Sugar Addiction

There is a lot of news these days about the 'shocking' revelation that sugar is bad for us.  Not quite a surprise, but I am thankful people are starting to realize that the fat-free fad America was obsessed with for so many years caused so much more damage than good.  Food manufacturers made everything in the grocery aisle fat-free by adding a ton of sugar to processed foods to make sure they still tasted good.  While sugar is fat-free, the moment it enters the body, it becomes fat.  Eggs, avocado, and cashews aren't the culprit for our growing bellies...sugar is.  If you're interested in reading up on some of this, check out this article and this one.  Also, take a look at the FDA's new proposal for nutrition labels.  I especially like the line that says, "Added Sugars" because those are the culprits, not the natural sugars found in fruits.

The reason I bring this up is because I am a sugar addict.  I've known it for a long time.  In fact, between 1998 and 2000, I had given up added sugars all together.  I stopped eating Straight Up Sugars (SUS) with my mom and dad as a way to both get healthy and support my dad who was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes.  It helped me to lose about 60 pounds at the time and it didn't take long for me to just not care about sweets.  It was the very unexpected and tragic loss of my 2 year old cousin that gave both my mom and I the excuse to eat sugar again.  If I didn't think I was an emotional eater before that point, then I couldn't deny it anymore.

Fast forward to 2013.  My time at Green Mountain helped me to check my sugar cravings, but once the month was over, I found natural sweets to satisfy my cravings.  But as the year went on, I slowly allowed my self more and more processed SUS's.  And then the break-up happened.  It was all down hill from there.  Not only was I dealing with the break-up, but I was dealing with a break-up during the holiday season.  I joked to my sister that I had been on a straight carb and sugar diet when I saw her at Christmas.  Unfortunately, I wasn't exaggerating.  By the time my birthday rolled around in February, I was full on addicted to sugar.

Symptoms of addiction include (and I experienced all of these): tolerance (needing more sugar to satisfy), withdrawal, difficulty cutting down, social activities revolving around sugar, and becoming preoccupied with planning how to get the next sugar high.

This last one is what really hit me in confronting my addiction.  I would wake up in the morning saying I wouldn't have any SUS's that day and within hours, I was planning how I would get it because I needed it.  Usually, I would say, "Oh, I need to go to Walgreens to get contact solution."  Knowing that this meant I would get the contact solution and Reese's Hearts.  Or I would come up with an excuse to go to the grocery store so I could get a batch of fresh cookies that would likely be gone within 48 hours.

Other signs of addiction I was showing were: mood changes, changes in energy, changes in sleep patterns, weight gain, secretiveness, stashes of sugar.

Now, I know my addiction isn't as extreme as other addictions, but if you read some of those articles I linked above, it was just as harmful to my body as some other addictions.

So you can guess by my use of past tense, that I have been taking control of this addiction.  My mother turned me onto this book and I have been slowly making my way through it.  The Sugar Smart Diet goes into detail about the harms of sugar and then it lays out a 32 day plan to take control of sugar in your life.  The idea is to get to a point where you can enjoy sugar every now and then and not all of the time.  Knowing my past and addiction to sugar, I'm deciding to follow the plan through to Phase 2 and not complete Phase 3 which reintroduces sugar.  It's my plan to get to a place where I can make fruits my sweets and to avoid SUS's completely.  I don't trust myself around them.

What I like about the plan is that the first 5 days wean you off of sugar slowly so there was no cold turkey day.  I was able to work myself down and am now on day eight of the plan and at this phase I am sugar free (including fruit sugars and highly refined white flours).  Today is hard.  All I can think about is muffins and cookies and chocolate.  But I know what it means to keep moving forward.  I know I can get to a point again where SUS's don't tempt me.  I know I can because I've done it before.  Plus, I've had to give up dairy this year, which is something else I never thought I could do, and I have.  Once I can equate sugar with the bad ways it makes me feel and I am (hopefully) happy about all of the energy I am going to have then I won't want to go back.

I also find myself in a bit of a mourning period this week.  Thinking about all of the sweets I won't allow myself in the future.  It's hard.  Especially because one of the things I learned at Green Mountain was not to deprive yourself.  If you deny yourself something, you will likely binge on it.  But I can't look at sugar that way because of my addiction.  You wouldn't say to an alcoholic that they should have a single beer every now and then so they won't feel denied.  An addiction means all or nothing.

Bread for me is a gateway sugar drug.  Thankfully, there are breads out there that have very limited added sugar and are typically found in the artisan section of the bakery.  The kinds that are called something like "Seedsational" and need to be cut at home.  What's great about these is that I really enjoy them and they don't trigger that sugar need for me.  To better control these breads, I have decided to buy myself a bread maker and just make my own bread.  To me that is the best way for me to control my added sugars.  I'm sure there are plenty of recipes out there that I can make that require no sugar.  If I can control it, it won't control me.

So there is my confession for the week.  It's not easy to announce my addiction to everyone, but I know the support I will receive will help me get through this.  Also, I'd like to mention that my mom has been sugar free for like 25 days or so and is feeling great.  She has lost weight and has lost her sugar cravings completely.  She is my inspiration!