Starting over... this time I have no choice.

Welcome to MFP! You can do this!

Welcome to MFP! Wishing you all the best on your weight loss journey.

I am with snowflake, where she says that it's an unlikely scenario that you wont have sugary sweets to contend with.

While not everyone will, the common theme with people during new weight loss is their unnerving commitment to their goal. Its powerful and during the first little while it helps to achieve all the goals they set for themselves. No junk, no take out, no carbs.. etc, everyone has a thing that they feel controls their life.

But then you also see posts like...

"I was doing so good not eating anything and then I lost all control and just ate everything at this party"

Devastated by their behavior they fear they have ruined their progress made and while some can bounce back emotionally, there are also people who struggle with it and may end up punishing themselves or quitting.

It can also be hard at first when starting a new diet to use your current eating habits as the foundation for your new ones.

After all... it's why you're here, right?

But what makes weight loss, in the long term simpler, is staying true to who you are and what you enjoy. The skills learned in weight loss arent about choosing salad over a cheeseburger, it's about small changes to make that cheeseburger fit into your new lifestyle. And sometimes it takes minimal changes to make a big impact. A reduction in portion size and cooking methods are usually the things to make a huge difference

But the same goes for sweets.

You want to become the person who CAN be the person to eat 1 cookie and be done.

Avoiding them doesnt teach that, just like walking by a messy room and closing the door doesnt make it clean.

Practice makes perfect. There is always ways to create a situation where you can safely with support learn to eat a cookie and stop.

That situation could be going to a store with your husband, buying 1 single serve treat and going for a walk in the neighborhood or just out for a sit on a bench somewhere and enjoying that treat.

You worked it into your calories. You can go home and there is no more there. Your brain may scream "more more more" but this Is where the skills come into play, where you find ways to cope and pass through that urge.

The more you teach yourself to do this, the easier those future scenarios will be to not go wild and regret it the next day.

And you may choose to never bring treats home in stocked amounts, and that's fine, but birthdays, weddings, funerals, retirement parties, baby showers, those things will still exist.

juleechristine wrote: »

I'm loving how many people in this thread think it's absolutely necessary for me to eat junk food. 😂😂 Thanks for telling me that my body's reaction to sugar is incorrect.

I don't think it's necessary for you to eat "junk food." Depending on what you mean by it -- I suppose I'd include anything lower nutrient per cal to be consistent, so things like cheese would be included, and I do eat cheese -- I rarely do. I'm not that into sugary sweets lately (I did eat ice cream and dark chocolate when losing weight and pie or the like at holidays), never ate much fast food, none of that played a role in my weight gain. But I absolutely think that cutting out foods that are troublesome for you to control can be a better strategy for some (whether temporary or permanent). You know yourself so can make that call for yourself. Some find not eating it ever an easy hard and fast rule, whereas some want it more if it's off-limits or find cutting it out makes them fall into an all or nothing pattern if they do happen to have some.

I don't really care about the addiction question, as I think food issues can be similar to addiction, but I do think it's worth noting that food/eating issues may be food specific for particular people, but there is no evidence that sugar is inherently addictive in a way that other foods (commonly a combination of fat, starchy carbs, and salt, for one example) cannot be. In fact, one study suggested that on average pizza tended to be the highest scoring on the addictiveness tests (and NOT because of the sugar in the tomato sauce).

Also, sugar is in a LOT of foods (most especially fruit, also veg) that most people who struggle with sweets don't struggle with, so I don't think that really fits with sugar itself being the issue (rather than tasty treats that also happen to be sweet in taste and often also have lots of fat -- my saved chocolate chip recipe has a lot more cals from butter than sugar, for example).

But it really does't matter. I do hope you haven't decided you must avoid all foods with sugar because of the "addictive substance" model, though, as most -- not all, I'm sure -- people who struggle with control of sweet treats are far more likely to also struggle with something like potato chips or fries (with no sugar) than with fruit and certainly than with veg.

Anyway, good luck, and definitely use your instincts and self-knowledge in figuring out what strategies will work for you. If you have had a poor diet with lots of junk food (however you are defining that), it might work to simply cut that out and focus more on nutrient dense foods, although many of us here actually managed to gain eating a nutrient dense diet so are biased somewhat in favor of the educational and helpful aspects of logging and counting cals. But I know that's not for everyone, so respect that you are trying something else.

juleechristine wrote: »

I'm loving how many people in this thread think it's absolutely necessary for me to eat junk food. 😂😂 Thanks for telling me that my body's reaction to sugar is incorrect.
As far as research, there are studies that show a dopamine and nucleus accumbens reaction to sugar - the same as drug addiction. I did a whole literature review research paper on it when I was studying Neuroscience. When I am back to my laptop I will happily post the data.

Not sure where got this idea. Reading through, i didn't see anyone telling you that and, in fact, people commending you for recognizing sugar can be an issue for you.

As far as your point about dopamine, that is what I was referring to when I mentioned petting puppies and getting hugs. While sugar does activate the pleasure pathway in the brain, it is not the same at all as the very real physical addiction that comes with drugs, nicotine or alcohol. Honestly, it is a little minimizing and disrespectful to people that have real "addictions" to compare sugar to it.

Craving for sugar is a psychological dependency with a mild physical component. True addiction is a physical addiction with a full psychological component. Similar but different. Those are the facts demonstrated by science.

That being said, if it works for you to view it as an addiction and you achieve your goals, power to you. The important thing is we recognize what does or doesn't work for us as individuals and find our own game plan to better health.