Forums: January 2010 Kickstart Forum Archive: Addicted to sugar - Help!
Created on: 01/02/10 11:35 PM Views: 1905 Replies: 8
lisasark Joined: 01/02/10 Posts: 2	Addicted to sugar - Help! Posted Saturday, January 2, 2010 at 11:35 PM Is there anyone else who is hooked on sugar? The holidays really threw me for a loop and I don't know how to break the sweets cycle. I have cut out processed sugar and white flour in the past and I always seem to get hooked again. As a result, I gain weight and experience sugar highs and lows. I would love to hear some suggestions. Thanks!
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whitewillow Joined: 01/02/10 Posts: 2	RE: Addicted to sugar - Help! Posted Sunday, January 3, 2010 at 10:18 AM oh do i feel your pain! what i found helps me is to eat plain oatmeal in the morning. don't eat the flavored stuff, that will defeat your purpose. i add fresh fruit (bananas, honey crisp apples are my favorites), whole flax seeds, wheat germ, cinnamon, and real maple syrup. it seems to stablize my blood sugar, stays with me all morning, and minimizes the crappy sugar cravings. i think the more you stabilize your blood sugar the easier it will be. just watch out for the emotional sugar eating. maybe fruit smoothies would be good in between meals sweet snacks. but i personally swear by oatmeal in the mornings.
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shanna Joined: 12/30/09 Posts: 287	RE: Addicted to sugar - Help! Posted Sunday, January 3, 2010 at 10:36 AM Dr. Barnard's book Breaking the Food Seduction has a ton of info (and recipes) for beating sugar addictions (among others). http://www.pcrm.org/shop/neal/seduction.html You can get it here in the PCRM.org store, and lots of bookstores and libraries have his books. Cutting simple sugars like you've already done will help. Having complex sugars (like fruit and other naturally sweet things) with fiber or a little bit of healthy fat will too, while sastifying cravings. So the oatmeal with bananas etc. is a great suggestion. Cutting dairy will probably help too (if you have just done that) since it is mostly lactose, i.e. sugar. I switched from sugar to agave. It's sweeter than sugar, so you use less, and it also doesn't spike your blood sugar as much so you don't crash and crave more. At this point though the only thing I have it in is coffee, or the occasional recipe. Switching to artificial sugars is not really an option either. There's been research coming out lately that artificial sweeteners can actually interfere with the body's full signals, even if they aren't sugar. (link: http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/toxins-weird-science-fake-sugar-gmo-vegetables.html) And that they are correlated with weight *gain* not loss: http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/diabetes-diet-drinks-for-preventing-diabetes-no-way.html Good luck!
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Mariberry Joined: 01/02/10 Posts: 297	RE: Addicted to sugar - Help! Posted Sunday, January 3, 2010 at 11:28 AM I am fortunate that I'm not addicted to sugar as such (don't wave a bag of chips in front of me though!)but because I'm Tye 2 diabetic now I have also switched to agave for my morning caffeine fix because I do need a little "something" in my coffee. Agave has a much nicer taste than the artificial sweeteners. The one thing that bothered me about using Splenda was that it "foamed" when I added it to my coffee. What the....? All we are saying is "Give Peas a Chance"
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Ninav Joined: 12/29/09 Posts: 14	RE: Addicted to sugar - Help! Posted Sunday, January 3, 2010 at 12:50 PM I keep some dates around the house because they are very sweet. You can mash the dates with walnuts and coco and make an awesome fudgy ball that is stored in the freezer. There are many recipes online for these. Some are made with almond butter instead of ground walnuts. While they are not low cal they are certainly much better then eating white sugar. It takes a few weeks to get off of sugar. But once you do it's like a new freedom.
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VeganRecipeGuy Joined: 01/03/10 Location: San Antonio, TX Posts: 131	RE: Addicted to sugar - Help! Posted Sunday, January 3, 2010 at 6:09 PM I use the sweetness of dates in my oatmeal recipe. If you really want a whole-food way to satisfy a breakfast sweet-tooth, try this recipe from my web site: Perfect Oats 1 Cup Dry Dates 2 Cups Water 3 Teaspoons Coriander 3 Teaspoons Cinnamon 1 Cup Rice Milk 1 Cup Old Fashioned or Steel Cut oats 1 Cup Blueberries 1 Cup Raisins 1 Cup Ground Flax Seed Chop dates in a food processor and slowly add rice milk. You will not get a smooth consistency, but you will get close. Soaking the dates in the rice milk overnight helps but I rarely do this myself. Place your date/rice milk mixture, water, coriander and cinnamon in a pot to boil. Add oats, flax and raisins to the boil and turn heat down to a simmer. Simmer for about 15 minutes. You may need to add more rice milk to reach your preferred consistency. Add blueberries, mix and serve. This is one of my more complex recipes, but you will be surprised where oatmeal can take you. This exotic oat dish has a distinctive eastern flavor that is sure to satisfy anyone’s morning sweet-tooth. www
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janicestanger Joined: 01/01/10 Location: San Diego Posts: 26	RE: Addicted to sugar - Help! Posted Sunday, January 3, 2010 at 6:28 PM This is tough. But as Dr. Barnard has pointed out, few people are addicted to sugar itself (as in eating spoonfuls of sugar). Most crave a mixture of fat and sugar (as in cookies, cakes, soy ice cream, etc.). It can help to make rules for yourself, such as dark chocolate only once a week. Eat a satisfying bowl of fruit salad with a couple of tablespoons of soy ice cream on top (try to get a lower fat variety). Limit yourself to once a week on this. For the rest of the week, all the suggestions to eat fruit, oatmeal, etc. are good. Stick to whole natural foods without animal protein and all your cravings should diminish. When you eat animal protein, your body craves sugar to balance the effect of too much protein and you get into a craving cycle. www
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lisasark Joined: 01/02/10 Posts: 2	RE: Addicted to sugar - Help! Posted Sunday, January 3, 2010 at 10:13 PM Thank you so much for all of the suggestions. I will try the oatmeal route with fruit in the morning. I am currently surrounded by holiday treats and I am slowly getting everything out of the house but giving baked goods away. I LOVE baking. It is a bit theraputic for me, but not good for me from a health perspective. I tend to cave in to temptation in mid afternoon/evening. I did break myself of the sugar addiction by going cold turkey once. I need to get my head around it and go for it and stick with it for the long haul. I have been making some wonderful meals using recipes from Dr. Fuhrman's book "Eat For Health" I love the bean stews I have been amking, but I have still been caving in with the sweets. I am planning on losing 15 pounds and giving up the sugar is critical to my success. I can't thank you enough for all of your ideas and support. Please share anything else that might help me get my act together. Lisa
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Cosmos Joined: 01/01/10 Location: Seattle, WA Posts: 14	RE: Addicted to sugar - Help! Posted Sunday, January 3, 2010 at 10:23 PM If you like baking you might want to try Colleen Patrick-Goudreau's book The Joy of Vegan Baking. I really like it but will try to stay away from it for these 21 days as I believe most recipes have oil in them.
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