If you were raised on sugar, then is it impossible to lose it completely?

[Tasaio]

Greetings

I was raised on heavily on cheese and refined sugar (I take after my mother, I have a sweet tooth).

However, no matter how much I try to go without sugar, I can't do it.

I mean, theoretically, I can sit still, but I can't get any productive work done -- I can't concentrate on math or writing without some form of sugar.

I've tried substitutes like fruit (enormous amounts of fruit), bread, peanut butter, cold water, and mild sugar like cereals...but I'm still left wanting.

I finally gave in and had Reeses peanut butter cups (I love these), and was finally able to concentrate.

My question is, is it possible that I was raised on so much sugar that my body now requires it, as a smoker's requires nicotene? Is it possible to ever be rid of my sugar cravings, entirely?

If anyone with similar experience can speak, please do so!

Thanks in advance

[lolly]

I suggest you start cutting out the sweet things one at a time,start small. If you have a craving for a chocolate or anything sweet instead have a glass of water or a piece of fruit. You can do. I am sure you will find the support you need right here. All you need is some determination.

Good Luck and keep us up to date on your progress.

[Shaden]

Have you tried eating organic vegetables and fruit? These are a great substitute for sugar because quite often they're very sweet and tasty - but also incredibly healthy. Trust me the processed stuff you get in the supermarkets has had all the goodness stripped right out of it. That includes taste as well.

[Holistic Star]

If a doctor told you that you would die if a grain of sugar passed your lips - could you give it up?



My personal opinion is that you are still having a lot of fast release sugars. Fruit (especially sweet fruit), sweetened peanut butter (check the label - most have added sugar), bread (especially white bread) and cereals (do you mean breakfast cereals) all have massive amounts of medium to fast releasing sugars which is why you are experiencing highs and lows when you crash.

Start including in your meals some slow release carbs - whole grain brown rice (the stuff that takes 45 minutes to cook), quinoa etc. skip the couscous, white rice, white flour as these are all refined.
Eat lots of green veggies - brocolli, cabage etc

Eat some good quality protein (nut butters are ok if no added sugar), eggs, lean meat and fish if you aren't veggy.

Also check your caffeine intake as this can mess around with your insulin levels giving you surges and drops making you crave sugar.

So yes it can be done. In my expenience the first couple of days were very painful so start at the weekend and have a quiet one and by Monday you'll be laughing.

[escapee]

You probably need a strong and powerful reason to help figthing off the addiction

Print out the article so you could read it over and over again.
76 ways sugar can destroy your body ( Scare tactics )

[Tasaio]

Update:

It's been 34 days since I went off the stuff...

I did it! I did it! I DID IT!

Yes, it can be done. If I can do it, so can you.

[starlet]

*g* I was raised eating healthy foods, three square meals a day, but allowd to have sugar and soda for treats. I eat crap a lot more that I am an adult, but I still eat three healthy meals a day. But then again, I use LOA and tell myself that I can quit anytime, and I'll stop eating anything sugary for a month with no ill effects. I also eat "in the moment" that what I am eating has no affect on me in the future.

I think eat sugar just because I can.

[ripcurly]

if you really want cravings to go away and be as healthy as possible, vist rawfoodtalk.com. i am a raw foodist and there is no way i would or could ever go back to anything but. i feel amazing, dont get sick, look incredible, have lost any unnecessary fat, and eat whatever i want. i could never have fathomed feeling this good. peace

[Love]

Raised on a sweet tooth, eh? I love sugar, too. As for trying to get off it, it could be that your mind is more hooked on the sugar than anything else. You may think that you can only concentrate when you have sugar. Maybe you can't start recognizing those moments throughout the day when you are concentrating, and not because of sugar. Or maybe you could give yourself a false motivator: if you're life depended on it, would you slowly be able to ebb out the sugar?

[Dimitry]

Originally Posted by Tasaio

Update:

It's been 34 days since I went off the stuff...

I did it! I did it! I DID IT!

Yes, it can be done. If I can do it, so can you.

That is AWESOME news. Congratulations!

[Steve Pavlina]

It's great that you succeeded. Congrats!

For anyone else with a sugar addiction, some extra tips:

Do you consume alcohol? I read that cravings for alcohol and sugar can be intertwined, so if you drink alcohol at all, it can heighten your sugar cravings. The same goes for any white flour products. I believe I read this in one of Dr. Robert Young's books.

Also, if you eat the same foods you previously associated with or consumed with sugar, you may trigger the sugar cravings because your body expects it. For example, if you normally drink coffee with sugar, you may crave sugar when drinking unsweetened coffee. So it may help to consume only foods you'd never consume with sugar, at least while you're breaking the addiction.

[ahimel]

Several things are true:

Unlike a taste for fat, which can be trained in or out of people, sugar is to a certain extent genetic. The fact that you take after your mother and her sweet tooth is more than just environmental. Some of us just crave sugar. And to the extent that it is genetic, you probably can't rid yourself of sugar cravings entirely. You could learn to live without it, but you could never learn to like it.

But, that being said, a Reese's cup is around 50% fat. A lot of the things we think of as "sweets" are actually filling a fat craving: Reese's, Hershey's kisses, Almond Joy, cake & cookies, etc. So the first thing I would determine is whether hard candy like peppermints or butterscotch would fulfill the craving. If so, get yourself a bag of those; although the calories do add up, a peppermint will last a lot longer than a Hershey's bar, and has a lot fewer calories.

If that doesn't satisfy your desire, then it's possible that you actually have a fat craving, and that can be easily trained out.

Sometimes, I find that I'm just craving chocolate -- I don't know whether it's purely psychological or if there's some chemical in chocolate that helps me, but sometimes that's what I need. In those cases, I get good chocolate - the stuff whose price is measured in dollars per ounce. And I eat it really slowly, a few milligrams at a time. That satisfies my chocolate desire while staying within the bounds acceptable to any diet.

As Holistic pointed out, a lot of times "sugar cravings" are actually just a lack of carbs. Your body needs to burn carbs in order to function -- it can burn fat, but it's not as efficient and makes me feel icky. So when you start burning fat, your body will send a signal asking for carbs. And if every time you eat a Reese's you feel better, you'll start interpreting that signal as a request for candy, rather than the request for carbs that it actually is. So if you even out your carb load - eating whole-grain carbs that take hours to burn out - it will help with the fuzzy head and lack of productivity.

Finally, consider trying meditation. Most people have some ritual that tells their psyche, "OK, now I'm going to concentrate." All basketball players have some set of movements they do before a free-throw. I sit down each morning and plan my day - not because I don't know what I'm doing, but because the planning process is my signal to myself that it's time to work. It may be simply that candy is the signal you've been trained on - until you eat a piece of chocolate, your body doesn't realise that you're actually serious about concentrating. If that turns out to be the case you only need to train yourself to a new signal, and the "cravings" will disappear. There's some golf star who wears a rubber band on his wrist, and when he snaps it against his wrist, that's the signal that it's time to focus on the shot. If you can substitute something like that, you won't need the Reese's to concentrate.

Good luck!

[asrai]

I've heard (I don't have any sources) that alcohol basically turns to sugar in the body.

Also, if you have an alcoholic (particularly a parent)in your genetics you are predisposed to that. And more often people are turning to carbs/sugar to fill that craving, because it's more culturally acceptable.

As well, lots of people use carbs/sugar as a mood enhancer to escape depression and/or anxiety. (This is my biggest issue with sugar intake).

Those are just my gathered information on sugar and alcohol and anxiety.

[escapee]

Alcohol is simply a poison that impairs all your hormone releasing glands. As a result, it will severely interfere with the absorption of calcium ( osteoperosis) and other important minerals like (Iron, zinc, magnesium and etc). It will also impair the pancrease ability to secret insulin and glucagon for blood sugar regulation, therefore causing Diabetes (ultra high blood sugar), insulin resistance and Hypoglycemia (ultra low blood sugar) on alcoholics or even healthy people. All in all, alcohol = a socially acceptable poison established by deceptive and effective marketing using sexy woman + hot cars + hot sports (foolball, soccer).

[dmaterialized]

Tasio, please look into the book "Potatoes not Prozac". (http://www.radiantrecovery.com/ is the doctor's site) The book is highly unconventional, but the author's points seem very logical-- and I have had IMMENSE success with using her advice.

Basically, it talks about how certain people have a genetic, or built-in from a very young age, craving for starchy, sugary foods. I have found in reading it that, while I have no real craving for sugar, I have immense pasta cravings all the time (which is converted to a type of sugar in your body). Eating a potato (one of the most satiating starches on the planet) trains your body to immediately produce a surge of dopamine (much the way you feel great when you eat sweets or starches), except it does it at night -- changing an otherwise very difficult cycle. The skin of the potato (according to her) contains nutrients that reduce or eliminate a lot of addictive cravings.

You should definitely read the book to convince yourself more of the science behind it (don't take my word for it), but here's what she recommends (and what I've had happen):

1. Tonight, RIGHT before you go to sleep, eat a potato (cooked) in any way you like except frying. You must eat the skin, and it must be cooked-- other than that, you get to figure out how you want to do this.

2. You will have REALLY bizarre, really visceral dreams, and most likely will remember them in detail.

3. Eat breakfast with mostly protein.

4. Do this every night, regardless of the times you sleep-- just eat a cooked potato and its skin right before bed. Your dreams will get progressively less bizarre or memorable - initially it's because of the surge of seratonin, but soon your body gets used to it.

Within about 4 days, I not only had more energy and more level moods, but I had NO particular attachment to any foods at all -- I ate whatever was around and enjoyed it immensely, didn't overeat, and found myself with a lot of extra time (most of my frequently addictive behaviors, like the Internet or IM, didn't seem like the best use of my time, so I simply didn't do them). The one thing I can't quantify is this feeling of just being... "free". Every day seems less cyclical and predictable -- it's as if I'm really waking up in the morning instead of just following a routine. I really can't explain it, but it's really nice.

This goes for everyone who has or thinks they might have problems with sugar/starch sensitivity-- I HIGHLY recommend it, even for a few days (you can always stop, but try for a week or more). There are multiple "steps" if you have a really serious problem, but for me the first two (potato and protein) broke me WAY out of my cycle almost immediately.

I totally sound like an ad for this "diet", but it's really incredible how much it's done for me. All the info is on the site (http://www.radiantrecovery.com/) and it's all free, so I'm not (even covertly) selling anything!

[Dimitry]

Originally Posted by escapee

All in all, alcohol = a socially acceptable poison established by deceptive and effective marketing using sexy woman + hot cars + hot sports (foolball, soccer).

Now even though I'm not drinking this year I think your argument is flawed here. It doesn't explain the fact that alcohol existed for well over 2000 years. Marketing, especially using sexy woman + hot cars or sports didn't really play that big of a part back then I'd imagine.

[escapee]

But it does now. The industry has been very succesful in associating the "poison" (Cigarrete and Alcohol ) to something that's lustful , prestigious and etc to entice more people (especially the youngsters) to get a taste of it. It's really up to the parents to educate their children about how deceptive and danger of such Ads .

This is really sad : http://www.nyu.edu/classes/keefer/joke/bolde.html

Alcohol Advertising Increases Youth Drinking

[Mysom]

Originally Posted by Tasaio

Update:

It's been 34 days since I went off the stuff...

I did it! I did it! I DID IT!

Yes, it can be done. If I can do it, so can you.

Congratulations!

Please give specific techniques that you used to get off sugar addiction.

[bettyboo11]

has anyone tried the potato thing? i haven't heard anything else about that.