Sugar

[Wellhellyeah]

It's wrecking me. Looks, weight, teeth. I don't even enjoy most of it. Has anyone given it up or dramatically reduced it after eating a lot of it? Please help inspire me!

I don't eat 'normal' sugar but use Natvia. I also low carb
Been using Natvia for about 18 months. I bake carrot cake or coffee and walnut cake with it. I cut the cake up and freeze it and it's there for when we fancy it. Usually a couple of times a month.
My taste buds have completely changed now. Sweet things only taste of sugar to me now and I don't seem to be able to detect the other flavours. So chocolate cake, sticky toffee pudding, ice cream etc all I can taste is sugar which isint nice.
I used to be an absolute sugar fiend!! It's taken time but now I don't miss it at all.
I did loose weight and I no longer have energy slumps.

I actually did keto for about 9 months not because of weight but because of my sugar addiction. I felt really out of control around sweet things.
I did loose 2.5 stone so that was a big plus but the really benefit was mentally feeling in control of food rather than food controlling me.

Thank you. @Girlintheframe that's exactly how i feel about it - out of control. Will have a look at both. How easy did you find the switch?

How are you going to be 'normal' regarding eating without it though?

Really really don't know. It just seems that it really isn't doing me any good BUT it's a bloody hard habit to break. Any pointers welcomed Ohio.

I have absolutely no pointers op but I feel exactly the same as you. I just can't see how I'd sustain it without being manic.

@Wellhellyeah

Thank you. *@Girlintheframe* that's exactly how i feel about it - out of control. Will have a look at both. How easy did you find the switch?

I started by doing lots of research. Diet doctor was a good starting point. I mulled it over for a good few months as it seemed completely alien to me. Then one day at work I basically ate my weight in sugar and felt emotionally and physically horrible so figured I had nothing to loose by trying keto. Initially I missed carbs and sugar A LOT but in time it got easier. I love cooking and baking so was happy to experiment with different ingredients and try to make carb substitutes. Now I'm low carb not keto and I honestly can't see myself going back to a 'normal' diet. I just feel so much better. It's not for everyone though, I think it works for me because I enjoy cooking so much.

Thank you

Stuff yourself with the following; Yeo Valley bio yogurts or similar, eggs in any form (can accompany with bacon etc), coffee with cream.
These genuinely keep you full and after a few days the sugar cravings will subside.
Don't buy the sugar 'for the kids' whatever. If it isn't there, you have to reach for something else. Cut carbs right down too as your body processes them like sugar thus feeding the cycle.
Keep busy, boredom eating is a massive thing for me.
I initially began the transition with Meridian cocoa & nut butter, healthier Nutella. Cost a bloody fortune, but I could pig this initially yet cut down on the sugar while kidding myself I was eating sugary shit.
It works OP but it's bloody hard

Hi OP,
I've been on a diet the last 8 months or so since having a baby in January. He is my third baby in 5 years and unfortunately I had gained a lot of weight over the pregnancies!

I do think I have had a long term sugar addiction over my life. The only thing that has had long term success for me in terms of health and weight loss is cutting out refined and added sugar almost completely.

I fell off the wagon in around Sep and have got back to it now. It was a reminder of how absolutely awful, mood swingy, lethargic and low energy sugar and sugar crashes cause me to feel.

Even at the beginning of my weight loss journey it only took a few days to feel like a completely different person. So it wasn't even the weight that was making me feel so low as I thought, it was the constant sugar. I went within a couple of weeks to needing so much less sleep, had so much more energy when I was awake, skin looked better and moods were more stable. Plus of course the weight waa falling off at a steady pace.

It must be an addiction for me for sure because there is no way I would have willingly given up all of those benefits unless the stuff had some kind of hold over me.

I wilk warn you I feel like shit for the first few days after giving up refined sugar. I still use a couple of sweeteners in moderation- Clark's Maple syrup which is lovely and is almost half the sugar content of sugar, and pure honey too. I also have success eating protein bars instead of chocolate bars, but the use of artificial sweeteners is questionable if you can avoid it.

Do it OP, it will make a huge difference!

Yes, although circumstances forced me. I had gestational diabetes which comes with a significant stillbirth risk.
Dropping sugar is hard - you have to rethink your whole diet - but the weight falls off so quickly without trying, energy improves after the first two week rage/slump (even in pregnancy with a toddler) and skin improves too.
Remember that sugar isn't only in the sweet you're thinking of. Every carb converts to glucose in your body so a large bowl of pasta is basically the equivalent of three slices of cake for dinner.
Swap all carbs to wholegrain/high fibre and make sure they never make up more than a quarter of your plate. Fill the hunger gap by having very high protein, high fat meals. Honestly, fat isn't bad for you. It's sugar and fat together that does for the waistline. If you ditch the sugar you can eat a lot of fat - almost all low fat foods are stacked full of sugar to improve the taste.
Drink lots of water. It helps you adjust as you will have a few hungry days at the beginnimg but your body adjusts quickly.
Now I've had my baby I'm not 100 per cent on the wagon but my habits are better and I'm trying to change them for good as I'm now at high risk for type 2 diabetes if I go back to bingeing sugar

And also just wanted to say that at the beginning and while in the contemplation stage, I also thought along the lines of "but how will I ever get by without being able to eat x y z". But the truth is once you put in the initial hard work and you lose that addiction the fog lifts and your tastes honestly completely change.

My advice:

Go on a high protein diet.

Try Intermittent Fasting

Drink a load of water within the forst couple of hours of waking, preferably before eating anything.

Take up a form of enjoyable exercise and listen to music while you do it. I think this helps me deal with the loss of endorphins you get from scoffing sweet stuff.

This all helps me with the weight but also dealing with the loss of sugar

I went low carb back in Jan 2019 so eat very little sugar now. I've lost just under 8 stone so far and feel much healthier for it.

Unfortunately the damage to my teeth has already been done 😔 but if I had continued the way I was (complete sugar addict who would have mood swings on an evening if I didn't have something big and sugary to eat!) they would be much worse by now I'm sure.

I lost nearly 6 stone three years ago on the mumsnet LC bootcamp. Ive largely kept it off, except for an 12lb slip during lockdown. That’s now mostly gone again. I know many people can live the ‘everything in moderation’ mantra but my body just doesn’t seem to cope with it. I didn’t pig out during lockdown, I literally just relaxed a little. I’ve decided if crack cocaine or alcohol was my ‘thing’ I wouldn’t be telling myself that moderation was a good thing, so it’s daft to do it with carbs. The only carbs that don’t seem to send me off the rails are veggies, of which I eat a LOT. Like a pp said, I felt much better within 10 days of stopping eating a carb heavy diet - so long before I had any significant weight loss.

It too me two goes to finally make the translation to fat burner and stick to it. There is no way back for me now. I feel 150% better. Two chronic health problems have gone away. My anxiety has gone. It’s had such wide ranging effects I will admit I am evangelical about it now.

For me the difference was educating myself. I must have listened to over 200 hours of low carb and Keto podcasts. I understand the science. I’m no longer doing it for weight loss, I’m doing it for my health.

I think you need a really good reason to stick to something that’s difficult initially. Weight loss on the whole isn’t it. It has to be something that you REALLY want to change and every time you think about chocolate or some crappy processed carb you can think back to how very crap having X was or feeling X and you just won’t go back there. It’s not possible.

The other great thing is there is a Keto way of making pretty much everything. If bread is your poison, there’s low carb bread. If it’s chocolate, there’s Keto chocolate. Pizza? There’s Keto pizza etc. You just make swaps basically.

But my first advice would be education. Podcasts were a massive help to me as I could listen to them while I was doing housework or exercise. I didn’t have to sit down pouring over a book.

The first week is difficult but after that it’s surprisingly easy- just go for it! You don’t need to make it more complicated than it already is with other diet ‘rules’ like keto or fasting, just cut all added sugar out. For the first week it’s easier if you don’t eat fruit either as that can give you a taste for sweet stuff and lead to a binge. Aim to do a week initially and be really strict about that week, every time you fancy something sweet remind yourself it’s just a craving and do something else (eg have a glass of water/ go for a walk etc, this step is important. You can’t just stop a habit, you have to replace it with something else at least initially).
I drew a plan of the week and gave myself a big tick after each day I’d survived without it, and was surprised by how motivated I was to finish the week, then the fortnight and the month. After a few weeks I could cut cake or serve ice cream for the kids without having any myself and am not really bothered at all now, as a previous poster said it all just tastes of sugar to me now, far too sweet. It’s an addiction like any other, ride the storm of the first week or two and you’ll be over it and feel so much healthier and in control.

Just to say, I have never tackled cutting out carbs but I feel much better simply from laying off biscuits, raisins, cake and other sugary hits which I used to get me through the day. Cheddar is quite good for staving off sugar cravings as it has a strong savoury taste. Or you can tell yourself that you can have sugary treats at the weekend but not during the week as a first step. The transition is actually fairly quick. I was so pleased with myself that I didn't want to spoil my progress so I stayed off sugar mostly at the weekends too. Good luck.

Ok, well one day down

Chromium and Gymnema both help with sugar cravings. I've given up alcohol and was replacing it with sugar which according to AA is quite normal but I didn't want sugar to control me the way alcohol did.

Have a look at the chromium and Gymnema and see if they sound like they can help. I'm not sure how they work but they basically reduce cravings and the Gymnema makes sweet stuff taste not sweet IYSWIM.

Good luck!

I did about a month of no refined sugar and no bread/pasta/rice/crisps, but not properly low carb, and it really did help my waistline. Then mince pies came into the shops and I've slipped a bit. I'm still not eating nearly as much as I was (I've barely touched crisps in 2 months, and I'm not having bread twice a day if not 3 times) but I'd like to get better at it. However, even with the sort of lackadaisical approach, I'm not hungry for snacks, so that's helping. I didn't weigh myself but my jeans fitted better.

i gave up added sugar which i found to be difficult but amazing
you have to make a lot of things yourself
wouldnt recommmend keto as bodies run off of carbs

I crept into eating too much sugar, and something that has really worked for me is deciding not to snack at all between meals. I started this as a resolution at New Year and have stuck with it since then.

I don't deny myself things I want, but I only eat at mealtimes. This means that I tend naturally to eat fewer sugary things, as I'm more full from the meal and they are just a pudding.

It's worked for me and I've lost nearly two stone over the year.

Another one here, low carb, low sugar, high protein. It's the only thing that works.

I've always been a sugar fiend. I used to add it to everything, including vegetables. That's on top of a carb-heavy diet. I cannot believe how much sugar I used to eat. I was also raised on rosehip syrup.

My teeth are now wrecked.

I've made inroads into giving it up completely. I use half spoon (just a tiny bit) and that's ok for tea and coffee. Most of the sweet "treats" i eat are now artifically sweetened. I can tolerate that.

I don't really eat potatoes, rice or crisps much anymore so carb intake also coming down slowly.

I still like a really nice bit of chocolate but biscuits and cakes are really not my thing.

I really notice the sweetness in food now and it's not nice.

Bodies do not need to run off of carbs. Bodies run off of fat very very efficiently.