I want to wean myself of sugar/refined sugar. Is it possible ? Did you manage it ? Did you lose weight ?

[shaketheshame]

I'm quite desperate to cut sugar out of my diet...I have a overall good diet but I ruin everything because of my sweet tooth.. Shall I go cold turquey ?

I am doing this at the moment in a modified staged kind of way.

Started with the obvious like chocolate which I stopped completely,cold turkey. At the same time I tried to stop or at least dramatically reduce, more "hidden" refined sugar. So bread and other white carbs like pasta, low fat yogurt etc.

I have left fruit for now as I didn't want to make it too hard for myself at the start.

I have made an effort to increase my consumption of water and vegetables and protein as well as to use "healthy" fats like olive oil, real butter, avocado, nuts etc which I find fills me up and I have been able to virtually stop snacking.

Three and a half weeks later I feel pretty good and have lost 10lbs. I get the odd craving but find them fairly easy to resist and best of all am not getting the mood and energy swings that used to rule my days.

The headaches were quite bad to start with, but I stopped caffeine too which might have causes that.

Good luck if you do it!

My problem is that I have massive cravings for chocolate and sweets..and I tried to compensate by eating grapes...but yesterday I ended up eating more than a pound in grapes...so its wrong as well...I'm going to do like you I think. I don't use sugar in my coffee but I use it in my porridge so I'll stop that.

Chickpeas2 thanks for taking the time to answer !

No problem! I had massive cravings too, couldn't get through the day without regular chocolate/biscuit/cake fixes and am amazed at how I just don't have them now.

I definitely think eating enough good fat has helped- plus I told myself that my goal was/is kicking the chocolate habit for my health not weight loss. Seemed to take some of the pressure off.

Can you try honey in your porridge as a halfway house?

Maybe lower GI foods might help -cheese oatcakes are good!

Thanks ! I have a lower gi book so will have a look at it !

Have a look at the low carb threads for some good ideas. Why not try the very high cocoa content chocolate for a boost but without all the sugar?