Addicted to pringles- health effects?

Wanderer2010

Hi all, I have a big problem with Pringles in that Im actually starting to believe im addicted to them, and I dont say that lightly. I usually eat one full tube a day (on a bad day 2) and the cravings are terrible when I dont get my fix- short tempered, no energy, headache. Thing is, a few hours after I have stuffed myself, the effects are bad too- no energy, my stomach distends very badly (like im heavily pregnant, and im male!), I feel like I have no energy to do anything and whats worse is I mix this with a bottle of coke to get my sugar rush and this pushes my belly out even more.

In the last year I have put on more than 2 stone and a lot of my clothes dont fit anymore. I have managed to kick it in the past when I went cold turkey but i feel im in a never ending circle of vowing to give them up, managing to last a few hours, having a bad day, heading straight for the Pringles and Coke, gorging, feeling awful, vowing to change, etc etc. In other ways my diet is healthy (been eating more fruit and veg, hummus, natural yoghurt, fish etc) but that period in the evening nothing in the world will fill that gap only Pringles with coke. I now fear for my health and my future not to mention my confidence as the weight piles on. Is there anything I can do to help myself as its clearly not good to put that much salty carby and sugary food in your body on a daily basis!

I would even try hypnotherapy at this stage but Im not v. comfortable giving over control of my mind to another person.

amg-slurp

How about not buying them or having them in the house, and filling your evenings with something to help you. Gym, walking, cycling etc if your able to?

doctorwhogirl

Agree with the above about filling those gaps with something else, like exercise.

Better still, find a better alternative than pringles. Like whenever you have to urge to have a pringle, have something else, like a bit of a rice cake/corn cake or something or a piece of fruit like a grape. It's pure habit and maybe these replacements might help break it.

Brushing your teeth when you have a craving helps too because food rarely tastes that good when you've a minty residue in your mouth!!!

connollys

amg-slurp wrote: »

How about not buying them or having them in the house, and filling your evenings with something to help you. Gym, walking, cycling etc if your able to?

gotta agree with this, dont buy them and you cant eat them when at home. Also, dont go shopping when hungry, go about an hour after dinner so you wont be tempted to throw them in to the basket. Its a couple of mins of ignoring your craving and then once at home, no pringles, no harm.

Mr. Manager

I'll chime in here as I had similar issues about 2 years ago. I used to work for an American gaming company that treated us like royalty. Free crisps, dinners, soft drinks, smoothies, chocolate - everything. Whatever you wanted was there.

When I gave up smoking I replaced smoke breaks with chocolate, crisps or a can of coke. Went from 9 stone 1 lb to 13 stone 3 lb in about 8 months. Was known for punishing familypacks of crisps (not the share bags, like multipacks) in a day. Easily would go through 8-10 bags of crisps and other junk while watching telly or playing Xbox.

Started to ease myself out of it by replacing them with table water crackers and nuts. Now, I don't eat crisps at all. Probably only 1 packet in a month. Possibly even less than that actually.

Honestly, reading your post is like looking at myself 2 years. It's so spot on it's scary.

The last I'll say is, my changes were literally over night. We used to have a sweet bowl at home filled with junk I would take home fro work. One day, we just chucked it all out and that was that. My missus still eats a lot of junk but the temptation just isn't there anymore.

honeybear

Wanderer2010 wrote: »

Hi all, I have a big problem with Pringles in that Im actually starting to believe im addicted to them, and I dont say that lightly. I usually eat one full tube a day (on a bad day 2) and the cravings are terrible when I dont get my fix- short tempered, no energy, headache. Thing is, a few hours after I have stuffed myself, the effects are bad too- no energy, my stomach distends very badly (like im heavily pregnant, and im male!), I feel like I have no energy to do anything and whats worse is I mix this with a bottle of coke to get my sugar rush and this pushes my belly out even more.

In the last year I have put on more than 2 stone and a lot of my clothes dont fit anymore. I have managed to kick it in the past when I went cold turkey but i feel im in a never ending circle of vowing to give them up, managing to last a few hours, having a bad day, heading straight for the Pringles and Coke, gorging, feeling awful, vowing to change, etc etc. In other ways my diet is healthy (been eating more fruit and veg, hummus, natural yoghurt, fish etc) but that period in the evening nothing in the world will fill that gap only Pringles with coke. I now fear for my health and my future not to mention my confidence as the weight piles on. Is there anything I can do to help myself as its clearly not good to put that much salty carby and sugary food in your body on a daily basis!

I would even try hypnotherapy at this stage but Im not v. comfortable giving over control of my mind to another person.

You are NOT alone. I seriously think there is a drug in them. It's all or nothing with me-I think that they had the ad "Once you pop, you can't stop" If so, it was very appropriate!

ASJ112

That's the monosodium glutamate(MSG) for you.

bassy

lay off the smoke man

SpaceTime

It could also be a sugar rush that you're getting from them combined with Coke.

Try eating more slow release energy foods that take longer to digest.

Also make sure you're eating regularly. Having a bad, stressful day where you don't eat properly followed by a gorge on sugary snacks is a fairly common problematic cycle.

I would suspect pringles while probably not sugary are still rapidly broken down carbs. They're probably mostly startch which is only a few reactions away from glucose.

cbreeze

they are just so loaded with fat and salt. \i once put a single pringle in an ashtray and set fire to it - the flames shot up about six inches, and it burned and smouldered for 10 minutes from ignition. Save them for the winter, and use them for fuel.

elfy4eva

Im convicned my old man has a similar thing, he can horse through a 500g bag of Dry roasted peanuts in a single evening.

Put simply it's really bad for you and is likely going to cause you to gain serious weight. It needs to stop. Like anything willpower gets you through it. If you actually want to stop eating them, you can.

Instead of coke try mixing Carbonated water with Mi-Wadi. It's actually very nice!

Rower2

ASJ112 wrote: »

That's the monosodium glutamate(MSG) for you.

its likely to be the MSG in the pringles - its a flavour enhancer used in pringles, other crisps, chinese food etc... its actually in whey protein too ..

cold turkey is the way to go

Wanderer2010

Thanks so much for replies, people. Its something I will have to nip in the bud because I can see myself heading dangerously close to diabetes or other problems because its more a crutch than a physical hunger (although the cravings when I miss a day are very real)- Im craving the comfort of the mixture of very sugary drinks with salty crisps, its almost like a drug to me and I dont mean to be dramatic because I know drug addiction is a very real and serious problem. But I can only describe what its like for me and Im going to find a good replacement, even just a small packet of crisps until I can phase it out, my weight is going to explode otherwise.

Bigus

Would that not be like an alcholic having a small drink. I don't see any professional advise in here, so I think you should find some, your halfway there but go get good advice.