Sugar, hoping my post will be encouraging
mandy_godfree
Posts: 72 Member
I was brought up on sugar. Not fizzy drinks and sweets, but my Mum made us sugar sandwiches when there was nothing else in the house, we always had puddings in the evening, and at least a dessert spoon of sugar on our cereal in the morning. My Dad even puts sugar in his peas when he cooks them.
These days I no longer have sugar sandwiches or sugar on my cereal but I do still have a sweet tooth. I was staying under my calorie goal for the day, but still had one sweetener in my tea and two in coffee, I was having at least two diet fizzy drinks and a chocolate bar every day when at work as well as cake at lunch on my days off, and puddings at dinner time. So to stay under my calorie goal meant forfeiting the good stuff to keep up with my sweet tooth.
Then as Lent approached I said to my husband I was thinking about cutting out most forms of processed sugar. Sweets, fizzy drinks, cakes, chocolate, biscuits and desserts. I didn’t think I’d make it past the first day, and to be honest neither did he, he was just kind enough not to tell me that he doubted my resolve.
Lent arrived and I cut out all of the above, but the withdrawal symptoms have persuaded me that sugar simply cannot be good for you. I have had mood swings, headaches, fatigue, irritability and at times depression like symptoms. This lasted about 3 1/2 weeks it has been horrendous. I googled sugar withdrawal just to make sure I wasn’t going mad. As a result of the symptoms, for the last week I have ditched sweetener in tea and halved sweetener in coffee as well. I am feeling much better and have lost a lb a week just by cutting out sugar. I have even tried to start cutting down on carbs as well and am taking much more notice of how much sugar is in my food.
I’ve noted my macros are far more balanced and I can eat more savoury food to make up for missing out on the calories, meaning I feel full for longer. Everything tastes different which means water is far more palatable than it was before and I now eat a low sugar breakfast cereal with no more than 7grams of sugar in it. Before my breakfast cereal had 12 grams of sugar. Have supplemented sweets with dried mango and fresh grapes to break up the monotony of long car journeys and trips to the cinema.
If I have learnt anything over Lent it’s how hard it is to find a suitable substitute for sugar snacking. We walked into a petrol station on a long car journey last week and there were shelves and shelves of crisps, chocolate, dips and sweets, but the fruit was hidden in a corner. Today it took me 20 minutes to find where the local supermarket had hidden the dried fruit.
I understand that there is no such thing as a clinical addiction to sugar, but for me the result of trying to avoid artificial sweetener and refined / processed sugar has sent me on a profound personal journey that makes me want to stay away from sugar even after Lent finishes next week. Hopefully I will stick to it in the most part and not start revisiting the local Waffle House once a week.
I have pleasantly surprised both myself and my husband and my experience has persuaded both my husband and my Dad to cut back on their sugar intake too. So hopefully I won’t have to cope with the same mood swings they’ve had to deal with from me.
These days I no longer have sugar sandwiches or sugar on my cereal but I do still have a sweet tooth. I was staying under my calorie goal for the day, but still had one sweetener in my tea and two in coffee, I was having at least two diet fizzy drinks and a chocolate bar every day when at work as well as cake at lunch on my days off, and puddings at dinner time. So to stay under my calorie goal meant forfeiting the good stuff to keep up with my sweet tooth.
Then as Lent approached I said to my husband I was thinking about cutting out most forms of processed sugar. Sweets, fizzy drinks, cakes, chocolate, biscuits and desserts. I didn’t think I’d make it past the first day, and to be honest neither did he, he was just kind enough not to tell me that he doubted my resolve.
Lent arrived and I cut out all of the above, but the withdrawal symptoms have persuaded me that sugar simply cannot be good for you. I have had mood swings, headaches, fatigue, irritability and at times depression like symptoms. This lasted about 3 1/2 weeks it has been horrendous. I googled sugar withdrawal just to make sure I wasn’t going mad. As a result of the symptoms, for the last week I have ditched sweetener in tea and halved sweetener in coffee as well. I am feeling much better and have lost a lb a week just by cutting out sugar. I have even tried to start cutting down on carbs as well and am taking much more notice of how much sugar is in my food.
I’ve noted my macros are far more balanced and I can eat more savoury food to make up for missing out on the calories, meaning I feel full for longer. Everything tastes different which means water is far more palatable than it was before and I now eat a low sugar breakfast cereal with no more than 7grams of sugar in it. Before my breakfast cereal had 12 grams of sugar. Have supplemented sweets with dried mango and fresh grapes to break up the monotony of long car journeys and trips to the cinema.
If I have learnt anything over Lent it’s how hard it is to find a suitable substitute for sugar snacking. We walked into a petrol station on a long car journey last week and there were shelves and shelves of crisps, chocolate, dips and sweets, but the fruit was hidden in a corner. Today it took me 20 minutes to find where the local supermarket had hidden the dried fruit.
I understand that there is no such thing as a clinical addiction to sugar, but for me the result of trying to avoid artificial sweetener and refined / processed sugar has sent me on a profound personal journey that makes me want to stay away from sugar even after Lent finishes next week. Hopefully I will stick to it in the most part and not start revisiting the local Waffle House once a week.
I have pleasantly surprised both myself and my husband and my experience has persuaded both my husband and my Dad to cut back on their sugar intake too. So hopefully I won’t have to cope with the same mood swings they’ve had to deal with from me.
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Replies
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Which dried fruits?3
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My mom made me sugar sandwiches too. A piece of Wonder bread with butter and a few tablespoons of sugar and some cinnamon, then put it in the toaster oven. I just can’t.6
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Tiny_Dancer_in_Pink wrote: »Which dried fruits?
The Dried fruit that is made up of................sugar ! Lol20 -
Congratulations Mandy on finding your way to making yourself feel better. It is your journey and you have to find your own way.
My own experience...I do well cutting back on sweets. I can go a long time and not want any. However...if I indulge in certain things (such as Peanut Butter M&Ms) I seem to crave them. It is all that I can do to pass them up at the store...especially if they are having a 2 for 1 sale. I just can't pass up that bargain...I am weak!14 -
DONT go to the waffle house once a week! You'll crave sugar for days afterwards. It only takes a couple bites to awaken the beast. Seriously! I cut sugar out a long time ago. I was miserable for 3-4 weeks like you. Withdrawals and crabbiness and horrendous cravings. All that went away. About 4 months later I decided to take one bite of something that wasn't even very sweet. I thought about that stupid food for the rest of the week. It's SO not worth it. Cravings are all about habits. Your brain wants it because it's used to having it. If you change your habits, distract your brain when cravings hit you will be fine. I never want sugar anymore. I don't eat bread either. Don't miss it at all and it's been months.39
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I was brought up without a lot of sugar and I still became overweight. Over a decade type 2 diabetic so I cut all refined sugar from my diet, and I prefer carby/fatty/salty snacks.
I lost significant weight with a lot of help, and the diabetes is now in remission.
I don’t blame sugar.34 -
OP, congratulations in getting a better handle on your eating. In sounds like you'd been in the habit of eating quite a lot of added sugar, and that reducing it has been quite helpful in improving your nutrition and satiation, even though it was difficult for you at first.
I hope your measured and moderate telling of your personal story doesn't turn into another MFP religious war about sugar, since I feel like you tried pretty hard not to take that tone (". . . .I understand that there is no such thing as a clinical addiction to sugar, . . .", etc).
I feel sure your Lenten insights can help you stay on a better personal nutritional path post-Lent. Best wishes for continued progress!38 -
Congratulations Mandy on finding your way to making yourself feel better. It is your journey and you have to find your own way.
My own experience...I do well cutting back on sweets. I can go a long time and not want any. However...if I indulge in certain things (such as Peanut Butter M&Ms) I seem to crave them. It is all that I can do to pass them up at the store...especially if they are having a 2 for 1 sale. I just can't pass up that bargain...I am weak!
Yeah, I think this is common, but of course it's standard habit stuff, and nothing to do with the weird claims about withdrawal symptoms (which I know wasn't what you were saying).
If I start ordering Indian for dinner a lot that's my first thought, cooking seems a hassle. If I'm routinely cooking, it seems not a hassle and I my mind doesn't immediately go to ordering.
Similarly, if I have dessert after every meal, I want it. If I get out of that habit, I don't, or at least it's no more than a passing thought.
The biggest thing for me: if I eat between meals I will want to eat (pretty much whenever food is around). If I get back into what for me is a good habit of eating only at meals (and the food I eat at meals is normally pretty healthy), then I don't think about eating at other times.
The peanut M&M one is a funny choice since I have an issue with those too. My office has them out. If I decide, eh, I'll grab a handful, all day I'll want to go get more and I can end up eating LOTS of calories of them (especially if not logging). If I resist the first thought to get some, I don't really think about it. If I generally don't have them, I basically forget they are there and never think about them.
I don't think that's anything like addiction, but it's a real thing and understanding this (if your mind works like mine) can make it easier to avoid temptation/struggle.
Physically, however, sugar is sugar (and indeed carbs are basically sugar), so the idea that one can have withdrawal symptoms from cutting out added sugar is odd. Not saying someone might not do better cutting it out (especially if they ate absurd amounts and struggle with moderation or it affected their taste), but you cannot have physical withdrawal from cutting out added sugar while continuing to eat foods that to your body are the same.16 -
Good job. Keep up the good work. Proud of you.6
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mandy_godfree wrote: »I was brought up on sugar. Not fizzy drinks and sweets, but my Mum made us sugar sandwiches when there was nothing else in the house, we always had puddings in the evening, and at least a dessert spoon of sugar on our cereal in the morning. My Dad even puts sugar in his peas when he cooks them.
This seems pretty extreme, and I congratulate you on deciding to improve your diet and address what may have been an over-reliance on things being sweet for taste.
I don't actually think this kind of thing is that common -- it's quite unlike my experience, as we certainly had some desserts and snacks and so on when I was growing up, but a sugar sandwich wouldn't have been appealing and main meals weren't sweet/did not involve added sugar except rarely (BBQ, maybe a honey-based sauce here and there). Dessert wasn't an always thing, and that I enjoyed sweet didn't mean I didn't love (and taste as very sweet) fruit or appreciate savory (indeed, my biggest calorie issue has always been savory things).
So I think it's good to recognize your particular problems, not great if the idea is that this is evidence that SUGAR is the issue, is uniquely addictive, or that the average person is eating so much sugar they can't appreciate foods without it.
For what it's worth I also cut out added sugar for a while when I started (mostly because I thought it would help me resist snacking when food is available at my office and because I have a tendency to use sugar when emotional eating, which I wanted to work on), and I found it both easy (like I said, it wasn't in my savory meals, so it was really just cutting snacks and desserts) and helpful. My initial reaction -- since I felt happy and less moody -- was that sugar had been the problem, but I later realized the positive reaction was more about getting control of my diet finally and eating less. When I added sugar back in I did in extreme moderation -- I don't snack, but I don't worry if a condiment (like sriracha) has a bit of sugar, and I have occasional desserts (but make sure they are special). I find it's easy to moderate desserts if they are after a full dinner and nutrient-dense day and I'm not eating for emotional reasons. I also find that some of my preferred "sweets" aren't that sweet -- I recommend the 88% Chocolove, which is pretty low sugar -- but this has always been the case for me so maybe won't apply. (I HATED cold cereal as a kid and thought the sugar in milk thing was icky.)
Nonetheless, I would say I have a sweet tooth and enjoy plenty of desserts. (Oddly, my sister who was a sugar fiend as a kid no longer enjoys sweet foods at all.)I’ve noted my macros are far more balanced and I can eat more savoury food to make up for missing out on the calories, meaning I feel full for longer.
Lots of people include sugar in their diet and yet still have a balanced set of macros, whatever that means. Watching macros is separate from cutting sugar -- you could have been strict about your macros before. (I personally ignore macros and do limit added sugar, so not saying one is a better approach, I just find the idea that one must cut sugar to control macros to be odd.)Everything tastes different which means water is far more palatable than it was before and I now eat a low sugar breakfast cereal with no more than 7grams of sugar in it.
This was NOT my experience, cutting sugar made no effect on my tastes, and I can't even understand how one could find water not palatable.
If you still have 7 g of sugar in your breakfast cereal, isn't that added sugar? Just confused since I thought you said you cut it out.Today it took me 20 minutes to find where the local supermarket had hidden the dried fruit.
Dried fruit is super easy to find in every supermarket I've been to, although you need to read the labels, some may have added sugar (I just finally found some dried cranberries without it, although I use them in ingredients as they are TART on their own).
Anyway, for me the goal was cutting out snacking -- finding snacks without added sugar was always pretty easy (favorite snacks of mine include fruit, baba ganoush and veg, a pickle, plain greek yogurt, maybe with some fruit, cottage cheese, and good real cheese, as well as, of course, nuts, but I control calories better just eating at meals).
Anyway, it sounds like FOR YOU cutting back on sugar was an important thing to do and maybe cutting out added sugar is a goal that will be helpful if you decide it is. I don't think that has anything to do with addiction, but if you think people are saying "keep eating crazy amounts of sugar" or even "eat added sugar even if you feel better not doing so," I think you are misunderstanding. I personally do better saving sweets for special occasions.10 -
sexymamadraeger wrote: »DONT go to the waffle house once a week! You'll crave sugar for days afterwards.
I think this is funny, since the hardest time I had when ketoing was when I was stuck driving around rural Mississippi all day and couldn't find a thing acceptable to eat in any possible place to stop (I don't do pork rinds, as that would have worked). But then I finally happened upon a Waffle House and got eggs and bacon for dinner and it seemed keto-friendly. I guess no harm now if there was something weird and sugary in their eggs and bacon, but there were no noticeable negative effects.10 -
Good work Mandy! I love hearing stories like this, they are so encouraging. And since our brain's see sugar as a reward, I can imagine it would be awful trying to break that cycle.28
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sugar sandwiches is a new one to me.... yuck
sugar like everything if its taken in moderation is absolutely fine.6 -
Congratulations on your success sticking to your goals! While I do not believe "sugar is the enemy" it does sound like you were largely forgoing other nutrients in order to fit the sugar into your calories for the day. I'm all for saving a couple hundred calories for a daily snack, but not to the point that you lose track of general health. I hope this experiment helps you further improve on balance within your diet to make the healthiest version of yourself while still enjoying your meals.
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I find this story incredibly inspiring. Thank you for sharing it.9
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Addiction, or compulsion to overeat certain foods? I am certainly not qualified to judge anyone else.
My mother made us sandwiches with sugar and butter also. We called them sugar babies. Especially good on homemade bread. Cinnamon sugar toast was also a pretty frequent breakfast for us, good dipped in hot chocolate. Also the sugar on cold, and hot, cereal. Not to mention Kool Aid, seriously, 2 cups of sugar per half gallon! I do love sweets, but would not consider them any more of an addiction than any other food I love. Cutting back on all calories and allowing moderation of all foods is what works for me. I guess I am "addicted" to all foods, cuz I sure love to eat. I understand the concept, and am willing to give those that think they are addicted the benefit of the doubt, as I can only truly speak for myself.
BTW, as others here have stated, dried fruits often have added sugar, so watch labels. In our grocery stores around here, they are in the baking sections. I can't say that I have ever noticed dried fruits in convenience stores, but most have fresh fruit choices such as, bananas, apples, oranges and often pears.
Good luck to all that give up sugar! For me, what I am hoping will work for the long term is, all foods in moderation, and portion control. I could never give up cookies, cake, pies, pastry, candy, or any other food for the long term. Sugary drinks and juice I gave up with no problem at all. Chewing my calories is my thing.6 -
Very well done indeed. You are amazing.
I find that the more sugar I have in my diet, the hungrier I feel, and I want double the sugar next time, and so on.
I have been upping my natural foods, and the sugar crave has significantly reduced. I am wary of having a 'treat' since this tends to start the whole vicious circle again....
I am inspired by your post. Thank you.8 -
mandy_godfree wrote: »I was brought up on sugar. Not fizzy drinks and sweets, but my Mum made us sugar sandwiches when there was nothing else in the house, we always had puddings in the evening, and at least a dessert spoon of sugar on our cereal in the morning. My Dad even puts sugar in his peas when he cooks them.
Wow - I totally forgot about "sugar sandwiches." We didn't name it as such but toast with melted margarine and sugar (sometimes cinnamon, too) was a staple for breakfast and sometime snacks in my household. Six children, tight budget - well, there were lots of pretty unhealthy things we ate. Glad this breakfast tradition has not been passed on to my children and grandchildren.
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We, at least, used brown sugar and cinnamon on our toast. Never had it with white sugar.1
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Tacklewasher wrote: »We, at least, used brown sugar and cinnamon on our toast. Never had it with white sugar.
We used white sugar, but with (of course) cinnamon, and lots of butter. Did it in the broiler (on a slice of whole wheat bread, since that's what we had, heh). It was an occasional snack, and did no harm. Wouldn't have substituted for a meal, and probably not even a huge number of calories.
The butter was an essential part of it, as was the cinnamon. Sugar sandwich seems to convey sugar between two pieces of bread, nothing else, which sounds disgusting to me, but cinnamon toast was tasty.4 -
This thread has made me want Fairy Bread. (one of the best Australian kids party foods in existence)8
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lemurcat12 wrote: »Tacklewasher wrote: »We, at least, used brown sugar and cinnamon on our toast. Never had it with white sugar.
We used white sugar, but with (of course) cinnamon, and lots of butter. Did it in the broiler (on a slice of whole wheat bread, since that's what we had, heh). It was an occasional snack, and did no harm. Wouldn't have substituted for a meal, and probably not even a huge number of calories.
The butter was an essential part of it, as was the cinnamon. Sugar sandwich seems to convey sugar between two pieces of bread, nothing else, which sounds disgusting to me, but cinnamon toast was tasty.
Yea, the sugar would fall off without some yummy butter slathered on the bread. Maybe the OP means more along the lines of a fat and sugar sandwich. When I made this as a kid, my sister and I were latchkey kids and left to our own devices, would make them open face. LOL4 -
Are there other foods or food components that we'd feel a lack of if we just cut them out completely? Caffeine comes to mind, but I'm sure there'd be physical and other symptoms if we just went 0 protein one day, or 0 fibre. Does that mean those things are bad?4
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I was brought up on mayonnaise sandwiches. Two peaces of wonder bread with nothing but mayo inside.1
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MelanieCN77 wrote: »Are there other foods or food components that we'd feel a lack of if we just cut them out completely? Caffeine comes to mind, but I'm sure there'd be physical and other symptoms if we just went 0 protein one day, or 0 fibre. Does that mean those things are bad?
Good point: I've gone zero fiber and zero protein for a single day, and felt terrible.
(Clear liquid diet for colonoscopy prep, and there are no vegetarian clear liquids that I know of that have protein. And I mean the part of the prep before the drugs: That's a different kind of "feel terrible". Granted, what I did drink was pretty much just sugar in water, but the "feel terrible" wasn't the symptoms of sugar "overdose" as reported by true believers, either. Might have been underfueling, though.
)
Seriously: I take your point, but cutting back protein or fiber to zero would likely have permanent bad consequences, whereas the consequences of sharply reducing sugar do seem to be temporary. I don't know of anyone who's taken all sugars all the way to literal zero, either. (Not saying no such person exists.)6 -
Sugar is one of the components studied and optimized by the food industry to achieve the “bliss point” for the majority of people. The food industry employs scientists to find the ideal balance of fat, sugar and salt to appeal to most consumers, as well as to determine texture, mouth feel, ease of swallowing, etc. Dr. David Kessler (former head of the FDA) wrote a book about “hyper-palatability” of foods designed to tap into the brain’s reward system and how this can lead to overeating. More recently, NYT reporter Michael Moss wrote the book “Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us.” Sugars in candy bars, purchased cookies, etc. are part of what truly can be called a formula scientifically designed to be addictive. Here are a few links, if you’d like to read more:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/23/health/23well.html (How the Food Makers Captured Our Brains)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/26/AR2009042602711.html (David Kessler: Fat, Salt and Sugar Alter Brain Chemistry, Make Us Eat Junk Food)
https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=106470909 (transcript of interview with David Kessler, as well as Gail Civille, who, as president of Sensory Spectrum, studied what characteristics make people crave food)
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/magazine/the-extraordinary-science-of-junk-food.html (on Salt Sugar Fat by Moss)
So they figured out the right combination of ingredients to make their food taste good so people would buy more of it and they could make money? That's kind of how business works.
I agree. People blame the food manufacturers for making them want to eat their food. I wonder how long they would stay in business if they made their food taste...nasty. Nothing worse than a doughnut without sugar in it.
There are healthier options out there if people are concerned...they just have a tendency to not taste as great.
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Tiny_Dancer_in_Pink wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »Tacklewasher wrote: »We, at least, used brown sugar and cinnamon on our toast. Never had it with white sugar.
We used white sugar, but with (of course) cinnamon, and lots of butter. Did it in the broiler (on a slice of whole wheat bread, since that's what we had, heh). It was an occasional snack, and did no harm. Wouldn't have substituted for a meal, and probably not even a huge number of calories.
The butter was an essential part of it, as was the cinnamon. Sugar sandwich seems to convey sugar between two pieces of bread, nothing else, which sounds disgusting to me, but cinnamon toast was tasty.
Yea, the sugar would fall off without some yummy butter slathered on the bread. Maybe the OP means more along the lines of a fat and sugar sandwich. When I made this as a kid, my sister and I were latchkey kids and left to our own devices, would make them open face. LOL
Yeah, definitely have to be open face, which is one reason I think toast is a better name for them than sandwich.5 -
I guess i will be having a sugar sandwich tonight just to see what all the fuss is about.8
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I still eat peanut butter brown sugar sandwiches now and then. Yum. 4
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100_PROOF_ wrote: »Tiny_Dancer_in_Pink wrote: »Which dried fruits?
The Dried fruit that is made up of................sugar ! Lol
Fruit sugar (fructose) is "sugar" fyi. Dried fruit is concentrated fruit sugar and weighs per gram than does the fruit it came from. Eat the actual fruit if you want to cut down on your simple carb ("sugar intake") intake.9
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