Beat the rush - sweet support for sugar slaves!

[washnomore]

A few of us have realised we've got big problems with sugar addiction so we decided to make a support thread.

A few links to get us started:

What Wikipedia has to say

NHS information on the binge-eating cycle

American Heart Association's webpage on carbohydrate cravings

My name's washnomore and I'm a carb addict. Pleased to meet you :)

Thank you for all the good advice! I've been cooking more beans and tofu, and switched from toast to muesli and yoghurt for breakfast. I've always had oatcakes, cheese and an apple for lunch (but usually followed by a chocolate bar because otherwise I can't make it through the afternoon), and then dinner which would typically be rice, veg and fish/ chicken, veg, potatoes. Followed a couple of hours later by a piece of cake and some chocolate and maybe, if dh isn't looking, a bit of marzipan and a bit more chocolate. Dropping the lunchtime chocolate and the evening sugar hit just left me hungry all the time and losing weight. (I also walk 5 miles a day). I know the advice I'd give someone else is to eat healthy snacks, but it seems like a waste of money and effort to source those just for me, and somehow self-indulgent in a way that cheap sugar isn't. And I have the sense that I have a limited calorie allocation and I don't want to use it up. (Hence the last-thing-at-night snacking, I suppose.)

I'm a terrible sugar binger .
Mostly I'd rather eat sugar/carbs than a proper meal .
And when I do eat a proper meal I want to carry on eating - something sweet .
Something I use when I want to "finish" a meal is liquorice tea.
This is delicious and sweet .
No artificial sweetners but can people tell me if it's as bad ( for the whole insulin /sugar cravings ) as stuff with artificial sweetners?

Hello, I have a massive sugar/chocolate problem.

I have spent years in a cycle of abstaining/binging.

I hate it, I really do.

Morning folks.

I have found Food Focus to be helpful in the past. Mainly for weight loss, but anyone who wants to watch their calories may like it.

I can relate a lot to what you are all saying. I also feel I don't want to waste calories and will eat crap just before bed. I also crave something sweet at the end of a meal.

I am reading Fat is a Feminist issue just now (it's the book of the month in the feminist section, first time I have done it, they do a discussion at some point). From that I am starting to understand where my addiction comes from. Eating something sweet often feels like the only nice thing I can do for myself. I have 2 dc and all day and night is about them. Dd is only 8 weeks and am bf so it all feels a bit endless. I don't feel nurtured right now and eating chocolate is filling that gap.

Neepsntatties, I do think that with a small, bf baby you can cut yourself some slack. I used to think at that stage that if sugar was how I coped, things could be very much worse - unless she's a miracle sleeper you must be very tired, and anyway have just had a major life change. Of course seek other kinds of nurture and better ways of caring for yourself, but it's hard to be completely rational and functional with a new baby, and hard to tackle body issues while bf and in the aftermath of pregnancy.

I know all the feminist arguments. I've published in that field. But I'm still about to go make a cake because I didn't eat enough dinner.

You've published! Wow! Anything we can read?

Thanks for starting this thread washnomore I really need some support like this to keep me on the straight and narrow,

I had major sugar cravings, mainly after lunch and after my DSs had gone to bed. Each evening I was having a packet of choc raisins, marzipan or anything sweet I could get my hands on. I have raided DSs treat drawer even when the only thing in there are sweets/choc from party bags or easter I used to tell myself it was OK to take their stuff as I was saving them from health problems!!

So I spent the best 50 quid of my life - I went to see a private dietitian. Basically after lots of food diaries and advice from her, I have changed loads about what I eat and despite not losing any weight (which I need to do) I am delighted with the results as I do not crave sugar any more. I worry about slipping back though so need to keep focused. Here is what I do differently:-

I eat small meals every 2-3 hours and never leave long gaps between meals

730 - porridge or no-added sugar muesli for brekkie, lots of water, fruit if I have time

10ish - couple of lattes, fruit or oatcakes/oatbites. Fruit juice/fruit immediately after exercise and only in the mornings

12pm lunch, an avocado most days, usually mashed and spread on bread with ham. Lunch is only a sandwich and water, no fruit, nothing else

2-3pm packet of oatcakes with peanut butter or cheese. Very filling!

5-6pm evening meal, protein veggies, rarely have pasta, rice or potatoes.

This was the hardest bit for me so my dietitian gave me a complex carb alternative for every family meal I make, so when others have spag bol, I have small amount of buckwheat pasta instead of their normal pasta. When we have risotto I use brown rice (not great, any advice on this?). My DH makes gnochi and he made me special sweet potato gnochi! I have sweet potatoes instead of roast pots or instead of mash.

8-9pm I have seeds sprinkled on bowl of natural yoghurt in the evening

I can honestly say my sugar cravings have gone. I was told to get some over 70% dark choc incase I had cravings which I did but I don't like it much so only have 1 square at a time - maybe once a week! Unbelievable for me.

Not sure if this will help you neepsntatties but my dietitian told me the reason I felt I needed something sweet after a meal was because I'd eaten simple carbs during the meal, i.e. pasta, white rice, potatoes. Take those out of your meal and you might not crave the sweet ending.

That makes sense. I eat pasta a lot, it is brown though, is that still bad? Are potatoes bad too? I thought a baked tattie was quite healthy!

I've ordered cottage cheese, natural yogurt and nuts in my weekly shop this week.

I read somewhere about a link between eating a lot of bread inducing sweet cravings. Bread is also a huge weakness for me, so there may be a lot of truth in that...

I think brown pasta, like brown rice is much better than white. But I was advised to have small desertspoon of it nevertheless which is my continual struggle. I can feel my portion sizes creeping up!

I think baked pot must be better than mash say but potato is a simple carb so will give you sugar boost which then stimulates insulin making you feel you need even more sugar.

Try roast sweet pot, if you like them they are easy to use to replace the potato bit. And the neeps will be good for you!

livingadream I LOVE brown rice - tried it for the Harcombe diet and it was so nice I don't eat white rice much at all now (much to DP's disgust!). So I can't help you much there, sorry. Really interesting to hear your dietician's advice though. Can I be nosey and ask what sort of portions you have?

neepsntatties (great name btw ) I think baked tatties are fine. As I understand it the more you process a spud the less healthy it is - so baked in skin is great, the carbs are as complex as they get the so it's slow-release energy. But peel it, boil it then mash it and the carbs are starting to break down so you get a much quicker spike in your blood sugar that way.

I've just come back from a swim and had the sugar shakes (which in itself was ridiculous because I'd eaten dinner at 5.30pm and had a small slice of gammon, 2 fried eggs, oven chips and beans ) so I had 2 rice cakes with cheese. Itching to finish off the red wine in the kitchen now ...

My cake's in the oven. But made with rapeseed oil and natural yoghurt and kamut flour (as well as 200g of sugar...) The problem is that as soon as I start feeling that some foods are forbidden or that I'm depriving myself, it pushes all my anorexic buttons and I want to get thinner and thinner.

Livingadream, that all sounds really healthy, and I can see how it works, but part of my post-anorexic attitude to food is that I should enjoy what I eat and it doesn't sound fun - I can't stop myself thinking that if I'm going to have oatcakes and peanut butter I'd rather spend the calories on a piece of cake.

I think I'm beginning to wonder if I really want to solve my sugar addiction.

Lurking quietly but want to share: I have issues around food, using it for comfort, wallowing, binging.

I have spent the last entire year low-carbing on an Atkins / Dulan style diet, often only eating protein all day. I have gone from a flabby, tired and irritable size 12 to an energetic, clear-skinned constipated size 10. It's not so much the weight loss as the feeling that my energy levels are less chaotic. I very often get in from work and sleep for an hour because I feel so crap - it's a sugar low and only solved by high-protein, low carbs.

A typical day for me would be a yoghurt for brekkie, a couple of Babybel mid-morning, a packet of Parma ham for lunch followed by a handful of nuts, another Babybel for mid-afternoon snack or an Atlkins protein bar, and a meat and green veg tea. Soo unhealthy and high-fat, but I've never felt so healthy or less hungry.

We're ttc now so I've eased off, trying to re-introduce carbs is so difficult - I know low GI should work, but I crave carby lovely things again and have highs and lows again. I want to find a healthy, manageable way of keeping blood sugars level.

Sugar really is like a drug, isn't it

Ah I did not know that about potatoes! Also had forgotten about sweet potatoes, must get some on my next shop.

I've not been that great today. I had a quater of a glass of wine (thankfully I am a lightweight!) dh has these dates with almonds in then but they are covered on some kind of syrup, had some of those. No chocolate though.

Willa I am the same in that I want stuff to be fun. I used to restrict and exercise just so I could binge on chocolate. Do you still calorie count? I try to stay away from that now.

Phooey I don't think it sounds that bad! Maybe I really don't know anything about food!

Washnomore - I love brown rice too but haven't found a brown arbottio/risotto rice so have used normal brown or basmati brown in a risotto and it is no good - it's like rice with moist veg/chicken. Not creamy moist risotto so I'm looking for ideas. My dietitian said I should only eat risotto at lunchtime which I'm not sticking too as my kids love it and I can pack it full of different coloured veg.

Re portions - my rule of thumb is 60gm of dry pasta or rice per person. Really quick to weigh as my scales are next to cooker so I used to have 60gm myself, do 60gm for my 2 kids to share, and 80gm for DH - 200gm for all 4 of us. Then 1 chicken breast, salmon fillet, 500gm pack of meat does 1 meal for the 4 of us, and I try having 2 or 3 steamed veggies every meal. Now I'm doing less carbs for me, maybe half what I used tohave.

Willa - I suppose it depends where you start your journey as to how you like to "spend" your calories. What I mean is I have struggled to keep my weight down all my adult life so have always felt that peanut butter, avocados, seeds and nuts were out of bounds. So I would either avoid them in a good phase or stand in the kitchen with fingers in the peanut butter jar gorging myself - sorry for horrid image! Nuts were my way of saying "yeah so what, I can be fat and happy" in a rebellious way.

Now I've learnt nuts are a "superfood" and peanut butter is allowed every day I'm truly delighted. Not gorging just enjoying being able to have 6 oatcakes all spread thinly with it. Your cake sounds very healthy so maybe that's a good way to go - to recognise cake is important and make it as low sugar as possible.

You're right though willa - food should be fun and maybe this is working so well for me because I'm loving all the "new" foods I'm allowed. I just remembered a recipe I have for the most delicious, moist squidgy cake made with ground almonds, eggs and natural yoghurt - it's a morrocan lemon cake - ill post the recipe if you like! Of course it has some sugar in but is full of some goodies too

Oh good - I'm addicted to sugar as well. decided to cut out chocolate completely for Lent and haven't had any since Ash Wednesday. I used to be a two bar a day girl, and I have low cholesterol! I'm eating apples instead.

I've found using Splenda in tea helps, and I'm not getting the sugar cravings I did. I'm also tired at about 2300, instead of 0100 each night, so that is better as well.

I'm not bothered about potatoes, so can cook them for dh and ds, but love pasta and rice, though I weigh the portions. I live in Belgium so the bread is great as is the chocolate.....I try to restrict myself to 2 slices of bread a day though.

I just realised rice cakes are not so good!

I have had a salad with 2 eggs and cottage cheese then some natural yogurt with blue berries. Really enjoyed but still feel snacky. Salmon for tea.

Scaryteacher I admire you giving up chocolate for lent! I don't think I could give it up totally.

I'm hoping it will last past Lent; am feeling slightly more energetic, and eating far more muesli/yoghurt/blueberries than before. Tea consumption up though.

Ha yeah I just had a coffee which I had been off for ages. Ah well.

Are you really a scary teacher?

I'm a total carb/sugar addict. I could quite happily live off toast, pasta, potatoes, chocolate and biscuits. I've been trying to cut down for a few weeks though and it's been quite successful.

I don't really want to lose weight but I did feel like I was getting run down and bloated and having real sugar lows and highs.

I've done quite well at going cold turkey. The only sugary treat I'm allowing myself is really dark chocolate (which I'm sure is meant to be good for you ).

I also went caffeine cold turkey too. I felt awful for a while but then much better.

Neeps - when the mood takes me and I'm having to yell at my Year 10 ds about his homework.