Where can I go to go cold turkey on sugar?

[LadyoftheLavaLamp]

I genuinely feel that I need to go on some kind of residential to break my habit/addiction/ whatever you want to call it. Everyone seems to say after a week you don’t crave it so badly anymore, but I never get anywhere near that far. If it’s not in the house I pass places it is easily accessible. I have Apple Pay on my watch so taking no cards out isn’t going to work.

Is there such a place anyone knows of? Has anyone done something like this?

Nice and luxurious would also be super - I suppose I could create the right setting myself if not but I honestly feel like it would need to be extremely difficult to access any chocolate/biscuits/cake to make it work.

Is there a reason you need to cut out sugar? How much are you eating??

The trouble is you'd have to still eat something and apparently it's your gut not your mouth that actually craves the sugar so you'd only be breaking the habit of enjoying the taste, not the proper craving. I've not tried it myself but a friend of mine had hypnosis and swears by it, started a massively healthier diet 3-4 weeks in.

Your brain wants the hit of sugar so you need to give it other stuff when it wants sugar.

Every time you want something sweet, eat something savoury like cheese and nuts. High carb food like pasta and bread make sugar cravings worse so try to lower your totally carbs.

Any soa place or yoga retreat. Assuming you are being serious

Spa

Start by googling yoga retreat, health retreat etc and you should start to find the terminology. I was looking a month ago and kept finding places with no booze or processed food.

I mean, if you have loads of money, Lanserhof in Germany would be a good shout.

You would be better reducing- use one of the habit apps to track how much less you are having.

Record when you tend to have it, and plan something else for those times.

If you initially do a month where you have no sugar at home, but still eat it when you are out then that will be a significant reduction.

Maybe do sugar free weekends, then long weekends, then all week, then seven days.

It's better to do it gradually so your gut microbiome can adjust.

Concentrate on what you do eat, not what you don't. Increase your raw fruit and veg and wholemeal carbs.

When you have ditched the sugar, you can think about carbs generally, and whether they affect you negatively.

I understand how it can feel like this and I sympathise but I think you are being a bit OTT (and you're not alone, there's a lot of this about). Sugar is mentally habit forming and we certainly have too much of it but isn't tobacco or heroin, you're not going to go into days-long, debilitating withdrawal.

I think the current vogue for talking about sugar as a toxin is slightly unhelpful and misleading. All addictions don't follow the same paths.

I think as others have suggested you are better off just gently reducing it as part of day to day life by "crowding it out" with other healthy and nice food: stopping having it in tea then reducing from cereals etc. I don't think a "short sharp shock" approach is really appropriate for this.

Go over to the diet section on here, there's a keto/low carb thread. That's pretty much sugar free..lots of support on there.

FWIW I did that 4 years ago in 2019, the weight dropped off alarmingly (thought I was seriously ill) till I realised it was because I literally cut out all (well most) sugar. No biscuits/cake/sweets/chocolate, minimal bread/pasta.

Sugar is my enemy, as soon as I'm feeling low, I stuff myself full of it

It can be done..good luck

For those saying spa, I’d love to but my experience with them is that the food always has some not do healthy options, and cakes, and desserts…

And I am being totally serious, I have really got a problem 😞

Yoga retreat is a good shout and I love yoga, any recommendations?

@Barold I’ll go and take a look at that thanks

@Breakingpoint1961 what did you do instead when feeling low?

Juicy Retreat, Jason Vale, Juicemaster, Portugal….

Shamelessly place marking. I have the same issue. I crave it when I really don't want to be eating it

@Barold ouch, that is a bit too pricey for me - in my dreams!!

Well I went and worked at a hospital in the middle of the Ugandan bush for a month and had no sugar. However I was straight back on it once I got home so not sure it wouldn’t be a waste of money.

Grayshott. They do a 5 day no sugar retest.

Oh sorry just seen it closed in 2020!!

I've just discovered Davinia Taylor on instagram and purchased her first book

@LadyoftheLavaLamp that's a very good question. I can't remember to be honest, what I do remember was how focussed I was at that time, which believe me is completely out of character. I also remember that not consuming any sugar actually lifted my mood, so I probably wasn't as low as I usually would've been. I think I'd have kept it up had it not been for lockdown, that was a killer!

All I can say is that it worked for me then. I have tried subsequently, but haven't done anywhere near as well as I did.

I am going to try again soon.