12 ms·

One day about 3 years ago I quit sugar "cold turkey." At the time I was rather highly motivated by seeing a friend nearly killed by necrotizing fasciitis. (Not

by santry 14y ago

One day about 3 years ago I quit sugar "cold turkey." At the time I was rather highly motivated by seeing a friend nearly killed by necrotizing fasciitis. (Not that his illness was sugar related. It's just that seeing a close friend nearly die puts things in perspective.) My taste changed within just a couple of weeks. By the third or fourth week if I accidentally drank sweetened iced tea instead of unsweetened I would nearly spit it out due to the awful taste. I also cut out all artificial sweeteners, effectively eliminating any experience of sweetness from my diet. I think previously I had drunk so much Diet Coke and eaten so many sugary things that I had conditioned myself to need that sweet taste on a regular schedule. I think one thing that helped was that I started making tea using high-quality, whole-leaf teas from adagio.com. They have such interesting flavors, I find they don't need sugar. I'm not sure I can speak to the work-related effects of not eating sugar since I was spending most of the time in the hospital with my friend. I can say that my overall mood became much more stable; there were no more mid-afternoon crashes and I genearlly found I had more energy. Being about 360 pounds at the time, this one dietary change was enough for me to lose 60 pounds over the next 12 months while still leading a mostly sedentary lifestyle.

stcredzero 14y ago
I have just quit sugar cold turkey. Carbohydrates in general, actually. (< 20 grams per day.) One thing that I will highly recommend to everyone who is trying to do this: small amounts of powdered Psyllium supplement. The best known brand in the US is Metamucil. This might set off some mental alarms, as it is marketed as a "laxative." However, it's just a concentrated source of soluble fiber that acts to bulk up material passing through the gut, helping to keep it passing through. This prevents many of the disadvantages of eating mostly foods that are rich in proteins and fats. The instructions on this stuff allow for 1 to 3 doses per day. I'm only taking 1/2 a dose at any one time, so it's acting more as a fiber supplement. That said, I also cook and eat lots of vegetables. (Green beans are quick and great! Just rinse them, steam them, and don't eat any inedible looking ends. It's best if you don't overcook them.) I never feel run down after meals any more like I used to, though I can still feel a bit tired after a particularly high fat meal. On the whole, I have a lot more energy, though I have been told that I'm a lot more irritable now. Maybe it's time to do some programming "in anger?"
- Ixiaus 14y ago
  There is a major misconception that all carbs are bad. Specifically bad sources: refined sugar, high-fructose corn syrup (much worse than sugar), grains (wheat - gluten, is the worst, worse than sugar; rice, etc...), and legumes (particularly soy beans). Sweet potatoes as carbs are very good for you; fruit (particularly pears, apples, coconut - very good for you, pineapple, bananas). The topic is quite complicated and difficult to navigate, but there's a lot of good information out there. Particularly in the primal/paleo lifestyle (which I think is a little bit extreme but the knowledge and rationale is sound).
  - pmahoney 14y ago
    > high-fructose corn syrup (much worse than sugar) This is controversial at best (see, for example, http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/the-sweetener-wars-hfcs-strikes-back/ http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/the-sweetener-...). I know there's money behind corn/HFCS, but what is your source for this claim?
    - dllthomas 14y ago
      While this seems reasonable, and I whole-heartedly endorse your push for sources, it does call to mind a corn-industry sponsored commercial I saw a while back about HFCS that I found amusing. It said, "Sugar is sugar; your body can't tell the difference!" which sounded common-sensical buuut fructose, sucrose... well, lactose is a sugar too, and some of our bodies seems to be able to tell the difference there! Of course, this isn't evidence one way or the other for the claim in question, really. Bad arguments for side A aren't arguments for side B - just hoping others find it as amusing as I did.
      - pmahoney 14y ago
        I know that ad. I always angrily yell at the TV, "yes they're the same: equally bad!"
  - shawnz 14y ago
    > high-fructose corn syrup (much worse than sugar) > gluten, is the worst, worse than sugar These sound like dubious claims to me. Do you have a citation?
Zenst 14y ago
It's interesting you mention diet coke, the whole artificial sugars are probably doing as much damage and your right to mention them as any artifical sugar substitute is designed to feed into that sugar addiction/stimulate taste buds and will effect how you taste and eat food. I'm still on my transition phase, having moved from desert spoons to teas spoon in my coffee and diet softdrinks, though I do like a full fat cola with food. But have been interested in this berry they have which makes bitter/sour things taste sweeter. That is something that does seem to be a more palatable approach to quelling sugar addiction and could make for a rather nice cup of coffee, evern the cheaper stuff. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synsepalum_dulcificum http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synsepalum_dulcificum is the bean which I'm on about and you may of heard of it already in the name `miracle fruit`. All that said, I don't think anybody can name a person that has regretted giving up sugar, though I'm happy to sit in the moderatly decling usage and wont deny it. But we all blame the sweets as children, even though as children we have a bias towards sweet tasting foods. This is genetic and a health preserving one as well as sour/bitter foods are in general covers most posioness edibles and it is not until we get older do we loose that bias and aquire a more palatable acceptance to bitter/sour tasting foods and drinks. Our eyesight also is biased to the red spectrum when were younger and biases towards blue as we get older, again red being dangerous in nature. So geneticly there are reasons we are all born sugar addicts, and given the reasons and the way civilisation is modernising forward then it is a trait that may eventualy drop from our genetic code, though that will still be a long way away due to the benifit it serves babies and small children who are still learning what and what they can and can not eat.
- StavrosK 14y ago
  > the whole artificial sugars are probably doing as much damage Wikipedia says: > Aspartame has been found to be safe for human consumption by more than ninety countries worldwide, with FDA officials describing aspartame as "one of the most thoroughly tested and studied food additives the agency has ever approved" and its safety as "clear cut", but has been the subject of several controversies, hoaxes and health scares. Do you have a reference for that assertion?
  - Zenst 14y ago
spc476 14y ago
As a kid, my Grandmother weaned me off soda (and she wasn't sly about it---she outright told me what she was doing). At first, she got me to drink iced tea with as much sugar as I wanted. Once I got to the point of drinking tea out of habit, she then had me slowly lower the amount of sugar I added. These days, I prefer unsweetened iced tea. I may add sugar to hot tea (usually black teas) but not often. I also found that soda tastes a bit odd to me these days.
hristov 14y ago
Congratulations! But I should note that it is very very difficult to quit refined sugar completely. Many things that are not sweet at all can have sugar or hfcs added to them. This includes most bread, pizza, ketchup, all kinds of sauces and marinades, most salad dressings, etc. Tragically, when cheap hfcs appeared, the food industry decided to start putting the stuff everywhere. Now it is very hard to avoid it even if you do not eat anything sweet.
- peteretep 14y ago
  It's very difficult to quit it completely, but quite easy to find food that doesn't derive the majority of its calories from sugar. I consciously quit sugar about 6 months ago, and lost a ton of weight, and feel much better for it. However, I recently had to travel to the US for work, and avoiding sugar there was near on impossible. You guys have the chips stacked against you...
troymc 14y ago
I also love interesting teas and find that Red Rose orange pekoe tea is delightful without any sweeteners. It used to advertise as being "only available in Canada" but surely that's no longer true. (What fool would limit their business to such a small market?)
- qxcv 14y ago
  > Newegg.com does not currently ship internationally; we only deliver to locations within the United States and to Puerto Rico. Granted, Newegg are retailers rather than manufacturers, but country-based product restrictions are surprisingly common[0]. [0]: https://www.google.com/search?q=%22we+only+ship+to+locations+within+the+United+States%22 https://www.google.com/search?q=%22we+only+ship+to+locations...

by santry 14y ago

stcredzero 14y ago

I have just quit sugar cold turkey. Carbohydrates in general, actually. (< 20 grams per day.) One thing that I will highly recommend to everyone who is trying to do this: small amounts of powdered Psyllium supplement. The best known brand in the US is Metamucil. This might set off some mental alarms, as it is marketed as a "laxative." However, it's just a concentrated source of soluble fiber that acts to bulk up material passing through the gut, helping to keep it passing through. This prevents many of the disadvantages of eating mostly foods that are rich in proteins and fats. The instructions on this stuff allow for 1 to 3 doses per day. I'm only taking 1/2 a dose at any one time, so it's acting more as a fiber supplement. That said, I also cook and eat lots of vegetables. (Green beans are quick and great! Just rinse them, steam them, and don't eat any inedible looking ends. It's best if you don't overcook them.) I never feel run down after meals any more like I used to, though I can still feel a bit tired after a particularly high fat meal. On the whole, I have a lot more energy, though I have been told that I'm a lot more irritable now. Maybe it's time to do some programming "in anger?"

Ixiaus 14y ago
There is a major misconception that all carbs are bad. Specifically bad sources: refined sugar, high-fructose corn syrup (much worse than sugar), grains (wheat - gluten, is the worst, worse than sugar; rice, etc...), and legumes (particularly soy beans). Sweet potatoes as carbs are very good for you; fruit (particularly pears, apples, coconut - very good for you, pineapple, bananas). The topic is quite complicated and difficult to navigate, but there's a lot of good information out there. Particularly in the primal/paleo lifestyle (which I think is a little bit extreme but the knowledge and rationale is sound).
- pmahoney 14y ago
  > high-fructose corn syrup (much worse than sugar) This is controversial at best (see, for example, http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/the-sweetener-wars-hfcs-strikes-back/ http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/the-sweetener-...). I know there's money behind corn/HFCS, but what is your source for this claim?
  - dllthomas 14y ago
    While this seems reasonable, and I whole-heartedly endorse your push for sources, it does call to mind a corn-industry sponsored commercial I saw a while back about HFCS that I found amusing. It said, "Sugar is sugar; your body can't tell the difference!" which sounded common-sensical buuut fructose, sucrose... well, lactose is a sugar too, and some of our bodies seems to be able to tell the difference there! Of course, this isn't evidence one way or the other for the claim in question, really. Bad arguments for side A aren't arguments for side B - just hoping others find it as amusing as I did.
    - pmahoney 14y ago
      I know that ad. I always angrily yell at the TV, "yes they're the same: equally bad!"
- shawnz 14y ago
  > high-fructose corn syrup (much worse than sugar) > gluten, is the worst, worse than sugar These sound like dubious claims to me. Do you have a citation?

Zenst 14y ago

It's interesting you mention diet coke, the whole artificial sugars are probably doing as much damage and your right to mention them as any artifical sugar substitute is designed to feed into that sugar addiction/stimulate taste buds and will effect how you taste and eat food. I'm still on my transition phase, having moved from desert spoons to teas spoon in my coffee and diet softdrinks, though I do like a full fat cola with food. But have been interested in this berry they have which makes bitter/sour things taste sweeter. That is something that does seem to be a more palatable approach to quelling sugar addiction and could make for a rather nice cup of coffee, evern the cheaper stuff. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synsepalum_dulcificum http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synsepalum_dulcificum is the bean which I'm on about and you may of heard of it already in the name `miracle fruit`. All that said, I don't think anybody can name a person that has regretted giving up sugar, though I'm happy to sit in the moderatly decling usage and wont deny it. But we all blame the sweets as children, even though as children we have a bias towards sweet tasting foods. This is genetic and a health preserving one as well as sour/bitter foods are in general covers most posioness edibles and it is not until we get older do we loose that bias and aquire a more palatable acceptance to bitter/sour tasting foods and drinks. Our eyesight also is biased to the red spectrum when were younger and biases towards blue as we get older, again red being dangerous in nature. So geneticly there are reasons we are all born sugar addicts, and given the reasons and the way civilisation is modernising forward then it is a trait that may eventualy drop from our genetic code, though that will still be a long way away due to the benifit it serves babies and small children who are still learning what and what they can and can not eat.

StavrosK 14y ago
> the whole artificial sugars are probably doing as much damage Wikipedia says: > Aspartame has been found to be safe for human consumption by more than ninety countries worldwide, with FDA officials describing aspartame as "one of the most thoroughly tested and studied food additives the agency has ever approved" and its safety as "clear cut", but has been the subject of several controversies, hoaxes and health scares. Do you have a reference for that assertion?
- Zenst 14y ago

spc476 14y ago

As a kid, my Grandmother weaned me off soda (and she wasn't sly about it---she outright told me what she was doing). At first, she got me to drink iced tea with as much sugar as I wanted. Once I got to the point of drinking tea out of habit, she then had me slowly lower the amount of sugar I added. These days, I prefer unsweetened iced tea. I may add sugar to hot tea (usually black teas) but not often. I also found that soda tastes a bit odd to me these days.

hristov 14y ago

Congratulations! But I should note that it is very very difficult to quit refined sugar completely. Many things that are not sweet at all can have sugar or hfcs added to them. This includes most bread, pizza, ketchup, all kinds of sauces and marinades, most salad dressings, etc. Tragically, when cheap hfcs appeared, the food industry decided to start putting the stuff everywhere. Now it is very hard to avoid it even if you do not eat anything sweet.

peteretep 14y ago
It's very difficult to quit it completely, but quite easy to find food that doesn't derive the majority of its calories from sugar. I consciously quit sugar about 6 months ago, and lost a ton of weight, and feel much better for it. However, I recently had to travel to the US for work, and avoiding sugar there was near on impossible. You guys have the chips stacked against you...

troymc 14y ago

I also love interesting teas and find that Red Rose orange pekoe tea is delightful without any sweeteners. It used to advertise as being "only available in Canada" but surely that's no longer true. (What fool would limit their business to such a small market?)

qxcv 14y ago
> Newegg.com does not currently ship internationally; we only deliver to locations within the United States and to Puerto Rico. Granted, Newegg are retailers rather than manufacturers, but country-based product restrictions are surprisingly common[0]. [0]: https://www.google.com/search?q=%22we+only+ship+to+locations+within+the+United+States%22 https://www.google.com/search?q=%22we+only+ship+to+locations...