Quit the booze, quit the fags, why oh why can't I quit the sugar??

[TinyGlassOwl]

Anyone else find giving up / cutting down on sugary crap incredibly difficult? I gave up drinking almost a year go with no real issues, gave up smoking a long time ago as soon as I got pregnant and have never touched a cigarette since... but can I stop eating bloody chocolate??

I really, really want to stop. My diet is fundamentally good (lots of cooking from scratch, lots of veg, limited red meat or processed stuff, love salad etc) but I just supplement with biscuits and chocolate and cake from about 3pm onwards until I go to bed . My blood sugar is all over the place and more than once recently I've found myself standing at the kitchen sink mindlessly stuffing biscuits to try and stop the shaky feeling. Not good.

I know people will say just don't have it in the house but DH and ds both buy it anyway even if I don't. And then it's there, beckoning to me in the evening...'mmmm, what about a lovely Wispa with that cup of tea....maybe a couple more biscuits...mmmm, yummy, go on, it won't hurt...' and then before I know I'm surrounded by wrappers.

Help! Has anyone got any fail-safe tips particularly for staving off the evening cravings?

I seriously could not do it until I tried Low Carb/High Fat and a mildly Ketogenic diet. I follow the Michael Moseley Blood Sugar Diet and Fast 800 as I’ve recently discovered I’m pre-diabetic. The first few days I was dizzy and headachey but drinking electrolytes/Himilayan Pink Salt in water helps. After a few days you stop craving sugar and having the addiction. No hunger either. It’s fab.

@TinyGlassOwl

Replace the sugar high with exercise. Get a bike, start jogging, or go on long hikes

No, I'm not going to do that.

I cracked it once, didn’t eat any sweet stuff for a very long time. I just stopped one day, cold turkey. I was at a point where I could have all my old favourites (which I used to eat daily) in the house without even being slightly tempted by them. Then I STUPIDLY had one pissing quality street at Christmas and it all went down the pan. I’m still really annoyed with myself

Plus now I’m a failure in that department my brain keeps trying to convince me that a glass of wine with a cig sounds like the best idea ever...

I never had a sweet tooth, never ate puddings. All the time I had small children I was indifferent to sugar. My snacks are usually wine or fizzy water and crisps. My diet is fairly healthy though I eat quite a lot (more than DH).
Also I weigh the same at 60 as I did at 20, BMI21, and have never dieted.

Recently though I've started eating ice cream. Chocolate ice cream, and cake.
For the first time ever Ive noticed my weight creep up a little.

I can do cold turkey/tee total, I cannot do moderation. I recently decided to think about it like an addiction (it is one!) and I’m trying to get my head around treating it like one. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to have ‘just one’ biscuit. So I’m not going to have any.

Which really sucks because I love biscuits, and cake, and baking. Currently redirecting my baking interest towards low GI bread. Made a tasty rye sourdough the other day.

I’m 2 weeks into giving up sugar and everything’s eased off - I’m not nearly as hungry, and I’m doing ok. I’m still having fruit, because it’s processed sugar that I was bothered about, and if I want something sweet I have strawberries and Greek yoghurt or cream.

Don't be too hard on yourself. To have given up the other two was very good indeed.

I have to (try to) avoid sugar as I am type 2 diabetes but it is in everything!! I even had a boost bar the other day. I haven't had one for years and never craved one before!!!

@TinyGlassOwl

Replace the sugar high with exercise. Get a bike, start jogging, or go on long hikes

No, I'm not going to do that.

LOL

I eat exceedingly low carb (no sugar) because it controls my diabetes without drugs.

But because I'm a twat I jump off the wagon at Christmas/Easter & think I'll just have 1-2 days 'off' then get right back on the wagon.

Fucking Wagon

I know I feel better when I'm
On it, but life is easier when I'm off it.

However, what I KNOW is that you need to go cold Turkey. You CANNOT do it half arsed that's just misery with no reward!

It takes a few days of agony to get through the carb crave, but once you do get there it's surprisingly easy to not even think about chocolate (not even double deckers).

Buy yourself whatever no/low carb things you love to eat, do you have plenty of nice food available. Eat as much of it as you need to feel satisfied and not 'on a diet'

Drink loads of water, then drink more water and ... you get the picture, we need a lot of water for our bodies to work well.

Go and join BIWI & her Bootcamp, it doesn't matter what week they're on, they'll welcome you and help you on your own journey (doesn't matter if you want to lose weight or not and it's not about exercising -I say that as I'd seen the Bootcamp threads for ages & scrolled past assuming they were about exercise!!)

Honestly, it's bloody hard the first few days, but it's not that hard once you're burning fat not carbs.

Just jumping on to say you aren’t alone! I’ve lost 4 stone but it has totally stopped now and it’s because of sugar.
I gave up before and after the first 5 days it was genuinely fine, I know I can do it but it’s so hard!
So if you want to cold Turkey, I’m here for being an accountability buddy x

I've been without sugar since February and literally the only way I could do it was to go totally cold turkey, I had really bad migraines to start with but it just gradually got better. I've stopped craving it and added bonus of losing a shit ton of weight. Good luck.

It's nice to know I'm not alone.

Tbh though I've been there done that with low-carb. I have the Bootcamp t-shirts from years back. I don't want to reduce all carbs or even lose weight particularly - I just want to stop eating liquorice allsorts for lunch or having a cheeky second Wispa before bed.

I do need to drink more water though. And perhaps I could replace chocolate with cheese and olives and nuts in the evening? I used to love a nice crisp apple with a big lump of sharp cheddar, maybe I could have that rather than a Cornetto after supper...

@Konga

Which really sucks because I love biscuits, and cake, and baking. Currently redirecting my baking interest towards low GI bread. Made a tasty rye sourdough the other day.

Yes, I also discovered baking in the first lockdown. I make these amazing flapjacks with roasted white chocolate on top. And Nigella's brownies [drools]. And a chocolate and red wine cake that is To. Die. For.

Goddammit.

"Ugh why is everything nice so wrong??" That's just addiction talking. A double decker bar (as an example here) is nasty cheap chocolate which the food manufacturer has spent a huge amount of research to make it as addictive as possible.

It also sounds like you have reactive hypoglycaemia if you get the shakes in between meals. I used to have those quite a lot but going low carb high fat diet eliminated them immediately. I also got rid of my sugar cravings, chocolate craving was the last one to go though, it's a tough bustard to get rid. But by going LCHF made the weaning of sugar hell of a lot easier. There are studies that baby rats prefer sugar over cocaine.

Personally I had to reach my rock bottom before I was ready for LCHF and all the changes it brings along but seven months in, it is the best life style change I could have possibly ever made. I've also lost 2.5 stone within the first five months which was amazing bonus.

The diet doctor website has an excellent series about sugar addiction:
www.dietdoctor.com/first-part-of-our-sugar-addiction-video-course-free-for-all

One thing I’ve noticed when having periods of being sugar free (not low carb particularly, just cutting out biscuits and chocolate etc), is that all other food starts to taste sooooo much better.

Go to Tesco’s and buy their Cotton CAndy Grapes. Yes they have some natural fruit sugars in, but they’re a lot healthier still and they taste like Cotton Candy - I use them as my treat!

Watching with interest. I wouldn’t say I’ve cracked it but chocolate is my weakness. I find that buying only 70-85% dark chocolate or cacao nibs helps. It satisfies the craving and I get a bit of what I crave but I can only eat a little at a time.

I used to eat frozen grapes which are like little ice lollies. They have sugar, but not the refined variety obviously and are small and have some positive nutritional value as well as just sugar.

Like op, I'm not really interested in doing very low carb again. I've been there more times than I'd care to remember!