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How I overcame my addiction to sugar
- richrichie 2y agoSugar is everywhere, cheap, legal and culturally important (birthday parties, weddings, farewell parties, etc). Very difficult to create isolation environment, unless one goes full Ted Kaczynski. I don’t want to discourage the author, but i am old, so yeah been there, done that. But avoiding sugar like its evil is not healthy. Nor is it sustainable. It appears that the author is probably young and single. That may help with this regimen. However, it is best to adopt a less extreme strategy for stress free happiness.
- strken 2y agoIt's pretty easy to avoid large quantities of refined or concentrated sugar on most days of your life, and that's the part that would be a big improvement to every diet that doesn't belong to an athlete.
- FredPret 2y agoSugar is indeed ubiquitous but there’s an increasing number of people who regard it as poison, so it’s actually becoming more and more feasible (depending on what circles you’re in).
- Xenoamorphous 2y ago> Sugar is everywhere, cheap, legal and culturally important (birthday parties, weddings, farewell parties, etc). Those should all be rare occasions.
- okr 2y agoIn a social environment these things are not rare. I wish. But ppl dont stop having these birthdays distributed all over the year. :)
- alanbernstein 2y agoNot rare at all for an average family with kids.
- swiftcoder 2y agoYou don't work in a very big office before there is birthday cake in the break room on the regular. Or the Girl Scout cookies someone's parents are desperately trying to get rid of. Or the left-over pastries from that executive meeting. Or your manager brought in a box of donuts to "boost morale"... Dieting in an office setting is often quite difficult
- m000 2y agoOne more reason for people not wanting to return to the office I guess.
- itomato 2y agoI think a big piece is that accepting it as culturally important is not healthy or sustainable. You're not a victim of evil, you're just a product of that unmotivated culture.
- richrichie 2y agoEating a slice of cake with coffee with your partner or friend or coworkers, enjoying a bowl of ice-cream with your children are important to a life well lived. Of course, standard disclaimers apply i.e. eat good quality cakes and ice cream, etc.
- yellow_postit 2y agoMichael Pollan’s : “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” continues to be a useful way for me to look at food X life.
- marginalia_nu 2y agoLow carb has been around for a while, enough that people are aware it's a thing, and it's not that hard to pass up on the celebratory sugar, if you want just say it's for a medical condition and don't elaborate further and people will generally respect that. You aren't really telling us why this is unhealthy and unsustainable and stressful. In my experience avoiding sugar in the past, it's anything but.
- oarfish 2y agoTo avoid sugar might not be impractical, but to avoid carbs altogether and go full keto? Very difficult for many, and would probably reduce my enjoyment of life quite a bit.
- marginalia_nu 2y agoA smoker will say the same thing, smoking is a very pleasurable thing after all, the first hit in the morning can be almost orgasmic and if you go pack a day you get some of that sense of well-being more than once an hour. It really takes the edge off things. Yet it's quite possible to enjoy life without nicotine, as it is possible to enjoy life without high-carb foods.
- m000 2y ago> Very difficult to create isolation environment If you eat at home, it's actually pretty easy: Just go to the supermarket with a full belly. It's amazing how disciplined one can be in their groceries shopping when they shop with a full stomach. When, eventually, your fridge and pantry aren't stocked with sugary junk, it's a change of environment! After that, it's pretty much out of sight, out of mind. The ocassional indulgence at a social event is not the end of the world. The real problem is that many city people don't really plan their groceries, but just open doordash/flink/gorillas/whatever when they are already hungry and tired. No good choices are going to come from that habit.
- stavros 2y agoI've decided that I won't eat anything sweet from a supermarket. It keeps all the low-hanging sugar away (chocolates, cakes, donuts, etc) while still leaving me able to enjoy a nice dessert at a restaurant, or similar rare occasions.
- simplicio 2y agoYea, hadn't realized this till I had kids. People are basically constantly throwing sweets at them, and while Im not super-strict about regulating sugar, if I let them eat all the candy they were offered, it'd basically be all their calories in a given day.
- k__ 2y agoIt's nefarious! Especially if you have a dopamin deficiency (ADHD, etc.) and you eat so you aren't bored. I can eat 500g of m&ms in one sitting, no problem, and I'm not even overweight or something.
- funkydata 2y agoSame here, m&m's are nefarious indeed.
- will1am 2y agoI think M&M's particularly tricky to cut down
- alamortsubite 2y agoCut them with peanuts and raisins.
- atlasy1 2y ago[dead]
- Galatians4_16 2y agoSwitch to nuts, but be sure to pair with citrus, to offset the oxalates, or you'll get kidney stones. Food cravings often reflect mineral cravings (1) 1. https://dailyhealthpost.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/21-food-cravings-fb.jpg https://dailyhealthpost.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/21-fo...
- Bognar 2y agoThat image looks like unscientific nonsense. Craving sugar means I need carbon? Carbon is the building block of every organic chemical, and elemental carbon has very little use in the body. It's near meaningless to say you need carbon. The answer is fortunately simpler, craving sugar probably means your blood sugar is low, or that it crashed after a spike. Counterintuitively, people can avoid this by eating things with less sugar overall or with complex sugars. Requiring the body to break complex sugars down into simple sugars takes time, which keeps your blood sugar from spiking too high.
- breck 2y agoI'm 254 days into switching to a ketogenic diet (complete with at home instant ketone finger prick blood tests using the very affordable keto mojo), and can't believe I waited so long. I was roughly surfing sugar highs for 39 years. Would highly recommend looking into this if you are a sugar/carb addict like I was.
- waynenilsen 2y agoHow much protein can you eat before getting kicked out of ketosis?
- chollida1 2y agowhy would protein kick you out of ketosis, on Keto alot of people, especially athletes load up on as much protein as they can and use fat to get the rest of their calories.
- silverquiet 2y agoI was under the impression that the body can synthesize sugars if given enough protein.
- oarfish 2y agoI think you can make 150g or so of glucose (?) yourself, but whether thats enough might depend on what you are doing in life i think.
- xcskier56 2y agoMy biochem is a little rusty but basically your body can create glucose (carbs) from amino acids (proteins) in a process called gluconeogenesis. Because your body will preferentially use glucose over fat and ketones for fuel, it will prioritize this pathway and turn down/off the one that produces ketones... hence dropping you out of ketosis.
- 2y ago
- keepamovin 2y agoIs semaglutide to sugar what naltrexone is to opiates?
- infecto 2y agoHmmm I think it goes much further since semaglutide is showing promise and helping those with alcohol addiction.
- swiftcoder 2y agoIs alcohol dependencies all that different, chemically? Alcohol metabolises to sugar pretty damn well (at least till your liver gives up)
- Traubenfuchs 2y agoCompletely different. Alcohol works on the GABA receptors, just like common sleeping/anxiety/panic pills, the benzodiazepines and benzo-like medication/drugs. Both alcohol and benzo withdrawal is a nightmare and severe alcohol withdrawal is usually managed with benzos.
- zug_zug 2y agoI'm not sure I believed in sugar as an addiction at first. Then I tried this keto diet because I had seen my friend try it and he lost a lot of weight. And then I had this phenomenon that was so strong that I still remember it years later - I started having fantasies about soda/milkshakes in the middle of a workday. Like so intense/ongoing that the only thing I can compare them to is a teen's sexual fantasies. Mind you I wasn't even somebody who drank soda every day or week. I found some voice in the back of my head saying "We could literally go get a cherry coke in under 4 minutes, there's a CVS around the corner, or a root beer? Or a root beer float? Dr pepper? We could get two." I ended up drinking diet soda for a few weeks (which I normally find disgusting). Anyways after a certain point (3 months?) the cravings died and never came back the same way. Your mileage may vary.
- jiggawatts 2y agoSeveral others have mentioned that after cutting back on sugar, many foods taste overly sweet, but they're probably still eating way more than you do when you're on Keto. When I stopped Keto, entire categories of food become intolerably sweet. It was at least a year or two before I could eat a burger. They're basically a meat cake!
- ralferoo 2y agoMcDonalds is actually OK for Keto. The restaurant is built on the principle of trying to trick you to have carbs so you still feel hungry and buy more, but actually the meat on its own isn't terrible. A couple of double cheeseburgers without buns in a stack makes a good meal. If you're really after the burger feeling, get two mayo chicken burgers without mayo or buns and use the lightly battered chicken burger as your "bread" and in the middle have a double cheeseburger without buns. Fortunately this combo doesn't have the nickname in the UK as it does in the US, but I'm always a little self-conscious when I'm eating it, just in case anyone around does know and what they might think of me! Also, in the UK at least, 3 items from the saver menu costs roughly the same as a normal meal deal, is much more filling and obviously keto friendly.
- 2y ago
- alamortsubite 2y agoMy girlfriend works at a hospital, where ironically there's always a steady supply of sugary treats on hand. It's a crutch as they're constantly dealing with truly unpleasant situations, but ultimately very unhealthy. I wish they had something to kick them out of the cycle. Years ago, I pitched the idea of armbands for staff that pledged abstinence. It fell flat. I don't have a problem with sugar but probably only thanks to my weird environment and being extremely active.
- vouaobrasil 2y agoIt was fairly easy for me. After two weeks without foods with added sugar, I stopped craving it.
- ThinkBeat 2y agoTo compare it to heroin is a horrible trivialization of something that destroys a person and at time those around the person. I feel that to make this statement in any genuine way, the author should spend 6 months developing a serious addiction to heroin then attempt to get clean. I am blessed I have never done heroin and hopefully I never will. I have gone weeks without sugar and had a craving, some mild headaches and at times been a bit grumpier. That is not even a measurable fraction of trying to get sober from a heroin addiction.
- savanaly 2y agoThere are other axes of comparison than severity. I think it’s a comparison that well illustrates their point.
- rchaud 2y agoIt's a blog post, not a feature article in a national newspaper.
- graypegg 2y agoI’m glad I’m not the only one that feels off about that. I feel like heroin as the standard measure of “really bad addiction” is at least an unhelpful choice. I don’t think people walk away from an article like this thinking opiate addiction is any less horrible than they originally thought, but the usual refrain of “[porn|sugar|social media] is like heroin!” usually presented with a fMRI capture with circles on it, gives me pause. At best, it’s not communicating the actual effect of addiction on someone’s life, at worst it does trivialize it. To be fair to the author, this article doesn’t follow that usual refrain.
- wanderingstan 2y agoThe author did not imply that sugar addiction is anywhere as bad as heroin addiction. They observed a technique that was shown scientifically to be effective for the more serious addiction and decided to try it for their milder addiction. That’s just good reasoning, and it worked for them. > The main conclusion from the study is that a change of environment as radical as Vietnam’s during a war period compared to the US was critical for their recovery.
- cubefox 2y agoQuitting cold turkey after a change of environment (moving somewhere else) is a good tip not just for addiction, but for any change in habit. However, a more practical approach is to reduce the dosage slowly. That works especially well for sweet drinks. If you have a soda maker, you can slowly reduce the amount of syrup you use. After a while, your tolerance for sweetness goes down, so things that previously felt not sweet enough feel just right, and things that felt just right before will now feel overly sweet. This will then also help with reducing sweet food.
- will1am 2y agoGradual reduction is often more sustainable and manageable for most people. But for me that didn't work when I first started.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- 2Gkashmiri 2y agoi stopped drinking soft drinks out of spite for my siblings. now they taunt me but i dont feel any urge to drink regardless of how it takes. for me it tastes like sugar water
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y agoI love sugar water. On my new ADHD meds I finally managed to kick soda for a few weeks, but I think I'll limit myself to one can a week on Saturdays because I miss the feeling. It's the only drug I do and all my friends are stoners, so..
- hombre_fatal 2y agoWhy not just a sugar-free option like Coke Zero?
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y ago
- kzrdude 2y agoReplacement works for me. Replaced all added sugars stuff (drinks, ice cream, cookies) with fruit and the difference was very noticeable. Fruit also has its own kind of sugar, but my body runs differently on that compared with food with added sugar.
- ImHereToVote 2y agoPart of the sweetness in berries comes from other sweet compounds like Glycine for example.
- will1am 2y agoBerries are my salvation.
- sedatk 2y agoFructose (the sugar that comes from fruits) is more harmful than glucose though.
- gnz11 2y agoCome on, are you seriously implying fruit is somehow bad for you now?
- lambdaone 2y agoThe parent poster is right in that pure fructose is probably worse for you than an equivalent amount of pure sucrose. But the way that fructose is delivered to your body by digesting fruit - slowly, and in conjuction with other materials, in a way that we have evolved to tolerate - is entirely different from eating the pure chemical.
- gnz11 2y agoThe amount of fruit you’d have to consume to ingest unhealthy levels of fructose is astronomical. Worrying about whether fruit is unhealthy is most likely causing you more harm than the fructose in fruit. Don’t worry about eating fruit.
- ThinkBeat 2y agoAn interesting question is what behavior the author has developed as an alternative to sugar. If anything.
- Traubenfuchs 2y agoYou can eat whatever you want if you just work out seriously an hour a day. If you do that properly, gaining weight will become the challenge.
- xnx 2y agoAn hour of strenuous exercise might burn 800 calories. That can be undone in moments with one milkshake.
- alamortsubite 2y agoMilkshakes aren't the way to go. On long runs I bring ziplocks stuffed with marshmallows.
- keepamovin 2y agoI feel like this is an oversimplification. Exercise has compounding effects. That 1 hour of effort doesn't just burn 800, even if that's all that is used in 1 hour. The increase in metabolism ups your burn for the rest of the hours in the day (some at least, trailing off presumably). And any increase in BMR or muscle mass will keep that per hour calorie cost even higher.
- asoneth 2y agoI also find it challenging to put on weight when exercising, but to make this comment more accurate you may want to caveat that this is how your body responds to exercise. Many people appear to experience a commensurate increase in appetite after exercise such that they do not lose weight unless they also consciously restrict calories.
- Fricken 2y agoWith low intensity endurance training (cycling in zone 2) I find my appetite adjusts accordingly, and remains high for a period even if I'm not doing the exercise, and that's when I gain the weight. Resistance training (bouldering for me) seems to have little effect one way or the other. If I'm doing High intensity interval training (usually stair sprints) on a regular basis, it's hard to eat enough, my metabolism gets absolutely jacked.
- faramarz 2y agoA decade ago I got into intermitted fasting and forced myself to drink my coffee black at work. Going from a double-double (x2 cream, x2 sugar) at timmies to black. big change but the IF motivation for mental clarity, and increasing my metabolism worked out so well that I didn't mess with the regiment until recently adding oat milk to my coffee, or butter. its really about dealing down the dark coffee flavour. beyond the benefits, I find that my palette rejects anything too sweet now. my wife's family loves mangoes and its one of the first things they eat in the morning. I just can't. grapes, mangoes, lychee.. all way too sweet for my liking. if it comes to sweetening a summer lemonade for guests, real maple syrup over sugar and it really helps when your circle of friends are also on a similar kick. no one brings donuts to gatherings any more.
- Dolores12 2y agoAfter not eating sweet food for some time, i noticed usual food like milk becomes sweet. And mango is just not palatable. Too much sugar, for no benefit.
- throwaway7ahgb 2y agoOne little tip for people trying to move to black coffee from milk and/or sugar: Try to find a good light roast, not dark or medium. Light roasts are usually less bitter which is why milk is sometimes added to cut the bitterness. Coffee preferences are very subjective, this is what worked for me, YMMMV.
- alargemoose 2y agoOn the same note, also try Cold brewed coffee, it has lower acidity than hot brewed coffee.
- benhurmarcel 2y agoWhat worked for me was switching to pourover coffee (or Aeropress), instead of espresso. I didn’t need the milk anymore.
- dataviz1000 2y agoI was in Florida. The nitrogen runoff created an algae bloom that suffocated thousands of fish and manatees. As a joke at the hipster coffee shop I picked up a packet of sugar and said I was boycotting sugar because what the big sugar did to the environment. I didn’t make any difference except I’ve had perfect blood work and zero cavities since. I also lost a lot of weight. Maybe I didn’t make the environment healthy however I sure am a lot healthier.
- switch007 2y agoI cut out sugar for a month recently and my sleep cut in half and my depression really worsened. Really affected my job performance. I didn't think it would last that long or be that bad. It's crazy. I went back to eating bit of sugar and the same night had a great sleep. Not sure what to do now. I find it easy not to eat it but the side effects are very difficult to deal with
- epolanski 2y agoI think your body and brain have simply to adapt. Experiment with gradually more sugar till you find a right balance then get back to cutting in very small steps.
- switch007 2y agoYou may be right. I inadvertently went cold turkey as I was counting calories and sugar is high in calories and substituting for meat/veg was easy.
- will1am 2y agoCutting out sugar entirely is too challenging
- TylerLives 2y agoThis will probably get a lot of downvotes, but consider the possibility that sugar is actually good for you - https://raypeat.com/articles/articles/glycemia.shtml https://raypeat.com/articles/articles/glycemia.shtml
- ralferoo 2y ago> When I returned from my trip, my fridge was empty, so I resisted the temptation to buy those products. This has to be my reality. If I buy treats, no matter how good my intentions are to make them last, they just don't survive in the cupboard more than a couple of days. I have to leave my kitchen mostly empty apart from: diet soda, meat, cheese, yoghurt, peanut butter. Everything else is just too addictive and I keep eating it until it's gone. I do have other stuff, but have to buy it as and when I need it in a quantity that will only last one meal. One suggestion I can give if you like chocolate is to buy some 90% or 95% chocolate. It's hard to eat more than one piece at a time without your mouth feeling quite dry, and a 100g bar can easily last a week. After a while, if you have anything else, even 80%, it'll taste really sweet. But it only take a bar or two of the really easy to eat sweet variety before you'll be hooked on it again.
- galangalalgol 2y agoI tried this and eventually started binging on higher and higher percent chocolate. Eventually I was sitting at work stuffing a handful of crushed toasted Cocoa nibs into my mouth ... I suppose I did end my craving for sweets though. I can't make hard cheeses last more than a couple days either. Leaving the kitchen empty works pretty well for me. But I'll binge on pretty much anything that is left if the hunger hits me.
- tarsinge 2y agoBig difference is hard cheese is nutrient dense and leave me without hunger for a far longer time than empty calories simple carbs that basically bypasses the body checks. Lot of times when I am hungry my body just wants protein. 1000kcal of sugars can leave me hungry after one hour. I eat ton of 80% chocolate and hard cheese and don't get any weight. On the other hand with simple carbs and white flour based things (pasta, bread, pastries...) I have to consciously limit myself to a few per weeks otherwise kg starts piling on fast again.
- thesz 2y agoIt appears that sourdough is relatively healthy: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18317680/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18317680/ I found that sourdough from local restaurant did not raised blood glucose level significantly (well below the threshold of high blood glucose), looked for a research and voila! here's one. There are others, also showing benefits of sourdough compared to yeast leavened bread. Also, making sourdough at home is easy and fun. ;)
- andrewtbham 2y agoI think the author read atomic habits. Even the story about vietnam is in there.
- ModernMech 2y agoI just switched to Pepsi Max, cut my sugar intake by 75%
- vlad_ungureanu 2y agoAll the tips given in the article are very useful, but for me it was also useful learning how to make different types of jam or cakes helps you understand the amount of sugar and butter used. Replacing store-bought sweets with homemade options gives you a sense of appreciation and a 'ritualistic' aspect when enjoying something sweet, which may reduce how often you indulge in sugary treats.
- j_m_b 2y agoI started a strict Keton diet back in April. I started by doing a 48 hour fast to completely eliminate stored glycogen stores. I also began with intermittent fasting by skipping breakfast. It was hard at first, but thankfully I never experienced the "keto flu" that some people do. I wonder if the initial fasting helped with that.
- alberth 2y agoWhat’s worked for me … Only eat what’s in your refrigerator, and don’t eat anything from a pantry or freezer. Sugar (and carbs) are predominately found in pantry and freezer goods.
- coldtea 2y agoAren't your meat and fish stored in your freezer?
- inSenCite 2y agoEveryone's struggle with addiction is different. I'm glad this person found a good way for them and I'm sure it might help others as well. Don't be discouraged if it doesn't always work for you, maybe you just need to try a different approach.
- coldtea 2y ago>Everyone's struggle with addiction is different Not that different, since people still share billions of years of evolutionary mechanisms, and thousands of years of social conditioning. At best there are a few different kinds of struggle with addiction.
- illiac786 2y agoDepends on your referential. Within humanity, addiction takes very different form. Compared to mosquitos, our addictions are probably still very similar, yes. I think I fail to see your point though. Are you saying people tend to exaggerate how different addictions are, for example to better sell some new addiction overcoming books or courses?
- senordevnyc 2y agoThey're likely just disagreeing to be pedantic. I struggle with this addiction just like coldtea does...although my experience with it is pretty unique ;)
- hamasho 2y agoWhat I learned from my weight loss journey is that good sleep does wonders for my brain. It helps me remember my long-term goals and resist those pesky urges for sugary, fatty snacks. Plus, when I'm well-rested, my brain seems to actually register when my stomach isn't empty, so it doesn't send out those annoying craving signals. And after all that health talk, I'll probably still end up scrolling through Reddit for a couple of hours before bed.
- FooBarBizBazz 2y ago> And after all that health talk, I'll probably still end up scrolling through Reddit for a couple of hours before bed. Going for a long walk, especially in an interesting/stimulating place like a pleasant city, does something similar for my brain. It entertains in a general, unchallenging way. Instead of scrolling Reddit past your thumb, you scroll the world past yourself. It's not like going for a run where you have to get over a wall; it's easy to just lapse into by default, especially if you put yourself into a walkable environment. Plus, after you've gone about three miles, your body just goes on autopilot and you just sort of naturally keep moving. It barely counts as exercise, but it will do something for your lower back, and it does burn about 100 kcal per mile, which if you keep it up all day will add up. So, I can heartily endorse, for the person who scrolls a representation of the world past their nose, to instead translate their body through the world.
- lazylion2 2y agoOne thing that I think helps is to set reddit on text only by searching for self:true. less stimulating
- EasyMark 2y agoWhat does this mean?
- woolion 2y agoWhen I'm working on the computer late, eating chocolate or other sweet things was a real crutch. Not doing it required a lot of willpower, so I could sometimes limit my consumption for some periods, but I gave up on quitting sugar in the long run. For other health-related reasons (migraines) I went keto since a few months ago and had no problems at all quitting sugar altogether. Nuts, cured ham are great for occasional nibbling. My sweet thing is a 'keto cream' with a blend of cream and yogurt whipped to be fluffy and topped with peanut butter and crushed nuts. I do have some very occasional cravings for fries or chocolate, but it is very very rare, almost nothing compared to a normal high-carb diet. (I break the ketosis for a carbful meal from time to time, so it's not like alcoholism where seeing carbs or sugar is a problem that would cause a relapse either.)
- coldtea 2y ago>eating chocolate or other sweet things was a real crutch. Not doing it required a lot of willpower Not buying them and not having them around the house though, requires much less, and helps when it's late at the computer and you crave some!
- snvzz 2y agoVery long article, for something so simple. Stop eating i.e. fast. The cravings go away within 48h. Done, solved.
- coldtea 2y agoThis is like: - You're depressed? Just cheer up! - Gee, why haven't I thought of that! Fasting wont take away the cravings, if anything it will make them worse (after a few days you feel very hungry and all you can think about is food, then there's a period where you don't mind, then you are starving again, and so on). And even if it did, once you stop the fast you get the cravings again.
- snvzz 2y ago>This is like: Exercising willpower is an important life skill. Being able to will be extremely helpful in way too many occasions to count. >Fasting wont take away the cravings It will, actually. Sugar cravings are very different relative to regular hunger, and are really gone for good within 48h. >after a few days you feel very hungry and all you can think about is food, The "all you can think" is just not true. It's just regular hunger. You can then eat. Just not sugar, but actual nutritious food. I'd suggest a cadence of one meal a day, or two but not far apart from each other (e.g. 18:6 intermittent fasting). It is actually and, quite surprisingly for many, easy to do this.
- hombre_fatal 2y agoWillpower, propensity for addiction, susceptibility to sugar, etc. aren't equally distributed. The people you're preaching to have tried all those things. Your advice cashes out into "land better in the distribution like me and then confuse it for a character trait like I do".
- snvzz 2y ago>have tried Apparently not hard enough. >"land better in the distribution like me..." This line of thinking you are describing there is classic loser mentality. The successes of others are always because of "luck". It couldn't possibly be that they put in the hard work when you weren't looking. Of course not. Entertaining such ideas would lead to looking inwards, and there's only darkness to be found inwards. This is a problem that outsiders cannot fix. They have to realize the problem themselves, and only then will they be able to move forward.
- louthy 2y agoAs a sugar addict the only thing that has ever worked for me was doing a 3 day fast. For about 6 months afterwards I just seemed to not need sugary things as much and I didn’t crave it in the same way. I also had a lot more control over my hunger, being able to ignore it for longer, so I guess that probably helped. Eventually it wore off and I was back to being an addict again, but I thought it was interesting because I never expected that to happen. I guess it was a ‘cold turkey’ episode.
- bdcravens 2y agoSugar is one of my downfalls, but unfortunately I have to keep some sugar around for when I have a blood glucose low (I'm diabetic and have a pump). Of course, I could focus on more healthy versions of sugar (like juice instead of candy), which I almost never do.
- nradov 2y agoFruit juice is basically liquid candy. For most people there's nothing wrong with drinking a little bit but the effects on blood sugar are similar to eating candy. (This is not medical advice for diabetics.)
- bdcravens 2y agoOf course - the idea is to have something that will boost my blood sugar in the event of a low. I'm more concerned about what's in it other than sugar. A lot of the candy I get is filled with dyes, HFCS, etc.
- mateuszbuda 2y agoI tried not buying food with added sugar but it’s surprisingly difficult. Here is an interesting analysis I did some time ago which shows that for half of the food items, sugar is the main ingredient: https://scrapingfish.com/blog/scraping-walmart https://scrapingfish.com/blog/scraping-walmart
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- penguin_booze 2y agoBefore I go shopping, I drink a full glass of water. This has helped suppress or avoid the urge to making impulse purchases at the supermarket. Almost always I regret having bought them; and almost always, I eat them because I don't want to throw them out.
- tupolef 2y agoSince I was a teenager, a mild but persistent acne has plagued my daily life. Up until the age of 30, I always believed that only medications, impeccable hygiene and weekly physical activity could help reduce the effects. Then, after a complete change of diet due to my move to Asia, I realized that the main factor was sugar. By going completely sugar-free in my diet, I no longer have acne at all as long as I keep away from it. It really got me thinking that most people should explore how their bodies work, without necessarily relying on what works for others or what modern medicine advises, and also that severe fasting is a good way to start the comparison.
- squidbeak 2y agoMy diet used to be as bad as Hansel and Gretel's. A long-term keto diet neutralised the habit for a few years. But after it returned, what worked for me in changing it was to rigorously substitute plain foods for the richly processed stuff (meals and snacks) until I learned to appreciate simple tastes. For instance snacking on fruit, nuts, crackers and ryvita, buttered toast, cottage cheese and natural yoghurt. I wasn't able to shake my chocolate cravings, but over time, the pull of intensely sweet stuff died back, to the point where the sugar rush from ice cream or wedge of chocolate cake makes me feel sick enough for me to prefer to avoid them. To anyone who tries this approach, good luck.
- Theodores 2y agoI quit sugar after a stint volunteering in a homeless shelter, where I saw how people were with sugar. I was horrified, so I went cold turkey! Some say that going to an abattoir means becoming an instant vegan, seeing zombies with sugar at three in the morning had a similar effect on me. I don't see sugar as the root of all evil, the master of all addictions. However, it is easy to quit and, if you can do that, you can quit anything else, including addictive substances. The reason is that, if you are avoiding all added sugar, then you have to cook. It means no more processed food and an improvement to the metabolism. However, the quit sugar idea does attract people that want to lose weight, which is a noble goal, but not the same thing as wanting to live an active life at a healthy weight. This means that most people drawn to no sugar are on a keto diet with all that this entails. For the keto diet person all carbohydrates are the enemy, with fat and protein as the allowed macronutrients. I was open to completely changing my diet as, until the eye-opening experience, I had always put employers or others first and not really thought a great deal about nutrition. My 'intellect' was more concerned with programming languages than what I should be stuffing my face with! Knowing nothing about the subject, I did want to know why I felt so much better from giving up sugar. So I investigated diet and nutrition. I developed new habits including when shopping. I mostly buy vegetables and supplement vitamin B12. The experiment is going very well. I quit coffee and much else, to arrive independently at a 'whole food, plant based' diet, which is 'closet vegan'. I clung on to butter for quite a while, but cut that cord to reject a lot of the 'anti-carb' thinking that goes with the keto diet. I don't eat a lot of 'evil carbs', as viewed by the fat eating keto people. This is because I usually have so many leafy greens, legumes and other vegetables that I just don't have the need for a plate full of rice, pasta or whatever else is 'evil carbs'. The thing is that every calorie has to have nutrition, so sugar is 'empty calories' with no nutritional value. I seem to be fine without it, I can go cycling for all the daylight hours in the day and not need anything more than a few pieces of fruit and a sandwich made with the help of a bread machine. I don't think that not eating sugar is that big a deal, but it can be a very useful stepping stone towards arriving at a sustainable lifestyle that is not a 'diet'. Much of the 'science' regarding why sugar is allegedly bad is not as clear cut as it should be. I have heard all about 'fructose' and 'ketosis'. I have also learned a little bit about history and how we came to be living a pastoral life in the UK before the Romans arrived. There has always been conflict between the people that farm grains and the people that eat animal products, with an overlap between the two camps. This is why we have people insisting that full keto, whale blubber only, is the way to go, then we have people insistent on vegan as the way to go, with the majority being okay with 'everything in moderation'. In conversation I have mentioned that I 'quit all processed food' and that does not seem to trigger anyone. I really did manage to quit everything I was addicted to, but I don't see sugar as an addiction, even though I ate it every day for decades. I did take sugar for granted and I would eat things in front of the TV without truly savouring the taste. I can't quite remember what those sticky toffee puddings tasted like, or some chocolate bars that I had thousands of times. I would recommend quitting sugar, however, you must be open to the possibility that you really will want to quit for good, to be eating fruit out of choice, and to want herbs and spices rather than biscuits and chips in the supermarket. If you get a figure that you enjoy living in and see cancerous moles vanish on your skin, then it can be hard to want to go back to a diet that includes sugar. There are no upsides to it once you get the health gains. Hence, before you quit sugar, compile a list of your favourite things and spend a solid month savouring them, as a farewell tour. Enjoy with the TV off, in that way, when you have gone past the point of turning back, you can remember what these things tasted like, to not miss them or wonder. I always keep my receipts for my grocery shopping. I would not be full of shame if someone were to read them and try to mock my food choices. Everything is healthy. I have not used my fridge or freezer with this experiment, so they are turned off at the wall. My food is always fresh. It turned out that everything in my fridge was just trying to kill me and vegetables prefer being outside the morgue that is the fridge. My food waste is almost zero, although I did throw half a turnip out recently. Even my recycling bin is getting to zero, that has not seen plastic in a very long time, glass jars are rare and even tins are getting rare. Sometimes I think about quitting my peculiar lifestyle, to turn the fridge and freezer back on, to stock them with sticky toffee puddings, vast slabs of cheese and everything else laced with fat and sugar. I could toss the vegetables out and put ready made meals in the microwave, or frozen pizza in the oven. I found that we put the horse before the cart with 'exercise'. I found that, get the nutrition right, and the physical activity comes naturally. But, playing devil's advocate, I think about going to fizzy drinks, sticky toffee puddings and beer. I could get man boobs and a beer gut, maybe with an extra chin or two. I would never need to spend twenty minutes chopping vegetables ever again, oh, it could be so easy! But no, I am staying off the sugar. However, it is no big deal, I just live in a parallel universe of vegetables with no processed sugar or silly science about the evils of fructose. Sugar is not evil, I just prefer the whole food, plant based life as a 'closet vegan'.
- RickJWagner 2y agoThis was a great, uplifting post. I'm happy for the author. I love sugar. Sugar cereals, sugar snacks, and especially anything that has peanut butter. But I've recently started to cut back. (i.e. Greek yogurt with fruit for a snack). So far, about a week in, things feel good and I've dropped about 6 pounds. (!!) I hope I can find more ways to make it easier.
- mdip 2y agoMy son is struggling with this right now and it's entirely my fault. I've never been outside of 15 pounds what I weighed in High School and I was underweight in High School. As a man in his 40s, I'm in better shape than I was back then, lower body fat, slightly more muscle, triglycerides/LDL/HDL better[0]. I eat how a 10-year-old kid would eat if he didn't have parents. All of my breakfast foods (which I never eat in the morning) have cartoon characters on the box. Fruity/Cocoa Pebbles, Honeycomb, Cookie Crisp, Lucky Charms, Cocoa Krispies, Fruit Loops, Frosted Gluten-Wheats, (of course) Cap'n Crunch ... actually, worse -- I buy the Malt-O-Meal generic versions of each that come in the cement bags. I can't think of the last time I drank water. I drink Coca-cola, instead. At least twice a week I make a half-gallon chocolate malt and consume the entire thing. Sometimes that's dinner. It's the only reason I own a blender. It's the reason blenders last about 2 years, tops, for me -- typically with dead motors or a shattered carafe[1]. I make the whole carafe for myself (the kids split half of one). I rarely eat Breakfast or Lunch. Dinner is something frozen and tossed in an Air Fryer or ordered. I often add a meal just before bed that consists of several bowls of one of the previously mentioned cereals. I do none of this with any sort of planning. I get hungry, I find food, I eat it. If I'm depressed, I don't eat. If I'm busy doing something else I might forget to eat. When I'd travel solo for work, I'd go through my receipts and find out I ate twice at the airport on the way out/in, and spend an hour looking for meal receipts until I figure out that -- yes, I actually did only pay for three meals that week. Yes, one of those "meals" was an Arizona Peach Tea, half of which was left somewhere and for some reason I felt it necessary to both get and keep the receipt for the $1.00 purchase but at least the expense department will be satisfied ... if not a little surprised. My 16-year-old son is having success with a restrictive Low Carb/No Sugar diet and I've found myself at a loss as to how to help him, but many of the things the author mentioned (short of a vacation I can't afford) have worked very well. My observation is that the author's top two items are the most effective parts if you can do the first. My alternative to the "vacation" for him is distraction. He's a lot like me: an indoor cat who likes computers and video games and doesn't like sports. I focused on things he really liked that were active and upgraded him -- he got a better VR kit and we upgraded the OneWheel[2]. He learned the first few days that when he gets hungry, the best thing to do is use one of those and the one that gets him out of the house is the one that works best. Though we could have taken a vacation for the cost of the upgrade, he wouldn't be putting in ten miles on it every day. And I think that's part of it: finding something he loves to do which involves a lot of exercise. So far, that's the OneWheel GT (and I feel the same way). He uses the VR. It's about what you'd expect. The few games he enjoys aren't much exercise and the ones that are exercise focused aren't any fun. Luckily he doesn't get motion sick, but that was a pointless purchase for these purposes. And I assumed it would be: I've been through all of the previous attempts to make exercise fun with video games: Wii, every version of Kinect, various others dating back to the Nintendo floor pad with their weird Olympics game, both of which I destroyed in my youth. They usually make some form of exercise less effective while making "wanting to do that form of exercise" slightly more attractive for a brief period of time. The optimal situation would be a game that can be played at home with low-cost equipment which "people want to play because it's fun to play" that happens to require a reasonable amount of physical exercise to use. Ideally, it'd be something that wouldn't be "more enjoyable with a more common control scheme", nor would physical strength greatly improve ones ability to master the game (so, like most video games, they're more mental strategy vs precision muscle memory) and would be multi-player. I've yet to encounter something that doesn't fall over on all of these points so badly as to make it worse than traditional exercise. [0] I was a kid during a brief period when they advocated giving children as young as 10-years old cholesterol tests and then putting them on low-fat diets when they (generally) had "High Cholesterol". [1] Which is only a problem if the carafe is for an ALDI Aisle of Shame $39 blender and finding a replacement is either impossible or almost as expensive. After every expensive blender I owned failed, I'd somehow end up finding a crappy one at ALDI figuring "The $200 one died quickly, might as well save the money this time." [2] We had a Pint and we've gone through a few tires and about 9K miles on that one. When ridden hard, you come home soaked head to toe in sweat, but it's one thing that he enjoys as much as (if not more) than playing video games.
- nunez 2y agoThere are skinny folks who had the exact same diet growing up. It's luck of the draw.
- nazgulnarsil 2y agoOne of the most helpful things for me was eating more fruit, particularly citrus. I believe the sugar craving may be a disguised vitamin c craving.
- pointlessone 2y agoDifficylty level: impossible Living with someone who doesn’t want to give up sugar and keeps bringing lots of it home.
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 2y agoFor me the solution has been blackberries + peanut butter (natural). No sugar, when I really get a craving for something sweet, I eat about 50g of blackberries with 2 teaspoons of high quality peanut butter. Delicious and the craving stops. Also, about 100 calories at most