 Overcoming Sugar Addiction |
 
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Are you someone who can’t stop eating sugar, once you start? Are you plagued with constant food cravings, especially for sweets or refined carbohydrates, such as pasta, bread or potato chips?
Oh, how I understand! I was a compulsive sugar addict for thirty years, and found freedom. You can read my book about how I healed my sugar addiction. Or you can dive into the tools that teach you how to do it yourself in my follow up workbook and CDs, Becoming Binge Free. Not sure about all that yet? Read on for a beginner’s ten steps:
Here are ten steps to break your sugar addiction:
1. Add self care. Before you attempt to eliminate anything from your life – even something negative, such as food addiction – it’s important to add to your life, so that you are operating from an overflow, not a deficit. Eliminating sugar will create a vacuum; better to fill it with something positive – self-care – than something negative – self-sabotage. Have a good book to read, to fill the hours you might have spent eating ice cream in front of the TV; take on a hobby instead of baking.
2. Keep your blood sugar stable. Eat breakfast, eat protein with every meal or snack, eat low GI foods, and eat at regular intervals. Why? All of these things will stabilize your blood sugar, so that your moods and energy are at an even keel. Much of the time, I craved sugar because I was hungry (I was always trying to limit my eating because I was always trying to lose weight). Eat enough so that you feel satisfied, and regularly enough so that you feel stable, and you won’t crave so much junk. Learn more about what and how to eat from the sugar addiction reading list.
3. Treat yourself like you’re in detox. The first week of sugar abstinence is hard, when the cravings are at their most powerful. Be kind to yourself: this is not the time to tackle a large project, to implement lots of changes, or to work overtime. Why do people go to a spa when they’re detoxing? Because they need extra support. Likewise, give yourself extra support. Go to bed earlier. Take naps. Cook simple meals (and don’t make the same mistake I did: don’t cook meals for your family that have ingredients in them that you are trying not to eat. Don’t make sugar abstinence any harder than it needs to be.) Spend time in prayer and meditation. Call on others for support and encouragement.
4. Don’t focus on weight loss. While weight loss is usually a natural consequence of giving up sugar, don’t make it your focus. It’s better to channel your energy towards one goal at a time. So put aside your weight loss goals for now and focus on getting sugar free. Then, when you’ve achieved sugar abstinence, you can work on losing the excess weight. Weight loss is the side effect of loving your body and freeing yourself from food addiction; not the focus. Furthermore, you might be delightfully surprised to see how much easier it is to lose weight when you’re not eating sugar in the first place. Of course, we all have to eat. Check this list of sugar free snack ideas.
5. Know your true value. While yes, your body may be sugar sensitive, and while, yes, you may gorge on sugar, it’s not “you.” It’s just a coping mechanism: how you learned to care for yourself when life felt overwhelming or scary, probably when you were very small. It’s not your fault. It’s not proof that you’re a terrible person. It just is.
As you heal the core wounds that lead you to sugar, you recover these hurt parts of you. You care for them. And as you care, you’re able to stop the sugar bingeing; to care for yourself in ways that don’t cause as much suffering.
6. Create a supportive environment. For the first month after I gave up sugar, I asked my family to hide the few sweet foods we had in the house so that I wouldn’t seek them out and eat them. I avoided certain aisles in the grocery store, movie theaters, and abstained from any baking. Later on, when I was in the habit of not eating sugar, and no longer physically craving it, I was able to be around sugar without succumbing to temptation. Yes, this can be especially tricky to avoid sugar when around family during the holidays. In the beginning of your journey, give yourself the structure you need so you feel supported.
7. Be a detective. Give yourself time to experiment. Use your body as a guinea pig: what foods make you feel good? What foods make you feel bad? How did I learn that dried fruit affects me in the same way that refined sugar does? By observing my body after I ate it. How did I learn that eating tortilla chips makes me crave sugar? By observing my body. How did I learn that legumes, lean meats, and nuts satisfy my hunger and give me stable moods? By observing my body.
8. Reconsider fake sugars. I know this is a tough one to follow: many women rely on Diet sodas when they’re craving something sweet. But in my experience, aspartame, Nutrasweet, Splenda, and even low carb sugar products (protein bars that are “low sugar”) don’t quell sugar cravings, but increase them. A study at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio found that a person’s risk for obesity went up a whopping 41% for each daily can of Diet soda. See this list of hidden sources of sugar for more information.
9. Start over whenever you slip and fall. You don’t have to wait until the next morning, or succumb to the thinking that says, “I’ve blown it; I might as well have some brownies to go with it,” when you slip up and eat sugar. Giving up sugar is hard. It’s ingrained in our holidays, in our meals, in our society. Be kind to yourself when you mess up, and get right back on track. Create a positive affirmation to use: “I am resilient,” or “I am starting over,” when you make a mistake. Have some protein, make a cup of mint tea, and brush your teeth. Then remove yourself from your food source: take a walk, call a friend, go outside, go to the library. Do something to change your environment so you can switch gears. Be mindful that there are 3 stages to healing a sugar addiction. What stage are you in?
10. Forgive yourself. I felt terrible shame about my sugar addiction. Releasing that shame was like lifting an enormous weight off my psyche. We’re all imperfect. We all cope with life in messy ways. If you have food issues, offer yourself compassion. Find self-acceptance. All those times you gorged on sugar? Recognize that you were doing the best you could.
Sugar addiction is not a character defect. It’s often due to biology, imprinting, long ingrained habits, our environment and a whole host of other factors – many of which are not in our control. Can you find forgiveness for yourself? Can you see that it’s not your fault? That it may not be something you could’ve prevented?
When we release the blame – and most of us blame ourselves, and terribly so – we find we can also release the sugar. It creates a spaciousness where we can act differently, where we can respond to sugar in a different way and let go of its hold on us. Forgiveness and compassion are the only way I found peace with my sugar abstinence. It’s the only way I found that I could stay sugar free long term.
So where do you go from here?
- Learn the 4 things necessary to heal your sugar addiction.
- Read Overcoming Sugar Addiction, a book that chronicles my own story and demonstrates how you, too, can break your sugar addiction.
- Learn the tools that keep me sugar free to this day with an at home, do it yourself workbook and CDs.
A special audio message for you: If you’ve come this far, I bet you’ve got a few more questions. Listen to my explanation of how you can retake control beyond the initial detox period, find support along the way, honor your sensitivity to sugar, and make this day the start of a new way of living:
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (2.9MB)
I wanted to respond to anonymous’ comment, because I think it was a valid point. When I say that I don’t believe in the comment “once an addict, always an addict,” what I meant is that I don’t believe in *defining* yourself by your addiction – in labeling who you are as a person as an “addict.” I am speaking about how you see yourself – not in how you go about healing yourself. I understand that addiction is due to a combination of many factors, including, in the case of drugs and alcohol, chemical factors in the brain. This may mean getting professional help to heal from an addiction. But even as you are healing from an addiction, are you not also more than your addiction? That is my point.
Hi all,
I gave up all sugar, white flour, white rice, dairy due to the milk sugars and fruit two years ago. I couldn’t ave done it without xylitol. This is a sugar that tastes like normal white sugar but is extremely good for us. It is made out of brich tree bark and has a very very low G1.
It’s amazing stuff!
x
Hi Lisa, I love that you mentioned this in your blog! Thank you for the shout out. Warmly, Karly
Hi there,
Great article! I like how you address mental ways to also break sugar addictions. Hope you don’t mind, but I mentioned it in my blog as well.
Bye for now,
Lisa
Here’s another fabulous expert on the science of sugar addiction, Dr. Julia Ross (I highly recommend her book The Mood Cure), in an interview about sugar addiction with my pal Jimmy Moore.
Ah, Helen, of course! We all struggle with implementation. Knowledge doesn’t always translate into behavior – one of the challenges of being a human being. That’s why you might try our Control My Sugar Cravings support program, designed to be self-paced and yet gently move you through a 12 week transition with support and guidance.
I know that I am addicted to sugar. I have read the e-book (which I loved!) and numerous other books about giving up sugar. I have all the information and I know that this is what I want to do, but I can’t seem to take the steps to make it happen. Is anyone else struggling with this?
I’m seriously addicted to sugar right now. I had given it up many years ago, then took a job as a baker, and things went downhill from there, lol! But I’m looking online for ideas and help to eliminated it again, so thanks for all the great info!
Tracy
Hi Tracy,
I’m glad you’ve found lots of support here. Wow – a baker – that would be a very challenging job for me! If you’re looking for more support, we have a Sugar Addiction support program http://www.firstourselves.com/sugar-support/ and forums to help you break free from sugar.
Some people have had success with agave or stevia, in that they don’t trigger sugar cravings in their body. I wasn’t able to do so. In fact, one of my favorite binge foods was the agave sweetened peanut butter balls from the health food store!
In one sense, the agave sweetened treats were better, as they didn’t spike my blood sugar like regular white sugar. But as Kathleen Des Maisons explains in her book Potatoes Not Prozac (an excellent book that explains the science behind sugar addiction, the physiological drive to eat more and more sugar), blood sugar is just one component of a sugar craving. Sugar also affects your feel good transmitters (beta-endorphins and serotonin, mainly.) So even though a sweetener may not spike your blood sugar and lead to sugar cravings, it may set off your endorphins or serotonin, creating a biochemical drive in the brain for sugar.
Agave does this in me. Not as dramatically as white sugar, but, it does cause a craving for more and more sugar and sweet stuff over time. For this reason, and because I love the abundant health that I have when I’m not craving sugar and obsessing about food, I stay away from all sweeteners. But that is me and my body. If I had to characterize my sugar sensitivity on a scale from 1 to 10, I would put me at a 10. Your body may not be that sensitive. You may be able to handle stevia and a little agave just fine.
So here’s what I would do:
try it and see how you feel. Experiment. Test and measure the results.
If you find that you can’t live without your tea and coffee with agave, if you find yourself craving other sugary foods, then that may be a sign that agave does effect you. And if you don’t find yourself hooked by it, wanting to eat sugar and needing to have it in a compulsive way, then it sounds like it may be okay for your body.
We talk about this process of learning what to eat in the Control My Sugar Cravings support program.
I hope this helps!
Best,
Karly
Can I, or should I use Agave for sweetening my coffee or tea if I am trying to go sugar free? Will it increase my craving for sugar like the artificial sweeteners?
Thank you for the comments. I am not an expert on all types of addiction nor do I set out to be: I am merely a woman who struggled with sugar addiction and who has found peace by remaining sugar abstinent. I want to help others find similar peace.
I certainly understand that there are other factors that lead to addiction, which is why I don’t offer medical advice. Yes, there is a biochemical component. And, yes, there is a spiritual component, too. I try and address the spiritual component and let others help people with the physical component.
I think the two approaches go hand in hand, that it isn’t either/or.
Thank you for the food for thought and the dialogue.
Take good care,
Karly
” I don’t endorse the idea of ‘once an addict, always an addict.’”
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Please do a little research about this. While sugar addictions may not have the same physiological process (although I believe there has been research to suggest it does) chemical addictions to drugs and alcohol are caused by actual physical changes in the brain. It isn’t a “spiritual” change. Please be careful what you say — what you say on here could have real consequences for someone actually dealing with an addiction or dealing with someone that has addiction.
As a result of a blow to the head about 15 years ago which wiped out my sense of smell and therefore my sense of taste, the only tastes I get are the few taste buds on the tongue: sweet, sour, salt and bitter — all weight gainers and the only flavors I crave. No sense of smell also wreaks havoc on the appetite as well. My stomach seldom really feels hunger, but my mouth is hungry all the time but only for those 4 flavors. Don’t know if this qualifies as a sugar addiction but I sure need to quit it.
I am a young woman, fighting off an eating disorder. I’ve finally come to realize that the root of my binge/purging lifestyle is due to my addiction to sugar.
These tips were very helpful. I’m glad to know that i’m not alone in my struggle.
Hi Cal,
I was bulimic for over 5 years, and my favorite binge foods were sugar and simple carbs. In fact, I don’t think I ever binged on broccoli, carrots, or steak. I definitely think there’s a connection between sugar and bingeing – although I also had to heal my emotional addiction to sugar (the fact that I turned to food to solve life’s pain.) I know the pain of an eating disorder. I wish you health and wholeness on your journey.
I’m just coming to terms with the fact that have a sugar addiction. There is no denying it. But the thought of giving up sugar is terrifying. But it’s something that I must do for myself. I’m tired of being tired and constantly struggling with my weight. A battle which I am losing as I get older. I’m glad to know that there others (I’m sorry that you all are going through it too) and that I’m not the only one that is dealing with this. I’m still stunned that this is really an “issue” for me.
Hi Kim,
I know how you feel. I know many people who can eat sugar moderately without a problem – so to them, the thought of being “addicted” to sugar is almost laughable. Honor how you were made, your limits, and your body. We all feel terrified about giving up sugar. But there is so much to gain – namely freedom, peace and wellbeing.
What is really hard is that I am known as a Great Baker!! It is part of my identity and that is tough to deal with.
Like a wine merchant who gives up drinking!!
This advice is so great! Lovely really, the self-care stuff brought tears to my eyes, so it must be what I need!!
Hi Lilybart,
I can empathize. For much of my life, I have treated myself so harshly. Pushing, pushing, pushing myself…being the stoic….ignoring my needs….criticizing myself for feeling lonely, tired, sad, or frustrated. My journey began with offering myself compassion – something I starved myself of as I gorged on sugar.
Hi Karly,
Thank you so much for the book. I am going to read it. I am trying to lose weight but it is so difficult because I am addicted to sugar.
And here’s the weird thing – I’m a guy! This seems so rare because I only ever hear about women who are addicted to sugar!
I eat sugar every day. Recently I have even been addicted to ice lollies (popsicles). Sometimes I will even eat 30 of them in one day!!
I have stopped cold turkey and suffering withdrawal pangs like a smoker quitting. It’s really difficult….thanks for the book, I will let you know how it goes. I am also going to post about you on my blog.
Chris
http://www.Grow-You.com
Hi Chris,
Thank you for the link. And you are not alone – I hear from lots and lots of men who struggle with sugar addiction, too.
Dear JoLynn,
Yes, I was a sugar addict for decades—I was hooked! Giving up sugar for good literally gave me back my life, ending the violent mood swings, feelings of “going crazy,” and low self esteem that I experienced from eating sugar. I have an ebook coming out on conquering sugar addiction that will be available for purchase on firstourselves.com in the next few weeks. Find the sugar addiction book here. Good luck on your journey!
Best,
Karly
Hi Kerry,
I’m addicted to sugar too, you’ve got some great tips here. I love to see that there are others out there who are blogging about sugar addiction, I really think that there are more people who are addicted to it than realize it.
Here’s to staying off the white stuff.