something if i wanted but i chose not to. that is the way i overcame cravings for sugar. but haha i noticed something, the other day i went to a fair and i had 3 teeny pieces of fudge that someone made, they were like the size of a dime. and i noticed that i enjoyed the taste as if i never stopped. so because my cravings for sugar were under control, thats all that satisfied me - that little tiny bit. but if i had continued to induldge every day, then probably the cravings and drive to eat sugary foods would return. i now see the calories/carb count of that stuff and its so not worth it because i have other more important goals that i want more. so you have to decide what you want more and then you will have the inner strength to do it. even to say no if necessary.

Another MFPer recommended this video. Although the focus is on carbs v fat, midway through there is a brain scan that is quite enlightening. https://proteinpower.com/drmike/2017/03/11/dr-david-ludwig-high-carb-vs-low-carb-vs-slow-carb-diets/

Cold turkey. White knuckle it for a while and the cravings will go away. (I've done it. Twice!)

TeaBea wrote: »

AlabasterVerve wrote: »

TeaBea wrote: »

blueeyetea wrote: »

I went through the same thing myself. Me, it was donuts in mid-afternoon, and chocolate bars or chips in the evening. What got me off sugar was to switch my diet to low-carb (no more pasta, bread, white potatoes, rice, and sugary snacks), and start my day with decaf butter coffee. If I had cravings in the evening, I'd have another decaf butter coffee. It took about a week for cravings to go away.

In the meantime, if I feel like I need a treat, I found a recipe for a quick low-carb dessert that I keep in the fridge at all times.

But these are (most) often temporary changes. I can "eliminate" favorite foods (for a time) and lose weight, I've never had a problem losing weight. The bigger challenge for me is maintaining. A huge % of people regain the weight they lost.

At maintenance you can choose low carb for the rest of your life....or you can start over and learn to manage pasta, bread, white potatoes, rice, and sugary snacks.

Low carb is no more temporary than anything else... calorie counting, everything in moderation, clean eating, fasting, paleo or anything else. Individual results will vary.

Five years later I can say I'll happily eat a low carb diet for the rest of my life as long as I still benefit from it. No cravings, compulsive or out of control eating and not constantly thinking and obsessing over food? Worth it.

This is why I said....(most) often. Some people will be low carb forever. But the vast majority of us will not be giving up pasta, bread, white potatoes, rice, and sugary snacks forever. People with medical issues have an extra incentive to be low carb for life.

But I was pointing out (to OP) that low carb isn't a cure for her sugar "addiction." Low carb only eliminates the craving for as long as you eliminate the source of the craving.

Yep. I think that's why people think of sugar as addiction-like. As soon as you bring that food back (sugar or carb heavier diets) it is a problem again. Like a mild addiction.

OP, I've been very low carb for most of two years. Eliminating carbs, which are just sugars in digestion, really helps me with my cravings. LVHF, or ketogenic diets, may be something that could help you.