Beating sugar addiction

Chubbcakes

I recently went to a nutritionist who told me i was addicted to sugar.
I thought I ate well, but realised I don't - far too much sugar in my diet has led to 10kgs of weight gain over the last 5 years!
So I have cut out loads:
Dairy, milk choc, alchohol (except champagne) wheat, coffee and tea, even cut down on cooked carrot as they have loads of sugar! The problem is I have started to sneak in some of these things back into my diet.
Can anyone recommend how to break my sugar addiction. The nutritionist mentioned sugar addiction can be associated with depression, soooo I am keen to get this under control!!!:)

Sapsorrow

God this is a huge area in nutrition, my advice is to order yourself some books and educate yourself as much as possible as people are only going to be able to give you snippits of info and this is too tough an addiction to be much helped by that.

You shouldn't really undergo such a drastic change in diet as you mentioned in your post without learning about why you're doing in in detail and what the potential effects are, it's not usually a good idea to just follow one persons advice so try to become your own advisor in the future.

Try sugar blues by something Duffy, lick the sugar habit by Appleton etc.. if you look one of these up on amazon.co.uk you'll be able tosee what other books people who bought those books bought and you might find others ont he subject that way. Healing with wholefoods by Paul Pitchford has a great section on sugar addiction and the whole book promotes a very low sugar diet.

Otherwise maybe theres a yahoo group or other interent discussion forum for sugar addiction try googling for one as moral support and sharing your struggles and expereinces with others trying to achieve similar goals to you is always useful for overcoming addicition of any sort.

The simplest steps you can take are to switch to a balanced wholefoods diet, wholegrains (50-50 breads don't count and try eat a range of grains including oats, spelt, rye etc), lots of veg (lots of green leafy's), seasonal local fruit (not tropical stuff like mangos and pineapples), nuts and seeds, beans and lentils and fresh unprocessed meats and fish.

Eat regularly, have snacks or fruit, veg, nuts and seeds if you need to inbetween meals (make sure you never let yourself crash as this will lead to cravings and feeding frenzies/bingeing), drink lots of water and try to get your sleeping pattern sorted out to help maintain constant energy levels.

Avoid salty, processed and overly savory snacks (including cheese and salty meats etc) as this will naturally provoke a craving for something sweet to balance them out.

Sugar is very much related to depression, sugar is addictive because it causes your brain to release 'happy hormones' in the same way as a recreational drug would (I think it's beta endorphine) so treating depression with diet, lifestyle, exercise, counselling etc can be very helpful, I know when I have a depressed spell I really crave chocolate and ice-cream to cheer myself up and it's not a coincidence.

Sugar substiutes are a bit of a minefield but the safe ones to use include the herb stevia, it's only available from overseas by ordering onlineas they were banned despite no evidence of any rekated toxicity or dangers from it's use because it was seen as a threat to the processed sweetner and sugar companies markets.

Xylitol is a sweetner derived from birch tree sap and is excellent for baking, cooking and adding to hot drinks etc, it's very low calorie, doesn't rot your teeth and hasn't the bittereness you get from more synthetic sweetners. You can get it in your local heath food shop.

When I began my struggle with sugar 6 years ago I used to allow myself one little bar sweetned with malitol a day (only 80 kcals) and that worked really well for me. You can get them in some supermarkets and health food shops, the brand is cavalier.

Hope this helps, feel free to PM me if you have any other questions or just want to chat, it's a tough one and you'll definately need some support if you're anything like as addicted as me!

Chubbcakes

That's brilliant! Thanks for that!:D

Sapsorrow

Chubbcakes wrote: »

That's brilliant! Thanks for that!:D

Be sure and let us know how you're getting on with it! I have a food diary on the sub forum if you want to check it out, it's chronicalling my attempt to go completely sugar free (again *sigh*) among other things

Chubbcakes

Cool, where can i find it?

Sapsorrow

If you go up to the rec section at the top of the screen, down to food and drink, down to nutrition and diet and then the food diary sub forum should appear in a little box beside it (mines called time to overcome my addictions). The only thing is my diets 99% vegan so may not be what you're intersted in but there will be plenty of sugar free recipe ideas there!