tips on how to get off sugar?

itsduffy

i really enjoy chocolate and sugary foods. id eat a few bars of chocolate every day and need to cut back. any suggestions on foods i could switch too or how to get off my cravings?

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

if you like dark chocolate aldi do some love 85% that's quite low in sugar and could be a substitute

shamrock55

Id love to give up sugar in my tea, i have tried but it just isnt the same, i take 1 spoon now but even going down to half a spoon is tough, it tastes mank and i like my tea:D

itsduffy

sounds good, never really eat dark chocolate but ill give it a go, thanks

mcballer

Just quit! I was a total sugar fiend .... Living sugar highs and crashes and even craving sugar when I'd wake. I just went cold Turkey. Granted its a few days of headaches, feeling tired, dreaming of haribo and wanting to wrestle sweeties out of children's hands....but stuck with it and really in a few days the irrational cravings were gone and I feel much more stable in energy levels. Much improved .

ford2600

itsduffy wrote: »

i really enjoy chocolate and sugary foods. id eat a few bars of chocolate every day and need to cut back. any suggestions on foods i could switch too or how to get off my cravings?

Once I upped fat intake in my diet, sugar cravings went. Also cut bread pasta rice etc.

Found it trivial but some people have a hard time

jene

I had the biggest sweet tooth but Ive managed to almost completely cut sugar out of my diet these are some things that helped me

Eat before shopping and don't be tempted to buy sweet treats. i find if i have sweets in the house i will eat them all

I used stevia (granulated available in tesco) or xylitol (health food shops) as a substitute at first in tea and coffee for me it tasted the same.

Try not to get too hungry (when I'm hungry i have no will power) also bring a packed lunch with healthy snacks too work to avoid buying anything sugary.

Watch out for all the hidden sugars in foods such as cereal, yogurt ect i tended to get a sugar crash after eating them and then wanted more sugar

Really dark good quality choc or fruit for when you want treat.
I know its hard but if you cut out all the sugar you'll crave it less.
Good luck

Skalragg

go cold turkey, avoid 'Diet' drinks as they cause your body to crave sugar even more.

Instead of big meals , snack throughout the day

Any chocolate / sweets hidden around the house ...DUMP

rocky

Increase excersize to match sugar intake. Result.

silverharp

rocky wrote: »

Increase excersize to match sugar intake. Result.

I dont think that is good advice in general

Paulie Gualtieri

shamrock55 wrote: »

Id love to give up sugar in my tea, i have tried but it just isnt the same, i take 1 spoon now but even going down to half a spoon is tough, it tastes mank and i like my tea:D

Try hermaseatas for tea . 400 of them in tesco for 2.50ish. I had to change as I drink about 13 mugs of tea a day and a heaped sugar in each . and I thought I could never have a rubbish substitute but the above have been excellent . would never go back to sugar. Plus I can make tea with a tablespoon now

Mellor

Skalragg wrote: »

'Diet' drinks as they cause your body to crave sugar even more.

No they don't. There's no hormonal effect from them. All sorts of side effects are speculated online, but are largely made up.

oscar_mike

Ha been there my friend. . .Had a terrible problem with coke, bars and crisps in college! Firstly cold turkey wont work! Had to ween myself off slowly starting with crisps. Long story short i now snack on diet coke, peanut butter, cream, chili and honey roast nuts.

Alf Veedersane

oscar_mike wrote: »

Ha been there my friend. . .Had a terrible problem with coke, bars and crisps in college! Firstly cold turkey wont work! Had to ween myself off slowly starting with crisps. Long story short i now snack on diet coke, peanut butter, cream, chili and honey roast nuts.

Just to clarify - it won't work for some.

For others it's a must.

oscar_mike

But i think your problem might be cravings caused in no small parts by all the sugar.

Alf Veedersane

oscar_mike wrote: »

But i think your problem might be cravings caused in no small parts by all the sugar.

oscar_mike

To be fair, cold turkey is pretty hard, especially if your diet isn't great, or all your friends do it and/or are surrounded by convenience foods.

oscar_mike

nice

mcballer

As mentioned in my post cold turkey can work. I ate tons of biscuits haribo bread everyday and just ditched it. Really tough couple days but like a plaster rip it off and get it over with. Just depends if u have the willpower to ignore the voices telling u to eat some sweets!! Eat a lot more protein/fat now so feel more stable energy wise and don't have cravings.

oscar_mike

So if a person doesn't have strong willpower will cold turkey still work?

Alf Veedersane

oscar_mike wrote: »

So if a person doesn't have strong willpower will cold turkey still work?

If they don't have strong willpower a lot of things won't work.

itsduffy

Thanks for all your advice! see i dont like rice pasta tea or coffee so im okay with those. going to wein myself off it like oscar_mike said

Faith

mcballer wrote: »

Just quit! I was a total sugar fiend .... Living sugar highs and crashes and even craving sugar when I'd wake. I just went cold Turkey. Granted its a few days of headaches, feeling tired, dreaming of haribo and wanting to wrestle sweeties out of children's hands....but stuck with it and really in a few days the irrational cravings were gone and I feel much more stable in energy levels. Much improved .

Same as.

I quit sugar 3 weeks ago now. I probably ate about 500 calories a day of junk food and I just stopped on the 13th of January. It was HARD at the beginning. The cravings were tough, especially at times I'd become primed to snacking, like watching TV after dinner. The lethargy for the first week or so was a killer. But now, at the beginning of the third week, I've lots of energy, I never really get cravings, I turned down cake twice in 24 hours (one with my FIL literally waving it under my nose, telling me how good it tasted) and I've lost weight.

Many people here will think I haven't done it 'properly' because I still eat all the bread, pasta and potatoes I want. I even go to the chipper occasionally. But it's working brilliantly for me, I don't feel deprived at all, and I still enjoy absolutely everything I eat.

So, I cut out:

Chocolate
Sweets
Fizzy drinks (inc. diet ones)
Biscuits
Cakes
Yoghurts
Cereal
Processed foods (I've always cooked from scratch anyway)
Sauces like barbeque sauce (still have maybe a teaspoon of ketchup if I really want it)
Jam/marmalade/any spread like that

I'm sure there's more. I track everything I eat using myfitnesspal.com and I set my sugar limit to 30g a day. I never go over it, even if I slip a little bit. THe most important thing is to check the labels of everything, and the ingredients list. I am horrified by the things that have sugar added! Doritos, for instance, have added sugar. I know there's a better guide somewhere, but roughly speaking, if something has less than about 5g of sugar per 100g, that's low in sugar. If it has more than 15g of sugar per 100g, that's high in sugar. And 5-15g is medium.

I'm very relaxed about it, because I know that if I do too much at once (like trying to go full low carb), I'll fail. So take it as slowly as you need to to succeed. It might be that you just cut out chocolate for the first week, then sweets too the next week, etc. My OH, for example, took 2 weeks to cut sugar from his coffee - he went from 2 teaspoons per cup originally to 1 tsp, then to half a tsp after a week, then to none after another week.

People might say "You can't cut out sugar without cutting out bread/pasta/etc" but just do whatever you can manage. Every little helps, as they say. Ultimately, just aim to keep your sugar intake to below 30-40g. By doing that, you'll find you're already eating a much healthier diet.

Sangre

shamrock55 wrote: »

Id love to give up sugar in my tea, i have tried but it just isnt the same, i take 1 spoon now but even going down to half a spoon is tough, it tastes mank and i like my tea:D

Sounds like you like sugar, not tea.

colossus-x

This works for me.

Go down to the supermarket and purchase a large variety of fruits you think you may like. Have a plentiful supply so you never run out. I personally would buy 4 or 5 like tangerines grapes peaches pears bananas and apples. Eat lots of fruit throughout the day and make sure you have plenty at hand at work. Make a concerted effort to eat as much of it as you can throughout the day. COMPLETELY disregard any thoughts that eating a lot of fruit is bad for you ( cause it ain't ). Keep this up every day until you get tired of eating so much fruit and you've gotten out of the habit of both buying/eating junk food. In just a surprisingly short period of time you will have forgotten about your junk food habit/cravings. You will naturally being to eat less fruit as you somewhat tire of it but remember to eat fruit at LEAST twice a day when you believe you have 'recovered'.

This works because the sugars in the fruit dampen your cravings for the sugar in junk food and is immensely better for you. And remember there are mineral/vitamins in fruits that you don't get in biscuits. I highly recommend this strategy to you and in fact I didn't find it particularly difficult to do which is amazing as the cravings for junk sugar can be very strong indeed. Remember you have to cut the junk food out altogether though as you'll just go back on it eventually if you don't.

oscar_mike

You wont be sorry itsduffy, your doing your body a HUGE favour by cutting back, not only for loosing weight but for things like cholesterol, diabetes, energy, mental health.

1.To get going i would recommend switching to diet minerals,
after a couple of weeks switch your chocolate to dark chocolate.

oscar_mike

You wont be sorry itsduffy, your doing your body a HUGE favour by cutting back on the white stuff, not only for loosing weight but for things like cholesterol, diabetes, energy, mental health.

1. To get going i would recommend switching to diet minerals, pepsi max is my choice
2. after a couple of weeks switch your chocolate to dark chocolate, Cadburys bourneville is a good place to start then the go darker.
3. After that you could substitute nuts for crisps. Tesco, aldi and lidl do seriously good nuts like bbq, dryroast, honey, chili, paprika.

Although its up to you how fast or what way you do it, but you will eventually stop missing sugar.

silverharp

colossus-x wrote: »

This works because the sugars in the fruit dampen your cravings for the sugar in junk food and is immensely better for you. And remember there are mineral/vitamins in fruits that you don't get in biscuits. I highly recommend this strategy to you and in fact I didn't find it particularly difficult to do which is amazing as the cravings for junk sugar can be very strong indeed. Remember you have to cut the junk food out altogether though as you'll just go back on it eventually if you don't.

coming at this from a low carb perspective I would disagree. Firstly while the high octane stuff is the HF corn syrup and sugar in processed food, there is a lot of sugar in fruit so Im not sure why your body will be able to tell the difference? Some fruit is better than others though with tropical being the "worst" and and berries being the best.

The best approach is to go cold turkey but as such there should be no cravings for sugar once you stop eating it although to be effective wheat and starchy veg should be avoided as well.

oscar_mike

Cold turkey is very hard stick with and only a minority have the willpower to do it. And anyway why would want to put yourself through the intense cravings and frustrations of cold turkey when you could just gradually decrease it?

silverharp

oscar_mike wrote: »

Cold turkey is very hard stick with and only a minority have the willpower to do it. And anyway why would want to put yourself through the intense cravings and frustrations of cold turkey when you could just gradually decrease it?

I don't think willpower comes into it, if you suddenly switch to a "low carb" diet, you don't crave anything. The whole point is that the sugar , grains etc. cause your insulin and appetite to go into overdrive so essentially such a person never feels full and always wants to eat something every 30 min. turn off the sugar wheat and junk and you actually feel full after a meal.

oscar_mike

Yeah i totally agree, i low carb my self. . . unfortunately alot of people go by the low fat mentality and/or have a diet rich in carbs and processed crap.

Precious flower

Cold turkey was the only way for me tbh. If I'm trying to eat well, sweets, crisps and chocolate are completely banned! It is hard at first, but I know that I'm not good with moderate. Bread, chocolate sweets all send me on a sugar hunt that just gets crazy. I can't have one packet of crisps!

Now thankfully I've always been a healthy weight (eight stone) but still I have no sense of moderation! Used to take sugar in my tea years ago stopped doing it and never looked back. Sugary tea to me tastes odd! So, cold turkey is mainly the way for people who can't handle moderation.

Actually though dark chocolate is really good for cravings. I did go cold turkey to some extent but dark chocolate (85%) helped keep me in line for the first few days when I started!

oscar_mike

Junk food is nothing short of an addiction! so fair play to anyone who can just go cold turkey!! Not me though, had to slowly substitute it out over weeks. Now im done with junk food and have zero interest in going back. Very dark choc, peanut butter, cream and nuts are now my snack of choice

Davei141

Doing it cold turkey builds a tonne of mental strength. Besides in a few days they will be gone.

sabat

Strawberry flavour Extra gum helped me off my addiction to cheap sweets like haribo and refreshers-it's 3 packs for €1.49 in Dealz. I find a nice sparkling water like San Pellegrino with or without some freshly squeezed lime satisfies those tastebuds too and also fills you up somewhat.

An Bhanríon

I have cut back on the amount of sugar I eat over the last few years. The main thing that helps me is (a) being organised (b) preparing my own food. It takes a bit of planning and effort but without it I would end up falling back too often on the 'easy option' of processed food. Also not letting myself get hungry is a big thing. When I'm hungry the first thing I think of is a bar of chocolate. So I try to eat a good breakfast and bring healthy snacks into work so I can munch at them during the day (fruit, nuts, seeds, chopped vegetables, tinned fish, sprouted beans).

And just in case this all sounds a bit too perfect, I was disorganised today, missed breakfast and ended up having a take away coffee and danish pastry for my breakfast!!! God loves a trier...

kitten_77

rocky wrote: »

Increase excersize to match sugar intake. Result.

silverharp wrote: »

I dont think that is good advice in general

I agree, this is not a good solution to a sugar problem!

This girl has a brilliant healthy eating blog, if you read the background information she talks about having cured herself of a pretty debilitating disease, through diet.

http://deliciouslyella.com/the-ultimate-energy-bites-vegan-gluten-free-dairy-free/

The great recipe above is for a deliciously healthy snack which taste really good, I've made them twice (I would say as good as chocolate!!) Although they are still sweet they are made with lots of nuts and dates, so no processed sugar. The nuts (and cinnamon) also help prevent sugar "spikes".

I agree with the person who said that increasing fat helped curb cravings. Just make sure its good fats! eggs and avocado are great, so filling and healthy. Try making guacamole (its really easy) and having it on toast. I constantly have avocados ripening at home and make this every day.

ford2600

This works because the sugars in the fruit dampen your cravings for the sugar in junk food and is immensely better for you. And remember there are mineral/vitamins in fruits that you don't get in biscuits. I highly recommend this strategy to you and in fact I didn't find it particularly difficult to do which is amazing as the cravings for junk sugar can be very strong indeed. Remember you have to cut the junk food out altogether though as you'll just go back on it eventually if you don't.[/QUOTE]

Taken from a different forum


http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7007/12/8

Quote:
I’d like to ask you one last question, on fructose. You’ve written recently on the very topical issue of whether fructose is a particularly important cause of metabolic disease [4] and, as we now know, with possible very strong links to cancer. As I understand it, sucrose - and even other carbohydrates - in excess can be metabolized to fructose. So if we’re just eating too much carbohydrate generally, does it really matter whether it’s fructose or any other kind?

It turns out that it does matter. Quite honestly, four or five years ago I was in your camp of assuming, you know - fructose, glucose, they have exactly the same number of calories per gram, they can be interconverted instantly inside most cells, so what does it matter? The answer is, it’s really important - and quite striking - because the liver differentially metabolizes fructose and glucose. This specialization is pretty much unique to the liver; in any other cell, the fructose and glucose are pretty much interchanged quite rapidly. But liver does not have hexokinase, so it cannot phosphorylate fructose at the six position. This is in contrast to glucose, which can be phosphorylated at the six position in the liver by glucokinase to make glucose-6-phosphate, which is then converted to fructose-6-phosphate. And that is then phosphorylated at the one position by phosphofructokinase (PFK), which is - and here’s the key point - the ultimate gatekeeper for entering glycolysis. In contrast, fructose that enters the liver is phosphorylated at the one position by fructokinase (also called ketohexokinase) to make fructose-1-phosphate rather than fructose-6-phosphate. The liver is almost unique in regard to the ability to differentially metabolize glucose and fructose.

And that matters because…?

That matters because once it’s phosphorylated at the one position, fructose can be a substrate for aldolase, and shoot down the glycolytic pathway, bypassing the gatekeeper PFK, which is the control step for going into glycolysis. In most tissues, if the cell finds itself with plenty of ATP and plenty of citrate (the building blocks for making fatty acids), it will stop all flux through glycolysis because ATP and citrate inhibit PFK - a classic example of a metabolic negative feedback control. So the glucose that enters the cell can still get phosphorylated but it doesn’t go down glycolysis and doesn’t get converted to fat but rather gets stored as glycogen or exits the cell.

But in the liver, fructose bypasses that whole machinery, because it doesn’t need PFK; it gets phosphorylated at the one position directly, without phosphorylation of the six position first and, as a consequence, now becomes a substrate for aldolase, and it produces even higher levels of ATP and citrate that go on to make fatty acids. No matter how much you’ve eaten, you will still make more fat if you eat fructose.

There are two other things about fructose that make it different from glucose. One is that all the fructose you eat is cleared on its first pass through the liver. In other words, the liver scarfs up all the fructose and immediately converts it to fat, while glucose stays in the bloodstream for some period of time. That’s why we call starches hyperglycemic molecules; they keep glucose levels in your bloodstream high for a long time. That is good for the brain - the brain loves to eat glucose. It’s good for the muscle. But fructose doesn’t actually supply any energy to your brain at all, it doesn’t supply any energy to your muscle; it only gets stored as fat. That’s really quite remarkable, if you think about it. You eat sucrose - one molecule of glucose and one molecule of fructose - that glucose is being used by your muscle and your brain - your brain loves getting that glucose - but the fructose is all just getting stored as fat.

But does it also mean that you get hungrier - you want more sugar if you’re using fructose rather than glucose?

Exactly. You would have to eat exactly twice as much sucrose as starch to get the same amount of energy supplied to your muscle and brain. The brain realizes that, it keeps relaying a feedback so that the more sugar you eat, the more it wants you to eat. Hence the addiction to sweetness. That’s the dangerous thing about this molecule.

You might ask - well why did we evolve such a complicated system? Why does only the liver feed fructose straight into fat? I think it’s quite clear why this happens. We have a symbiotic relationship with plants. Plants want to spread their seeds around, so they surround them with fructose. High-fructose material surrounding the seeds gets us and other animals to eat them and this craving of fructose makes us eat them a lot and we end up carrying their seeds around and spreading them. But at the same time, it gives us an advantage because those fruits ripen just at the end of the growing season, which generally means, in almost all environments, that you’re not going to have much to eat over the next few months. So the best way to survive is to convert everything you eat at that time into fat. That is the long-term storage mechanism that allows you to survive until the next growing season. That’s why fructose was spectacular for us 10,000 years ago, getting us through these famines that we faced every year. But today we don’t have famines and so we just get fat.

Does this put a whole new gloss on Eve and that apple?

You’d probably have to eat about a bushel of apples to get the same amount of fructose as in a 40 oz Coke, which we’re trying to ban here in New York City unsuccessfully.

And here’s an additional comment. The way we’ve attempted to avoid this problem is by using artificial sweeteners. The problem with those is that a disconnect ultimately develops between the amount of sweetness the brain tastes and how much glucose ends up coming to the brain.

So the brain figures you have to eat more and more and more sweetness in order to get any calories out of it. The consequence of people eating lots of sweeteners, no matter what they are - whether they’re natural or unnatural - is that it increases the addiction for the sweetness. As a consequence, at the end of the day, your brain says, 'OK, at some point I need some glucose here'. And then you eat an entire cake, because nobody can hold out in the end. The only way really to prevent this problem - to break the addiction - is to go completely cold turkey and go off all sweeteners - artificial as well as fructose. Eventually the brain resets itself and you don’t crave it as much.

gg2

Was just about to start a new thread on this! Just want to ask a couple of questions.. My diet is good until a point, generally its

breakfast - boiled eggs, bacon/ salmon/ ham and broccoli/ beans/ mushrooms. If I'm rushing I'll have wheatabix with milk.
Lunch - soup, salad, lettuce wraps, sandwich on a rare occasion, sometimes a small portion of last nights dinner leftovers
Dinner - home cooked from scratch as often as possible, meat/poultry small portion of potatoes/ brown rice, plenty of veg.

Its when I get to about 7 the sh1t hits the fan. I will literally start to tear the presses apart for something sweet (and I purposely don't buy anything for this reason) this could result in me either going to the shop and buying a couple bars of chocolate or making some type of sandwich/ toastie to try to fill the "void". Its starting to really get to me as I know I am hooked on sugar and the thoughts of not having a sweet treat are bothering me, which is how I know I need to give it up.

So going to try cold turkey. I discussed it with a friend this morning and I said I was going to buy some fruit and make a nice salad to snack on tonight. She reckons I'd need to cut out fruit too AND all veg except dark green.... Is this true??
Also any other recommendations for snack ideas?

kitten_77

7pm seems quite early to be hungry again, what time do you have dinner? (I only get home from work at 7pm!!!) If you're genuinely hungry, then maybe eat a bit more protein at dinner? I've read that protein curbs sugar cravings.

If its just a snack craving then try the recipe I posted above for the energy bites which taste like chocolate but don't contain any refined sugar. Or have a couple of Nairns oatcakes, they are still sweet but much lower in sugar than regular biscuits and the oats are good or stabilizing sugar levels. The berry ones are particularly yummy. I also like almonds as a snack, they have a lovely (slightly sweet) flavour.

gg2

kitten_77 wrote: »

7pm seems quite early to be hungry again, what time do you have dinner? (I only get home from work at 7pm!!!) If you're genuinely hungry, then maybe eat a bit more protein at dinner? I've read that protein curbs sugar cravings.

If its just a snack craving then try the recipe I posted above for the energy bites which taste like chocolate but don't contain any refined sugar. Or have a couple of Nairns oatcakes, they are still sweet but much lower in sugar than regular biscuits and the oats are good or stabilizing sugar levels. The berry ones are particularly yummy. I also like almonds as a snack, they have a lovely (slightly sweet) flavour.

Usually have dinner between 4 and 5.30 - just depends on work. Nope its not hunger just this insatiable craving!!
I actually have some almond butter, maybe spread some on oatcakes?? Was also thinking peanut butter on wholemeal toast.

JJayoo

Just stop buying the **** food. Stop paying money to feel and look like ****.

gg2

JJayoo wrote: »

Just stop buying the **** food. Stop paying money to feel and look like ****.

Oh wow. Why didn't I think of that sooner?

By the way, I look fantastic.

homemadecider

It sounds like you're probably just hungry. Are you eating enough cals throughout the day?

If I were you I'd eat my dinner a bit later so it will keep me going until bedtime. If you really want something after dinner try a hot chocolate made with unsweetened cocoa powder and milk.

JJayoo

gg2 wrote: »

Oh wow. Why didn't I think of that sooner?

By the way, I look fantastic.

Well if you had thought of it then maybe you wouldn't be doing this.

this could result in me either going to the shop and buying a couple bars of chocolate

So like I said stop buying sh1t.

PS: People may disagree with you when you post on an open forum, get over it.

marizpan

If I have a late night sugar craving, I eat a teaspoon of honey.
This always works for me. I find if I give in at all I will start craving more and more sugar/ bread.

gg2

JJayoo wrote: »

Well if you had thought of it then maybe you wouldn't be doing this.



So like I said stop buying sh1t.

PS: People may disagree with you when you post on an open forum, get over it.

Get over it? Your so pleasant! On what issue exactly did I disagree with you on? Because as far as I can see we're saying the exact same thing. I just think your initial post was unhelpful, as was your second and I didn't really appreciate how you phrased your views or the language used and I don't think you contributed anything, hence my sarcasm (aside from how I look fantastic, because I do) But thanks anyway
To be honest posts like yours are the exact reason I don't generally post in this forum. Its such a shame as it is such a great forum.
I gave up smoking and din't find it as difficult like as this and never found the cravings quite so impossible to deal with, which is clearly what I'm finding an issue. As stated in my post I am trying to stop buying sh1t (and have... so far) as you say, I simply explained my own little story (as many others have) and asked for healthy snack suggestions to keep me going.

gg2

homemadecider wrote: »

It sounds like you're probably just hungry. Are you eating enough cals throughout the day?

If I were you I'd eat my dinner a bit later so it will keep me going until bedtime. If you really want something after dinner try a hot chocolate made with unsweetened cocoa powder and milk.

My brother is a PT and he reckons I'm not eating enough. So I'm going to start making porridge again and have a small bowl as a mid morning snack and push the time of lunch and dinner out a bit.

JJayoo

gg2 wrote: »

I just think your initial post was unhelpful, as was your second and I didn't really appreciate how you phrased your views or the language spoken and I don't think you contributed anything, hence my sarcasm (aside from how I look fantastic, because I do) But thanks anyway
To be honest posts like yours are the exact reason I don't generally post in this forum.

I really don't care if you appreciate my tone. You stated that you have zero will power and when 7 comes you drive to the shop and stock up on chocolate. I was simply pointing out how ridiculous this was. If this annoys up then meh

oscar_mike

If you cant resist past 7, how will you cope with cold turkey? There are other ways of doing it, no point in depriving yourself either and lets be honest, we all get sick of fruit some times.

oscar_mike

I suppose you'd tell a heroin addict to just stop buying heroin if he wanted to quit....