Help me break my craving for all things sweet - anyone care to join me?

[uglybettyrules]

Hi there,
I'm going to hit the big 40 (cripes!) in april and have been talked into having a joint party with my twin sister. She has lost 3 stone on WW and is looking amazing, where as I (though not exactly hugely over-weight) have piled on at least a stone over the last year. My biggest downfall is chocolate and cakes - I just don't seem to have any willpower. Its not helped that I work in an office that has a cake and biccie table the size of Wales! Please help me break my reliance on all things sweet so I can shift some pounds and look good for the party!

Hello,
You have to give up ALL sweet things in order to break your sweet tooth. That means ALL sweet things including honey etc. NO SUGAR OR SWEETNERS AT ALL. It's hard but it works. You will have to become a scrutiniser of labels for hidden sugar. Anything that ends in 'ose' is sugar in disguise. Bring in a big basket of fruit and put it in the middle of your office sweet table, maybe shame some of the others into joining you? Or persuade them to get rid of the sweet table all together and replace with fruit, cheese and savoury biscuits?
It wouldn't hurt to replace all refined white flour products in your diet with wholemeal too...
Good luck
Antonia

ooh I don't know - I don't think you can give up all sweet things - it's just not practical in the long term, which will lead to you giving in and possibly going bonkers and eating more sweet stuff (can you tell I'm speaking from experience..?!).

I'm a big fan of WW (have lost 2 stone so far) - if you've got a stone to lose, why don't you join for a bit? Nothing's banned so you can still have sweet stuff, but you learn to control how much you eat.

Hiya Ugly, I am also hitting the big 40 this year so I know where you are coming from!

Personally, I think maybe it's more realistic to replace sugary things like cakes with other, healthier sweet things. I just think you'll crave sweet things and give in if you try to cut out EVERYTHING sweet, and you won't have helped yourself get a genuinely healthier diet....

I've lost a good amount of weight this year (I don't know how much because I don't weigh myself, it's health i am interested in and the weight loss is a by-product of getting a healthy diet) and I have sweet things, like honey on toast, raisins in cereal or in yoghurt, and healthy-ish cakes like flapjacks, but mainly I get sweetness from lots of fruit - if you start to eat lots of fruit you do crave it and funnily enough nowadays a big cream filled cake would quite repulse me - I'd rather have a decadent bowl of fresh cherries, mmmmm.

I think giving up all sweet stuff sounds like a quick fix which won't help you in the long run, you need to really enjoy what you eat and not feel deprived at all in order to make it a long term change. Good luck, a stone isn't too much to shift at all!

oh and can I come to the party?

Hi,
sunny - I gave up sweet stuff as part of a healthier diet too but the main reason I had to give up the sweet stuff because i had candida. My problem with weight is that I can't gain it! The sweet stuff was feeding the candida which was going berserk in my gut and causing food allergys, so i wasnt getting the goodness out of the food i ate. Sugar is bad stuff. Very bad. Your body doesnt need or want it which is proven by the fact that once you've re-educated it it prefers the healthy options! I have very little willpower and it always breaks down completely when im visiting the family in Scotland. The amount of sweet stuff constantly in your face there is unbelievable. I always end up falling back into bad eating habits and getting really ratty as my blood sugar goes haywire.
Anyway Ugly, WW sounds like a good idea if its just a weight problem...

blimey mal, candida sounds hellish, poor you...I certainly agree with you, we don't need sugar and sweet stuff. I do have less and less and as I say a cream cake really looks quite yucky to me now, which I never thought I'd say! Hopefully I'll get to where you are sometime, but at the moment, I do like some sweet stuff now and again

I hit the big 40 in November three weeks after giving birth and I have turned into a sugar fiend, I am now eating so many sweet things its not true, did exactly the same when dd1 was born and put up more weight after the birth then while pregnant. Found WW fantastic as nothing is forbidden and by thinking about what you eat, you automatically find yourself eating healthier so its a win win situation. Am hoping I wont need it this time round as no longer have access to it!

I'm 41, just gave birth to ds2 in November and am also having problems with sweets. I never craved them before but this second pregnancy really kicked in a sweet tooth for me.

I am also drinking far too much diet fizzy drinks but cannot help myself. Think I might have an addiction! Am bf so should not be touching the stuff will have to stop and switch back to the good old H2O

guys, I reckon you should try stuffing in as much fruit as you can, not just apples etc, but I buy as much soft fruit as I can afford, I know most of it's not in season but thee you go...I have raspberries, strawberries, cherries, kiwis; if you make up a big bowl of fruit salad it's really sweet and decadent I find.....much more of a treat than fizzy drinks made mostly of chemicals!!!!

Eat it at room temperature and I think it's tastes even sweeter.....

Thanks for all you advice - I glad its not only me that can't stop craving sweet things. I want to def cut down (just say no to that third donut ugly....) but I am going to be realistic about the whole thing. Thought you had to be really overweight for WW so will try and find out if there's anywhere in my area to join up. My craving has definately got worse since I've had my babies so maybe there is a link to needing really sweet sugary things to keep energy levels up? (well thats my excuse anyway...) You'll be pleased to know that I have just managed to turn down a choccie from a huge box that is doing the rounds in the office. Yay!