I’m addicted to sugar and need help.

[Watdaheck]

I feel a little silly writing here about sugar addiction when so many have much more serious addictions but I don’t know where to turn.

I've been addicted as long as I can remember, as a child sweets were used to pacify me and as an adult I continued to use them to pacify myself as I have very low self esteem and confidence. It wasn’t so bad when I worked as I was busy and couldn’t get hold of them continuously or was just too busy at work.

i took early retirement 5 years ago at 55 and it’s dawned on me that I’m just eating more and more sweets and chocolate. I’m at home most of the day and rarely eat before lunchtime. But after lunch, when I’ve finished my housework, I give myself the afternoon to chill, watch tv, play with and walk the dog, drink coffee, read magazines and eat chocolate and sweets, it’s almost like a reward.

i would estimate I eat around 1000 calories a day in chocolate and sweets. I’m educated and intelligent but I just can’t cut down without getting cravings….and then giving in. Every night I tell myself I will do better the next day and I have ended up in this perpetual cycle.

I would pay a lot of money for someone to cure me of this. I watched 100’s of videos on YouTube about it and even tried hypnosis but nothing has worked. I’m reasonably ‘healthy’ for my age (albeit 2 stone overweight) but no serious medical problems but I fear I am storing them up for the future.

Can anyone give advise, guidance or help? Thank you.

Mounjaro. I’ve tried all the things you have, it’s killed sugar overdosing stone dead as it would make me feel very sick.

Hard agree
i’m 6 weeks in and nolonger crave sweet stuff, hardly feel hungry, experience much less food noise, have lost 5lbs already, but it is hard to start with!!

If I know I'm addicted to something I don't buy it. Eg taramasalata, pringles, mayo,

Focus on what the key weakness is and don't buy it. Large boxes of chocs? Packs of biscuits? Bars of chocolate?

Maybe try reducing tight down to 1 small treat a day.

Sugar is one of the most addictive substances there is. That’s why processed food manufacturers load their products with it.

I was massively a sugar addict, and also ate tons of chocolate and sweets. Since May I’ve given up all processed foods and refined sugar. I still eat tons of fruit and veg. Grapes and Greek yogurt with sunflower seeds is my evening treat now.
I’ve used weight loss injections to help this time round, and have lost 3 stones since the end of May. They don’t work 100% on me, I can still eat a lot, but they do seem to help my willpower. I have previously done this “real food” diet a few years ago and lost two stones by myself.

I know nothing about this but it came up on active.
This may sound silly but would sugar free sweets work? I have a friend who used them to stop vaping. I know some sugar substitutes cause diarrhoea but not all of them and seems to vary by individua

I can 100% relate to this and it’s definitely an addiction. I will digest this thread tomorrow as I’m very keen to tackle my own sugar addiction as I worry I will tip over into diabetes.

Its so hard isnt it. Unfortunately for me, its only going cold turkey that works. (I have slid off a couple of times but I've managed to get to a point where my skin breaks out so badly with too much sugar now it gives me a really pressing incentive, if that makes sense?)
I went cold turkey along with:

• Drinking loads more water which really helped.
• Honestly, in general overhauling my eating - i find i crave sugar WAY more if I've been eating a lot of UPF.
• Meal planning! This meant not only was i eating better, which helped me not crave sugar, it meant I was just in shops to buy sugar less, which also helped with the other thing I had to do which is just not have it in the house.

I have to treat it like an addiction.
Except...now I can have a sweet treat once a week/once every couple of weeks and not slide back into the endless cycle, but thats taken 3 years of work to get to that point. But, I dont enjoy the same things I used to. I think this is partly because my taste buds adjusted, and partly because when I did start allowing myself a treat (once every couple of weeks) I would want to make it really 'worth it' (this is probably addict behaviour too) and i dont mean quantity, as I'd restrict myself to single servings, no Cadbury share bars, but I'd want it to feel like a bit of luxury. So it would be a home made cake from a nice cafe, or Tony's chocolate. I can eat Cadburys, but it just doesn't taste the same and doesn't give me the hit any more. Same with supermarket cakes etc.

the things that worked for me were

1. Intermittent fasting - eating nothing after 8 ... really helped me
2. eating lots of protein and filling healthy stuff - I felt full and satisfied - and aimed for it to be delicious which made a big difference
3. recognising it is really hard work and making it the most important thing in my life for a while - includig reading motivating and scientific stuff abou it for 90 plus minutes a day - including Mumsnet. do not minimise it - it is a big thing u are taking on and requires a lot of effort and thought
4. eating a lot of berries - defrosted ones - whenever I wanted something sweet, usually with some plain yogourt but sometimes just half frozen and by themselves
5. learning to like very dark chocolate... it took a while but genuinely milk chocolate now feels too sweet and my treat is 2 squares of 90 pc choc a day and some nuts... and yet its true, I can overeat this but it is more difficult and not often... usually a small amount works and `i look forwrad to it each day
6. telling people I was working hard to give up sugar and warn them ahead so wouldnt b offended if I said no to sweet stuff - and so they could help keep me on track

good luck. its tough but definitely worth it

I don’t want to sound as though I’m being snippy - I’m really not, but my snack regime has worked for me, contributing towards me having lost 2 stones over the last 18m and getting my blood sugar level back down to within the normal range from having strayed into the diabetic range. I’m not good at blanket bans, so it works for me to have a little sweetness!

I think if you are too harsh with cutting everything that’s going to spike your blood sugars, and all natural sugar etc you will find it much more difficult to keep it up. I’ve done the NHS diabetes prevention program alongside the WLI and they say you shouldn’t eat too much fruit. But I am of the opinions that a handful of grapes a couple of times a day has got to be considerably healthier than the chocolate and sweet stuff I was eating so much of previously. And my blood sugar reading has significantly reduced along with my weight, so imo it’s going right.

I’m really sorry to read this, you have my sympathy. You are describing my life especially though the lock downs when there was not much else to do. I would prepare and eat good, healthy meals and then eat lots and lots of sweets and chocolate. I felt sluggish and brain foggy all.the.time.

cold turkey worked for me. With a bit of help around avoiding overeating from https://www.eatinglessonline.com/

Nowadays I eat all the green veg with a decent helping of meat, butter and creme. Pretty much exactly as described in the low carb boot camp here in MN.

After a few days of my brain screaming for sugar, all the noise and drive to eat sweet stuff fell away and now I’m at peace with food. I can eat out most places, it’s second nature to swap seasonal green veg for the chips or potatoes. I’m so happy and commend it to you.

I’ve talked to lots of people about this. My observation suggests that people are either moderators who find small ‘treats’ make reducing sugar possible or abstajners like me. Even a small amount of sugar sets my cravings off again so it’s a lot easier for me to abstain. I do occasionally have something sweet to prove to myself that I can stop again. It’s always a lot of effort to stop and generally I’m happier when I just don’t have any sugar or starchy carbs.

Also in the same boat. I gave up alcohol and I have replaced it with sugar. While I'm eating my first slice of cake I am thinking about my second.

For me it’s sugar in biscuits or chocolate or white bread and crackers. I have a DH who has a highly active job and will not have any bread other than white (so it’s in the house) and a DD11 so there are some treats , although we are pretty good with reaching for fruit as well. I think I’m making the point that I can’t not buy it when other family members don’t have the same issues as me.

I need to learn to resist it or replace it. It makes me feel sluggish and crap but during the afternoon I can’t seem to walk through the kitchen without looking for something carby!!

I would love to. But I’m not overweight enough.
I don’t want or need it to lose weight, I only have 1st to lose and could manage that by myself, but I’d love it for the sugar cravings and food noise.

You said that you would stop if a doctor told you it would make you violently ill. Have you read The Case Against Sugar by Gary Taubes?

Also, if you haven't watch Dr Jen Unwin discussing food addiction over on YouTube, she has some good advice for tackling it.

@mellongooseif you can get yourself into the mindset of ‘staring down’ rather than giving into the white bread, it becomes no problem to be surrounded by things you do not want to eat. In fact, I find it easier to resist when they are easily in reach. It’s when there is literally nothing ‘treat wise’ that I can eat available that I found myself getting up and dressed in the middle of the night to find a fuel station still open and buy loads of junk to eat all in one go. Feeling sick and bloated afterwards was no deterrent.

Gillian Riley’s work https://www.eatinglessonline.com/ was the game changer for me.

Hope you find what works for you.

Surely this is your best chance?

The cravings never go, that's a myth.

For me it turns out it's actually not sugar that's the problem, it's the rest of my life that makes me want sugar so much. A while ago I quit my job and took a break at home. Not working I could very easily follow a very healthy diet and limit my sugar to a few dates after a lunch and a little low cal bar with a cuppa. Even though I was at home a lot I wasn't driven to the snacks. I lost about 3 inches off my waist. I started working again and the sugar snacking is back. I don't know if it's stress, dopamine hits to get through the boring bits, etc. but the compulsion to snack, snack, snack is so strong.

Have you had blood tests recently?

If you are pre diabetic and have a high BMI you might qualify for Mounjaro on private prescription.

I have completely lost my sweet tooth on this medication, and many people report it helping with alcohol and other addictive behaviours. People with ADHD report improvement in their symptoms.

As you said you would pay anything, it’s worth a go. You don’t have to come off it, it’s licensed to take long term.

I have successfully got my carb addiction in remission.

Like an alcoholic or drug addict I have to stay 100% clean. Nobody would ask an alcoholic to moderate their alcohol consumption and carb addiction is the same.

I say carb addiction rather than sugar addiction because it’s easy to replace sweet carbs with savoury carb and still trigger addictive behaviour.

Keto worked beautifully for me because it’s very low carb so no sugar, grains, cereals or starches (potatoes, rice).

I went cold turkey and after a really rough 4 days I was through it and haven’t looked back. I absolutely cannot have anything sweet because I cannot control consumption of it. It spirals out of control no matter how much I think I can do it. That’s bitter experience talking. Even carrots are incredibly sweet for me now.

I treat my “sobriety” the way an alcoholic or drug addict would. Yes it feels amazing in the moment to have the thing but it’s is never ever worth it.

I would switch to having fruit after each meal or as a snack, but no processed sugar including in drinks (go with water or plain tea or coffee instead). Just eat more healthily generally. It will reset your palette. Don't buy the other stuff. It is mostly habit. It requires willpower to start with but gets easy. Having the fruit reduces the level of willpower needed though as you are still getting quality naturally occurring sweet stuff.

I have episodes like this OP and the only answer is going cold turkey for 2 days. The urge to eat sweets vanishes. During those days I eat nice balanced meals but no processed food and nothing with sugar in . So maybe fish, mash and veg or spaghetti Bol for main meals. Fruit or yoghurt for pudding. Then keep that going .

Totally relate it’s a chemical addiction reinforced by its association with self esteem, comfort, boredom, to give you energy, manage stress, dissociative mindless eating where you go to the kitchen & just eat sugary fixes without even needing or particularly wanting to.
I can’t do half measures so have to go cold turkey & no cakes or treats but just smaller portions.
The chemical addiction can be managed by going cold turkey but the emotional addiction is another thing. Ive never tried Allan Carr but sounds a good idea & having alternative foods to eat when the urge takes you (not easy). The hardest thing for me is that I just really like sugary comfort food & going & having a hot apple pie & ice cream after a Sunday roast or with a coffee is pad of my leisure activity. Especially in Autumn! The trouble is I don’t just stop at that. Have chocolate on the sofa in the pm, over eat other sugary foods etc etc.
Good luck!