Me and sugar have an f-ed up realtionship.
In fact, when I said good-bye to EatingJourney in February, I started a new blog. One committed to a year of no sugar.
I am not going to go into the details, but there is research with rats, who they’ve made sugar dependant. The rats showed signs of withdrawls similar to those who were given controlled substances ie: drugs.
Sugar, in some, mimics the dopamine receptors in your brains–the ones that control addiction. Therefore, you are more easily addicted to the highs and lows of pumping your body full of sugar. You’re little receptors are addicted to it.
Sugar, for both physiological and psychological reasons, makes my bingy. I have discussed my Candida (overgrowth of yeast) in my intestines before. I have failed before giving up sugar. It’s really hard for me. I have to be VERY careful not to fall into deprivation mode when I am not eating sugar.
I know that there are other alternatives, in fact I could probably write another blog post about it.
But, what it boils down to…is that I am addicted, simply, to sugar. And I have to give it up.
I realise it’s drastic, but I have written about honouring my health. About being true to who I am.
I was eating the chocolate chip cookies tonight that I ‘made for my yoga class’ and realise that sugar doesn’t make me feel good about myself…because I don’t have a balanced relationship with it right now.
I remember Diane discussing that she had to take a break from chocolate when she first started her weight loss journey. I am going to take a break from sugar. I am not going to put a limit on it..ie 1 month/3 months/1 year/forever. I don’t succeed with those parameters.
Instead I am going to approach this with an intuitive focus!!!
What about you? How are you and sugar? Do you have to take a break from anything?
~Mish
Harnessing My Intuitive Self
eatingjourney.wordpress.com 
Very thoughtful, and well thought out. You can see the depth of your self awareness so much in that post. There’s no rash decisions or ultimatums. I think there’s so much to be learned from that, bravo!
My addictive substance is white flour, possibly combined with sugar, in the form of baked goods, pancakes, that kind of thing. I took a long break from those things because I had a history of making bad choices with them and didn’t trust myself enough to stop eating them. Definitely hit the deprivation wall head on and had some problems because of it. Learning to trust again is so challenging as you know.
Now I’m finding ways to make those items from scratch and healthier so I can eat them, not get weird crazy cravings, not feel deprived and consequently not get weird and crazy my own self.
I am actually trying to take a break from sugar. Not the fruit kind but other sugars. I don’t wanna stop eating fruit but cookies, chocolate, etc.. I think I’ll take a break from them because I know it makes me feel better. It’s hard but whatever, life’s hard and we get over it. 🙂
Good luck Michelle, you do deserve a break and feeling happy with yourself and what you’re putting in your body.
Sugar is a drug to me. I’ve gone periods of time without sugar and when I did eat something with sugar again the reaction in my body was first one of an extreme high followed by an emotional crash that included tears and such a strong urge for more sugar.
As a person who has blood sugar issues, I chose to honor my health starting today by taking a break from sugar.
I eat a very limited amount of sugar, including fruit. I had to go cold turkey for three months first and I mean even down to the ketchup. Now, I may have a small amount of fruit or something naturally sweetened about once per day and I work hard to make sure I only have a small amount.
I am going to go turkey for at least that long as well. Fruit can set me off as well. I will be leaning on your blogs for ideas 🙂
gahhhh. wheat. oh wheat. it is seriously my kryptonite! And it is also my hugest compulsive eating battle, because I KNOW that my reasonable self would not choose to willingly make my body feel so awful. thanks for this post : ) it was a good way to start the day. xo.
I love wheat as well. My candida LOVES it.
Sugar is like a drug for me for sure! There are some foods that I just don’t even get started eating because I find it too hard to stop eating. Knowing this about myself I now will only eat a sweet treat right after eating a balanced meal so that it won’t have such an impact on my blood sugar and cause me to crave more. Those kind of treats are an occasional thing not an every day happening.
Have you read Dr Kessler’s book “The end of Overeating” he goes in depth with the results of research on why and how our bodies and minds are changed when we consume foods that contain sugar, fat and salt.
I wrote a post all about it on my blog and you can read it by using the motivation tab at the top of my home page. His book was an eye opener for me. I finally found out that it isn’t that I lack will power as I use to think, there really is a scientific reason behind those sugar cravings!
I have heard of that book (and so many other ones and I wish I wasn’t a student right now, shoving my face into textbooks). But I totally know what you mean, when you realise it’s not just a lack of willpower. It’s actually something that taps into a brain section that is VERY hard to physiologically overcome. Thanks for reminding me of that. It’s not even about not eating it cause ‘it will make you fat’. FOR ME, it’s about not f-ing with my brain chemistry.
i’m sure it’s daunting having to take a break from sugar, but you have tons of tools in your toolbox for dealing with that. now is the time to open up that box and use them.
but as you mentioned, do not deprive yourself, that is SO key. find other things that give you, what you think is, the ‘quick fix’ that sugar gives you. it could be another food or something that you do, somewhere that you go, something that you read, anything!
I think that is so true. It’s a VERY fine line of taking something out and not feeling deprived. I will be thinking about something that will work for me. Thanks for reminding me of that.
I took a break from sugar for 90 days. It was the most amazing 90 days of my life. I’m thinking of giving up sugar again. And red meat.
Isn’t it funny, when people say they take a break from sugar….they describe is as nice. It’s true though.
Honestly I don’t really have a sweet tooth, so sugar has never been an issue for me. In fact, it kind of makes me sick.
Salt, on the other hand, is huge. I can quite happily sit and eat a huge bag of chips and not even blink an eye at the grossness of it all. Since I started this journey 5 months ago, I’ve not done that. I have had the odd chip when my husband is eating them, but never a bag of my own.
I’ve also cut out adding salt to things for “flavor” because I realised I was drowning the natural flavor of things.
Right now, my biggest challenge is weaning myself off soda pop. Coke Zero to be specific.
OMG I was addicted to diet coke. I was drinking 1-2L a day before I got really sick. It’s not easy to kick, but slowly go down and drink green tea.
MIsh-
I was diagnosed wtih lupus 7 yrs ago. I was also drinking at least a 2L bottle of the stuff per day. This included going thru the drive thru and getting the fountain diet cokes. When my feet hit the floor in the morning that is what I wanted (or needed?) and I would leave work on a break to go get one at the drive thru. I only quit drinking it because I was sick in the hosp at the time of diagnosis and was vomiting all the time.
Since then I have read about the art. sweeteners and how addictive they can be for most people. They also do not help in one’s fight to lose weight. I had also read about the correlation with autoimmune diseases. I’m an RN and had a fairly young woman as a patient one night. I worked in coronary care but she also had MS. I casually asked her if she drank diet soda at all and she told me that she drank at “least” a case a day of Diet Pepsi…GOOD GRIEF….
I”m also not one for conspiracy theories but if I didn’t know better I think that the pop companies have put addictive ingredients in diet pop and maybe even reg pop. You know that Coke started out with real cocaine in it way back when.
What has been interesting is that I could NOT drink water while addicted to the diet coke and now I crave water and enjoy it. I love tea, too. I think that all one has to do it look at the ingred. list on a can of diet pop and all that you see is flavored water with a bunch of chemicals… no redeeming food value what so ever. So what is the point??? Not only is it not redeeming but may even be harmful to us humans..
If you are the least bit interested, look up the history of aspartame and the FDA approval process. It is and has been very political. Monsanto, Searle etc had much to gain from having FDA approval for aspartame. I say, put things in your body that you know are actual food products. Read labels and try to get fresh, good ingredients.
I’ve gotten off on another tangent here but felt that it was worth being mentioned.
Thanks Mish!!
Thank you for writing that. I have cravings for diet cokes about one a month. Sometimes I cave and them I feel like rubbish. I also agree that after watching Food Inc. I realised that not only do americans have access to crap food, they are pawns for HUGE corporations.
I have a problem with sugar and artificial sugars. I actually had to have Hunni take away some cake from me today because I couldn’t stop.
I TOTALLY know what you mean.
Sugar is one of my triggers so as you know I’m trying to ban it for the year. So far so good as I’ve gone 103 days now without any sweets or junkfood.
As for taking breaks in general I take them from lots of everything. I find I need breaks from golf,poker, tv, people in general and some others I’m sure.
It’s hard at the start but if you can keep it up long enough it becomes very easy to avoid. I don’t even blink an eye when I’m offered desert now.
I need breaks from people to…I can imagine that people need breaks from me 🙂
I do alright with sugar/salt stuff. I haven’t been bingey with any of those. But my biggest downfall is alcohol, and usually social drinking because after I drink one, well, it’s hard to resist the second, and after the night out, you always want some good drunk food, and then some morning after grease to accompany that. So yep, I’ve been avoiding alcohol. Does it make me less social and avoid going to the bars? Yes. Does it save me money because I don’t go to the bars? HELL YEAH. And I’ve been trying to find other ways of hanging out with people that doesn’t require going to the bar. So far, it’s been alright. We’ll see how it goes when I go back to law school and everything revolves around Bar Review and Thirsty Thursdays.
For now, I’m still on my sobriety pledge.
Jess I totally understand what you mean. It’s hard when you’re at uni. I through about every four months about 2-3 big weekends in a row of drinking..then realise it makes me feel like crap…so I back off. But I have to admit that there’s nothing like a good buzz.
Boy can I ever relate. Sugar or the sugar in the carbs just calls to me. I absolutely agree that it is an addiction. I have also found that I actually feel like crap after eating too much of it or nearly any amount of it. but at the time it’s nearly a frenzy to “inhale” the stuff.. It’s so strange an disturbing on so many levels!!!
I have to take a break from soy! Being a vegetarian for almost 8 years now I have sort of become dependant on soy products as a quick fix to dinner time or lunch time or anytime that I’m short on veggies and time. I don’t mind eating soy products once in a while, but they began to take over my freezer a while back and I realized it was time to make some changes. We switched to almond milk instead of soy and I began buying non soy meat alternatives as well. Not only is the whole soy story still undecided I’m not a fan of helping Monsanto take over the world one veggie nugget at a time…I buy Quorn instead!!
Maria,
I’m a fairly soy free vegetarian too, but my goodness it’s super hard, they put that in everything. After doing some reading too I’m airing on the side of caution with it. Way to vote with those dollars.
Oh my gosh. I gave up sugar for 3 weeks. Breaking a habit takes that long, right? 3 miserable, cranky, pissed off weeks. Then I realized that while I may be addicted, I am much happier being so. I now let myself have a piece of extra dark chocolate (small piece) most nights. It plays two roles. I get to have some kid of sugar, AND I use it as motivation throughout the day. I work at a school, so there is always sugary treats. The knowledge that I get to have chocolate that night helps me say no to the black holes of sugar. SO yea, I know what you went through, and o, I am not brave enough to even PRETEND to give up sugar entirely. I think the 3 weeks helped my sugar/me relationship, but hurt every other relationship I have. Boo.