SUGAR!!!

Again, had you worded your post sugar habits and wanting to reduce consumption and address triggers ( you don't have to divulge what exactly triggers you) then nobody would be objecting.

It is the incorrect idea of addiction and the inaccurate claims of your doctor ( or perhaps your misunderstanding of what the doctor said, we don't know) that people are objecting to.
And perhaps your defensive attitude.

Switch to a low carb, high fat diet and you will lose the cravings. Give it a couple of weeks to kick in and see for yourself. You can always go back if it's not for you.

Sorry if you feel you won't be posting again because people have tried to a- educate you based on what you said in the OP and some other posts, and b- provide other alternatives based on those posts. You did get defensive, and they did get a little condensing. It really does all come down to wording. If someone is looking for support, strictly, verbiage isn't as important. If someone is looking for advice or education on something, verbiage IS important.

That's all anyone is trying to say. Once your point was made more clearly, people were able to provide the advice you were seeking. I would suggest taking this as a forum education moment (since you said you've not posted on here before) and move on.

Continue to post, because this community is filled with more helpful advice and support from educated, knowledgeable people than I have ever come across. If a person is looking to make a change that will last their lifetime, not just the next month, then education and proper nutrition is incredibly important. All anyone wants here is to see people succeed.

and for drinking sugar, I started as a ridiculous coffee drinker. It was glorified sugar water with a little caffeine. I started subbing flavored syrups (sf vanilla, low sugar chocolate, etc) to cut my creamer. Eventually made the switch to a latte for more milk and flavor, no sugar added, no creamer. It took a while, but it was a concerted effort to control the amount of sugar I was drinking. No tricks, just, picking at it over time.

First, I just wanted to say that I'm sorry you got hit with some of these assumptions about who you are, why you feel the way you do, what your emotional state is and how it's affecting your sugar cravings, etc...

Nobody here knows anything but their own experience and that of their friends, and your experience is not necessarily theirs.

I don't know about your own sugar cravings, just mine. And I did manage to quit, so I'll share, in case it helps.

I REALLY started increasing my own sugar intake when I was in high school, and it stayed high for a long time. I felt like it was bad for me - NOT because it's a trend (as some seem to say here when they hear the 'sugar is bad for me' statements), but because I, personally, physically FEEL like sugar is not so great for me. And I would try to keep it low, over and over, and then go right back to high sugar intake, for years.

I tried low carb. I tried eating only non-cane sugar sweeteners. I went to only honey. I went to 'no added sugar' in products but using honey and sweeteners on my own. I tried having a little 'hit' of sweet, like a tiny hard candy, to try and take care of the cravings. Literally nothing worked for me.

I know it DOES work for some people, sometimes, but it did not work for me. :-/

I kind of had a breakthrough that helped me when two things happened close together. One, I found out my mother and HER mother both had the same thing, so I figured it was something that wasn't 'just me.'

Two, I found animal studies that showed that, in fact, sugar can be treated as an addictive substance in the body. Not all the time, but more often in animals who consumed higher amounts of sugar, the brain can start to respond to a hit of sugar kind of like they react to a hit of morphine. And they have withdrawal from it too.

It hasn't been studied that way in humans yet, but considering when I tried to stop having sugar I would dream about it, think about it ALL day (literally all day, even in the middle of work I would want the taste), want a sweet taste even if I was nauseated and wanted nothing else to do with food? I figured that addiction might be the way to view it for myself.

So the way I managed to stop craving sugar was, basically, to stop having ANY added sweetener. At all. Not pre-packaged food that had it, not syrups, not honey, nada. And for the first two weeks, it was pretty much awful. I would crave sweet tastes SO BADLY. Like, headaches and brain fog badly. I was miserable and sick feeling and...seriously it was bad.

But after the first two weeks, the cravings would slowly just fade away. Until I didn't really want sweets anymore, not in a way that was a huge craving, anyway.

And then a few times now, I have been free from added sugar and concentrated sugar and would be out somewhere, and offered a dessert, and think: what would it hurt?

And it was basically like an addict taking a hit, because after one dessert, the sugar craving was back, instantly, and all I could think of was the taste of it, and I had to go through another two-three weeks of craving hell. But I went back 'on the wagon' usually after a few months of giving in and having every sweet thing in the world, essentially.

I am off of sugar again right now. I CAN sometimes have honey, but if I do, I have to fight cravings for a day or so. I have noticed that if I have a lot of carbs, it can sometimes trigger lower level cravings as well.


I do not know if your craving for sugar is at this level - I've met a few others now who have had similar experiences so I know I'm not the only one. I just wanted to share this because many people advocate, and successfully follow, the practice of sweets in moderation. But like most things, it doesn't work for everyone.

So if, on whatever process you choose, you are still having trouble, I put this out there as a possibility. Admittedly, it's a process that is, well, not fun. But I DO feel tremendously better off of sugar, like hugely better. I just have to cook a lot more and do sometimes miss fun desserts. I think it has been worth the extra effort, for me, though. :-)

shaumom wrote: »

Hugs! And glad I shared. That sounds very similar, yes!

If it helps, for going cold turkey, here is what I do now, after having a number of failures under my belt.

First, I literally right now (seriously, I have had to re-do this far more times than I should have, sigh) treat my 'dropping all the sugar' diet as a kind of, hmmm, an illness that I know is coming. Because I really DO feel pretty awful, have brain fog, headaches sometimes, general body aches sometimes. It can just feel super crummy.

And with the crumminess, it's even HARDER to make safe food, to stay on the diet and resist going to sugar, because sugar made things feel better, you know?

So now, I try to pick a time where there's not so much stress, if possible. Like, if you have a serious deadline at work, or any family drama that you know will be done soon, it can be helpful to hold off on the diet change until that's done, because mentally, it's just so much tougher coping with lots of stress AND mental/emotional stress from the diet, know what I mean?

I try to make sure I am snacking constantly, as being hungry tends to make my cravings worse - for folks I've talked to, it just seems that knowing what makes your cravings worse, and trying to mitigate it, can help a lot if trying to avoid sugar. One gal I knew had worse cravings when she had too little sleep, so she was really conscientious about that when she was trying to avoid sugar.

And I also make 2-3 weeks worth of meals to eat and freeze them, to just defrost and eat. Then I plan out fruit, veggie, nut/seed, or other snacks that I can have in between meals, and prep them as much as possible, or pick ones like bananas that need no prep.

That way, I don't worry about not having the energy to cook anything, because it is already made. And when I was going off of sugar, for the level I went to...holy cow was there a lot of cooking. Because cereal, bread, and crackers had added sugar. And all the sauces and lots of condiments had added sugar. And most canned goods had added sugar, and many varieties of chips, and so on and so forth.

Oh, and another thing that helped was if I could find a recipe or two that I love, and make sure that was in my meal plan a LOT during my 'go off sugar' phase. Just emotionally, I found that very helpful to have that little bit of comfort food, you know?

Wish you good luck, and let us know if it helps you! :-)

It sounds like you’ve tried repeatedly to give up added sugar and it hasn’t worked for you, have you considered that this might not be a long term sustainable approach for you, and looked for other alternatives?