Tips for sugar addiction?

So some ideas without getting sidetracked into the "addiction" word and what it means (a common debate around here, but one that we usually put in Debate and which I don't think you are asking for!). ;-)

If you want to treat it with a cut it out model, you actually could cut out sweet dessert type foods or even added sugar (I did the latter for a while, although I don't think it is actually all that useful other than as a fun experiment). Of course, you will still have sugar in your diet (your body will make it from starches also), but generally people are more having issues controlling tasty foods or foods they find comforting, and for some the foods they most crave or have trouble controlling are sweet ones (plenty of us others have similar issues with non sweet foods, of course).

If you don't want to cut out sweet dessert type foods, which I would totally understand, you might try a couple of things, depending on your specific issues with control:

(1) if you are someone who tends to see eating well as some thing that is on or off and thus generally thinks eating something sweet is a bad thing or a failure or ruins the day or the diet, trying to work on that attitude could help a lot. In my own experience, that kind of thinking tended to mean that if I ate off of my general planned way of eating would trigger a "well, the day is ruined, might as well go nuts" kind of response. Others may have the idea that they blew it but will quit donuts or cookies or whatever it is after tomorrow, so should eat it all up right now, last chance and all. Again, you can see how that would make control more difficult. For me it was much easier to say "I will have this much today, but if I want more, I will be able to have it tomorrow."

(2) Some of us find structure and personal rules to be very helpful. When I was losing, the rules included not going over my planned cals for the day, and I was pretty stringent about that. So if I had ice cream (as I often did after dinner), I could have whatever fit in my cals. When you eat might matter too -- for me eating something I had trouble with controlling when hungry or early in the day often made portion control more difficult, whereas having a small dessert after dinner was pretty easy to control.

(3) Meal planning -- this is really a subset of (2), but for me control is often made more difficult by not having a plan (not sure what to eat, oh, this snacky food is easy and doesn't require cooking) or not having a system in place to prevent mindless eating -- for me snacking is something that I find both unsatisfying (it doesn't make me feel satisfied like a real meal does and having smaller meals available because I used the cals on snacks compounds that), so when I stopped grabbing a few peanut M&Ms a as a snack, mindlessly, and then went back and back and back, but instead scheduled in a dessert after dinner, it was much easier to control (especially if I logged it when first starting out). Similarly, I think lots of people have weird ideas that they should be able to just eat out of a pint or bag or whatever and stop when full. My mind doesn't work like that, but if I choose a sensible portion and put the rest away or make it mentally off limits, that can make it so very much easier to control myself.

Finally, (4) if you don't want to cut out desserts forever but find you struggle to control them because of the emotional or comfort element -- it is what you gravitate to when having a bad day or whatever -- then sometimes taking a break with the understanding that once you break the habit and work on other coping mechanisms you will add them back in can help. I found taking a break and really examining why I was wanting to eat at different times/craving certain foods to be very helpful for me (this was combined with eating only at meals although I am sure one could do it with any eating pattern that you prefer).

Anyway, just a few thoughts.