Sugar Addiction
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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.1 -
AlabasterVerve 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.0 -
I totally get exactly what you're saying. Binging and sugar addiction. Yes, I believe it's an addiction. I had very good luck getting off sugar using a book called "I Quit Sugar." As with any book about dietary change, it has its pros and cons. But, for the most part she has a lot of really good information and help. It's an eight week program that slowly week by week works you off of sugar, and at the end of eight weeks The idea is to reassess how you feel about sugar and how much you can re-introduced to your diet. Taking on her entire program as a forever, wholelife kind of thing, is not a particularly good idea for people like me, who are a compulsive over eaters, because she does recommend eating whole foods, as in whole milk, chicken skin, etc. and she is a very skinny person.
The thing that worked for me about her program is that she explains a lot of the science behind how sugar and sugar substitutes work in our bodies, using real science, much of which I already knew, but some of which I did not. It was gentle, and her recipes are really good.I think if sugar is a real issue in your life it would be worth it to give this a sho--even though it's higher calori--just to get off the sugar and then do as I did which was to re-introduce the lower calorie versions of foods.
I got to say, when I initially did this, I was menopausal, and suffering from terrible hot flashes. My hot flashes went away. Even though I have re-introduced sugar into my diet, they haven't returned. For that, it was totally worth it!3 -
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.0
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also, when you stop eating sugars, and then you eat something like a carrot, you can really taste the sugars that the carrot has. and this was only a few weeks into my 0 sugar eating. amazing! when you change your food choices, the tastes of the real food really shines thru.0
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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/1
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What foods to you gravitate towards when the craving hits?0
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Cold turkey. White knuckle it for a while and the cravings will go away. (I've done it. Twice!)0
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I tend to want..food. Seriously I just crave eating. Typically things with sugar. I don't keep candy cookies or ice cream I my house. So I'll turn to dried fruits, chobani, popcorn, dried cereal etc. Sometimes fruit snacks if I have some for my kids. It's just food that I want. And it's just right after dinner. I do so well all day long.0
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AlabasterVerve 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.0 -
I tend to want..food. Seriously I just crave eating. Typically things with sugar. I don't keep candy cookies or ice cream I my house. So I'll turn to dried fruits, chobani, popcorn, dried cereal etc. Sometimes fruit snacks if I have some for my kids. It's just food that I want. And it's just right after dinner. I do so well all day long.
Carbs are just sugar in the end. Starches are chains of many sugars. If you avoid those foods, your cravings may subside after a few days.0
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