how can i give up sugar?

[tabpepsi]

i am a total addict and its now showing by sitting around my stomach below my natural waist line in a ring. my waist is 31 inches at its smallest place!!!

a typical day would be:

breakfast - banana and 4 oatcakes

morning snack - roll of winegums
mars bar

lunch - 2 slices brown bread/cheese/coleslaw sandwich
banana

afternoon snack - 2 oakcakes with smear of jam
half a roll of winegums

dinner - quorn breaded chicken fillet with full plate plied high of just salad leaves and about 10 pasta twists as i feel guilty with all junk ive eaten earlier

snack of a roll of winegums.

3 coffees or tea with 2 spoons of sugar.

im a 20.4 bmi, 9 stone 9, 5 ft 8, i walk 3 miles most days and do 2 hours of gym over the week.

i have two screaming small children, so taking a pan out to boil an egg for a snack seems hard as someone will have pooed in nappy of will be climbing somewhere they so i always need to run off after the kids.

i dont feel i have the time to start making salads night before as i have two very poor sleepers and time is scarce!

i am literally addicted as in get agitated or angsty if not able to have sugar.
it makes me so sad! i probably do eat emotionally.

can anyone help?

can anyone help with snacks i can just grab?

how do i retrain myself?

Come and join us on the Michael Mosley blood sugar diet thread part 3!
My only advice is just quit. Cold turkey. Do an online shop using a menu plan, aim for higher protein, lots of veg, few starchy carbs and good fats ( such as oily fish, cheese, nuts, full fatgreek yoghurt). I have also cut out fruit but I keep a bag of frozen berries in the freezer for emergencies! Ditch: sweets, choc, cake etc., breakfast cereals, diet products, diet drinks, useless white carbs and potatoes and 'underground veg'. After a few weeks of detydetyox you can reintroduce some of the natural sugars if you want such as fruits. On BSD we do 800 cals a day and some do a 5:2 approach, but you don't need to count calories especially at first. I've lost 16lb in 7 weeks, and I was a total sugar addict before I began. Cold turkey seems brutal in theory but in practice it is very rewarding and empowering to feel in control again.
Come and join us,there are some very kind and knowledgeable people on there and we all have our bad days too
Good luck!

For snacks, try to go at least a few hours between food, to allow your insulin to work and settle. You will find less need to snack as you remove sugar from your diet. In the early days I snacked on nuts, sliced cooked meat or chicken, or crudités and hummus, but as I was calorie counting I really tried to avoid snacking unless absolutely desperate. Drink lots of water too as this will help.
I have little children so planning in advance is key. Boil some eggs the night before, pack a snack if you go out, and plan your meals and your snacks a few days in advance (this is why I suggest an online shop and also stops impulse purchases of rubbish). I haven't put my kids on a sugar free plan by any means but I have found they have reduced the amount they eat because I'm simply not buying it anymore!

thank you!

just feeling a bit crap as just had two ripple bars and a bag of stawberry laces in addition to a big breakfast, supposed to be having a roast out in a pub in an hour and i'll have eaten about 3000 cals after that!

What topic is the Michael Moseley diet under please? I don't eat a huge amount of sugar, but would definitely like to cut it out too.

Well you don't need to lose weight, do you? At the very most 11lbs would put you at the very bottom of the BMI range.

The having no time to make a salad thing is not really true, tbh. It takes less than 5 minutes. A bag of leaves, shove some tomatoes, cucumber, beetroot, mozzarella and prawns on a plate = a salad. Quicker than making a salad.

Cutting down on wine gums is as simple as not buying them. If they aren't there, you can't eat them.

Could you swap the massive carb load out? Oatcakes are very calorific and carby. Greek yoghurt is filling and satisfying.

I have lost 5.5kg in 6 weeks (5'8, was 69.3kg now 63.8kg) just by having 1200 calories per day and avoiding carb-rich foods.

Hi nuzzle its in the fasting/5:2 section and is called mmblood-sugar-diet-part-3. There are two previous threads as well although there is lots of info for new starters on the 3rd thread because people join all the time.
tabpepsi I started this to lose weight which I have, but the greatest benefit has definitely been the fact I've got so much more energy, I don't have 'binges' any more and I can keep up with the kids. I just feel so much healthier. I needs to break the cycle of eat/feel crap/eat more/repeat and this has definitely helped.

Sounds like you're not getting anywhere enough food in your main meals.

thenewaver, yes, i sooo feel like im in a cycle of feel low energy, eat sugar, feel up and then crash.

but i think im clinically addicted to sugar if that's such a thing. maybe private therapy????

i dont want to lose much weight, maybe 5lbs. what i do want to do is totally turn my diet around and feel in charge instead if being ruled by sugar.

what is it like to go cold turkey? im imaging shakes/ trembling and agitation???

albert, yes im eating small meals to compensate for the vast carb/sugar intake.

yes, that's a good idea about greek yoghurt too.

thanks for replies.

worried about why my waist is so large despite being fairly lean elsewhere.

For me cold turkey wasn't too bad. You might experience headaches or strong cravings, but to be honest I had neither. I was expecting the worst so I planned some really nice low carb meals and snacks and I think because I expected horrors it was not too painful. I didn't crave chocolate or sweets oddly, but craved things like fruit as I missed snacking, and as the weeks have gone on I've craved baked potato, birthday cake, pineapple.....very random carby things! On and porridge, but that's because I miss having breakfast. I usually have a later brunch of ham/cheese at 10 ish then a green salad for lunch, then the bulk of my day's calories at evening meal. I don't miss sweets or chocolate at all really, which is odd because I literally couldn't get through the day without the and probably ate several hundred calories of sweets every day.

Your waist could be large due to holding fat around your organs, you might be thin outside/fat inside. Or it could be water retention? Both caused by a poor diet high in sugar. If its not your natural build and has developed recently then my guess would be one or both of these

Add in some naturally sweet foods like sweet potato to offset the sweetness?

This thread is making me hungry

Op you sound just like me, I eat a load of sugary crap then beat myself up over it but somehow end up eating more! Chocolate for breakfast is a regular occurrence. I'm 5ft 11 and my bmi is about 22 but I have a spare tyre and I'd love to get rid of it.

I'm off to find the sugar thread