How to break Sugar addiction

You need to challenge yourself big time. I mean, go really big. F these 1-week challenges or even 1-month challenges. Try a 6-month or 1-year challenge. Here's how I do it:

1) Write out the challenge. Be specific (never, once a week, once a month, what exact foods, etc.). It's also good to define things that are acceptable. (Strawberries with whipped cream, or something.)

2) Write your reasons for doing the challenge. Are there negative consequences of this behavior? Again, look for specific reasons you want to change your behavior.

3) Discuss it with people you live or interact with. Enlist a friend, if you can.

4) Pick a start date. Leave some time so you can visualize.

5) Print, sign, and date the contract. Post somewhere you will see it daily. (But maybe out of the public eye.)

6) When the date comes, do it and don't wimp out. If you can do the above steps with a good conscience, this should be no problem.

I too love chocolate cake. I don't have it but rarely (some foods are all-the-time, some are sometimes, and some are...rarely). Just for special events. True special events, not because I went to the grocery store, or the break room table has some in hand's reach.

I figured out that, texturally, I love the feeling of sweet & cold on my tongue. Mint chocolate and salted caramel chocolate satisfy this textural craving (and sugar craving, tbh). So I keep bars of those around and break off a square or two a day. Sometimes, though that craving is satisfied with grapes or strawberries or even a hard-boiled egg or cucumber slices (because they're cold).

You'll have to work out what craving you are trying to satisfy. Or maybe it's just a habit to break? Make it harder for yourself to grab cake, and easier to grab a chocolate square.

We are the same height. I weigh around 142-143 lbs and I have chocolate everyday. I know it's hard to believe, but it is true that you can have your favorite snacks DAILY as long as you make it work. For me, I have a chocolate ice cream sandwich every night before bed. Keeps me satisfied until the weekend where I tend to indulge a little more. There is no need to cut out all sugar. In my experience, it is not sustainable long term and most importantly, its not fun.

adchak wrote: »

Pl help!!!
I am 5 ft 7 inches, 184 lbs and have lost 20 lbs last year. However my sugar addiction keeps gettg in the way as I make progress. My goal wt is 150 lbs and Im tryg to lose this slowly.
I go abt 7-10 days without sugar and them when I have it , it triggers me to have sugar again and again. Before you know Ive had a big choc cake for dessert 3-4 days in a row. I do 5:2 intermittent fasting to balance things out. I really need help to keep my addiction under control.
Should I eat a piece of dark choc everyday? What has helped ppl to break the addictiom? Would love to get some tips

From what I've seen, it's pretty individual what will work. I think the two questions to answer are this:
1. How is your craving for sweets satisfied? With a little or a lot of sweets? How quickly do you crave sweets again AFTER it is satisfied?

2. How bad is your craving? Is it this overwhelming urge that hits you very frequently, a strong urge when you eat, a minor urge a few times a day, what?

The reason this is important is because everyone has heard the term 'sugar craving' but the term is, well, kind of like the term 'pain.' I can say someone who had a nail ripped off is in pain, and that someone who had an arm ripped off is in pain - both are true, but the definition of pain in the two cases is vastly different.

And that is true for sugar cravings, too.

For folks where the craving is mild, is fairly easily satisfied with a little sweet, and/or is infrequent, then sweets in moderation seem like a great idea. A hard candy every once in a while, for example, or a tiny slice of cake every once in a while, works well to satisfy the craving.

For folks where the craving is intense, is not satisfied for long with a little sweet, is not satisfied without a lot of sweet, and/or is very frequent, sweets in moderation may do jack all to help. They will, instead, be more likely to spiral out of control because satisfying the craving takes very frequent doses of and/or very large amounts of sweets.

And with that latter, moderation is not the key, because it just isn't sustainable. It is a bit like an addiction (and animal studies have shown that some bodies treat sugar about like morphine after a certain point, including withdrawal, so it's not out of the realm of possibility), and the only solution when that happens seems to be about like with other addictions: drop it cold turkey, and stay off of it, because having it again just starts the whole cycle over again.


I have the 'bad' craving type. Craving sugar when I first go off of it is something that is there 24/7. It is like a pressure in my throat and my stomach, that makes it so all I think about is something sweet, constantly. I will literally dream about it every night, I will wake up wanting the taste of something sweet, and it just doesn't freaking stop. Even when I GET something sweet, I still want more very quickly - I've eaten so much I want to throw up, and I STILL want something sweet.

IF, however, I can manage 2-3 weeks without sugar...the craving goes away (fully without sugar, not even foods with added sugar, like cereal). I mean it completely dies, and I don't want it anymore. Not a problem at all. in fact, sweet tastes are only a mild interest at that point - I will scarf veggies up by the ton but eat almost no fruit, even.

If I screw up and have something sweet though, with sugar (not fruit), then the craving is back, full bore, instantly, and I have to go through it all over again. I have done this a few times in my life, because I keep thinking that 'maybe this time it'll be different,' as it's a pain to avoid sugar in the diet in terms of making your food vs. buying pre-made food. But I always have to go back to full avoidance to deal with sugar.

And I would just add, for context, that my own experience of craving sugar is the absolutely worst craving for foods I've had, bar none. And I say that as someone who, in the course of a few weeks, had a disorder go out of control for over 8 months so my diet dropped down to less than 10 foods. I couldn't even have herbs at that point, and still, the one thing I wanted was sugar, for those first few weeks, until that urge passed, too.

After that, I wanted herbs and spices, I missed bread, I missed veggies, I wanted other foods, but didn't dream about other foods, I didn't crave them constantly, not even in the first few weeks I dropped them. I would just think of them sometimes, like at mealtimes when I was eating.

That type of craving? I can see where a little moderation, a little taste sometime, would work.
But if the craving is much more severe, I just think it may need a more severe solution, as well. At least in my own experience.

One last thing - IF you wanted to drop cold turkey, here's what has helped me when I had to fight through the first few weeks.
1. I came up with some of my favorite foods/recipes, to make for the first month I was going off of sugar, so I had foods I could look forward too.
2. I had a lot of snacks that I made so I could eat something, immediately, when i was feeling the least bit peckish OR sometimes to eat when I wanted to eat sugar instead.
3. I had more carbs, and did NOT try to worry so much about calories. Because we've got a finite level of willpower - I can use it to fight off the sugar cravings, or I can use it to diet, but doing both at the same time tends to lead to failure in one or the other. The sugar cravings are typically gone in 2-4 weeks, in people I know who go cold turkey, and then calorie watching will be SO much easier, you know?

Whatever way you choose to go, wish you good luck, and hope it works out for you. :-)