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beating my sugar addiction
07 Dec 2015, 19:04
I have had a terrible sugar addiction, carb addiction and sweet tooth for basically my whole life. I have tried countless times to quit and I have failed each time. I have reduced some of my sugar intake (I no longer have it in coffee or tea), but dessert is still a huge issue for me.

I have been writing reviews for amazon's site since 2000, so I'm part of their reviewer squad and they sometimes send me free things to review. I got a new book by the head of the Weill Cornell Medical College, the "Change Your Biology Diet". Honestly, most of the book is nothing new, at all. He recommends eating windows. He recommends cutting carbs and sugar. We know all of this stuff.

Except, he recommends protein shakes. He suggests going two weeks, replacing your breakfast and lunch with a protein meal replacement shake. He says if you do this for two weeks, you'll be kick started into more weight loss. He recommends various commercial crap, like Atkins and GNC - full of artificial sweeteners and tasting nasty. Well I decided to kind of sort of follow his advice and try skipping breakfast and having a smoothie at the health food store for lunch. I ordered the one with peanut butter, banana, unsweetened almond milk and hemp protein powder. So for all of last week, I did this (well on Monday I tried the Atkins for breakfast and a protein bar for lunch).

I tried to just eat really healthy things for dinner and see how long I could go without sugar. Oddly enough, I found that I wasn't craving sugar. I decided that if I could make it the whole week without sugar, I could have a dessert on Saturday when we went out to eat. About the closest thing I got to having dessert was three nights I had plain yogurt with a half the amount of jam I used to put on it.

I lost two pounds last week, and I have learned how to make the smoothies at home. I'm using peanut butter powder (much fewer calories than real peanut butter), high fiber hemp protein powder, almond milk, ice and frozen pineapple (for a bit of sweetness). I just had my lunch smoothie (at 1:30pm) and I'm stuffed and happy. I figure it was about 230 calories. I haven't decided if I'm going to make today a proper fast day and try to keep my calories near 500 or if I'm going to make this week a second week of jumpstart (like the doctor suggested) and therefore allow myself to eat a much larger meal tonight. If I do it all week, my smoothies and dinners will be bulked up (I'll use real peanut butter instead of low calorie peanut powder in my smoothies, for one and i'll probably add a banana).

I'm just so shocked that I don't feel completely owned by sugar right now.
Re: beating my sugar addiction
07 Dec 2015, 20:03
Wow, this is great! I'm sure you'll keep us posted how this goes long-term. It's nice to be able to say yes--or NO--to sugar and other unnecessary foods. For me, it's baked goods that have my number; they don't need to be sweet to be in my sights; a plain croissant will do just fine! :oops:
Re: beating my sugar addiction
07 Dec 2015, 20:16
Well I call a plain croissant "sugar" because white flour really isn't all that much different from white sugar in the system. I just realized I'm not sure if I have had any bread last week - not even wholemeal. I know I had some triscuits and cheddar last week. I know I had small servings of pasta twice, but that was because I was cooking for my son, per his requests, and didn't feel like cooking something else for me. And I had 1/2 of a white potato on two different days.

Just to be clear, this is a HUGE decrease in carbs. I'm normally a carb monster.

I think it's totally all about the dramatically increased protein consumption.
Re: beating my sugar addiction
08 Dec 2015, 19:25
So I kind of tested a theory this morning. I ate a croissant for breakfast.

I got much hungrier than normal, and desperately wanted lunch by 11am. So I ate a moderately naughty lunch (a cup of vegetable soup and a small slice of spinach leek quiche). I'm hungry again. I have a slight headache, and I want chocolate ice cream.

So these protein shakes seem to work, but they're going to take a real commitment.
Re: beating my sugar addiction
08 Dec 2015, 19:26
And I remembered one other thing this doctor said about carbs. Eat them last. Preferably if you're going to have carbs, eat them at the END of the day, not the beginning of the day. if you eat them at a meal, eat them at the end of the meal, after your protein and fat. He said carbs make you want to eat more carbs. Eating them first thing doesn't burn them off by the end of the day, it just makes you crave carbs all day.
Re: beating my sugar addiction
08 Dec 2015, 23:51
@Tracieknits loving your post that speaks to us all. Thank you x :heart: I ate too much sugar in my teens and at 18 years old I was poisoned; heart, limb tremors and anxiety, a sugar overdose. I cut processed/unknown sugar out as it scared the pants off me. Of course I enjoy honey, chocolate, fruit deserts from time to time ... but only if I make them.
These days I am choosing good carbs for me.
Catch you in my tomorrow x
PS thanks to our Canadian friends for leading at COP21 with the LDC's, magic :like:
Re: beating my sugar addiction
09 Dec 2015, 03:09
Thanks @Lizbean!

Tomorrow I'm trying skipping breakfast, having a healthy protein shake for lunch, and then a lovely roasted veggie cassoulet dinner. I will definitely be watching for carb cravings :-)

Now I'm off to see what the Canadians are up to at COP21
Re: beating my sugar addiction
09 Dec 2015, 21:23
Well it's almost 4:30pm. I had my lunch shake and at 3:30 I wanted cheese, so I had about an ounce of emmenthaler. I think I'll be fine until dinner :-) No carb cravings!
Re: beating my sugar addiction
09 Dec 2015, 22:12
Really interested in the advice to eat carbs last at meal times. I too reach for protein, these days I share the morsel of protein that keeps me going with a piece of veg/salad, as they say every little helps :smile:
Re: beating my sugar addiction
26 Dec 2015, 17:06
@Tracieknits I just came across this today so interesting. At the beginning of December I also decided that it was time to sort out my sugar addiction. I mean my entire diet consisted of sweets and chocolate...... Hardly any food.... So I just stopped eating all added sugar, food with sugar in and foods that convert to sugar in the body. Was expecting cravings and withdrawal symptoms but that didn't happen at all. So I decided that I would allow myself sugar on 25 and 26 December and to my delight I don't find chocolate appealing anymore it actually made me ill. But I have some nice creamy dessert which tasted very sweet but I enjoyed it. From tomorrow I give it up again And I am looking forward that. Well done on your beating sugar addiction and it's the best thing we can do for ourselves
Re: beating my sugar addiction
27 Dec 2015, 00:05
Well done Tracie and keep going!
Interesting about the protein powder and eating carbs last..
I really really need to sort out my sugar and carb addiction for health reasons,even if i never lose another ounce,so thanks for the info xx
Re: beating my sugar addiction
27 Dec 2015, 12:10
I want to know more about making protein shakes. The idea of putting peanut butter in a drink sounds unattractive to me. Is the base of the drink milk ? Or does it have to be almond milk? And what is almond milk exactly? Can you expand on this @Tracieknits?
Re: beating my sugar addiction
27 Dec 2015, 14:57
I know Americans have a deep and abiding love for all things peanut, so I can understand that anyone else may look askance at it. but I think it's really delicious. The high-fiber hemp protein powder and the peanut makes it very satisfying, satiating and keeps me full for hours. The almond milk is a nice, creamy base that has only 30 calories per cup, making it a better choice than real milk. I'm sure you could substitute something else if you wanted. Here's how to make it.

http://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-make-al ... chn-189996
Re: beating my sugar addiction
27 Dec 2015, 17:53
So it's December 27, and BruceE and I have been naughty for almost a week now. I had a lot of baking and cooking to do, and two sets of family to celebrate the holidays in. I ate far fewer cookies than last year and I felt a lot more in control than I felt last year. That being said, I still ate too many cookies (yes, last year was obscene). Bruce and I decided to have only a protein smoothie before dinner, so I'm having mine now (12:51). He's helping the kiddo build his new computer but I expect he'll have his shortly.

I wish I could say I didn't enjoy the chocolate and sugar and alcohol over the past few days. I enjoyed them a LOT! But this protein shake I'm having right now really fills me up and I don't crave any cookies at all right now.

Wish me luck, we have another full week with the inlaws in town. Good thing they're staying with bruce's sister!! lol
Re: beating my sugar addiction
28 Dec 2015, 00:16
The almond milk is a nice, creamy base that has only 30 calories per cup,

That's good, @Tracieknits, but what's in it? Almonds, clearly. But what else? Water? Anything else? I go by Michael Pollan's dictum, don't eat anything your grandmother wouldn't recognise as food. So
high-fiber hemp protein powder
, is a bit suss too. What are these products? If I were going to make protein shakes, which I am interested in doing, I would need to know what I am doing. Also I don't know if we can get high-fiber hemp protein powder in Australia. I'll check out both these products in shops here and see what I can find out.
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