Your Sugar Addiction Thoughts? Here Are Mine
Are you addicted to sugar? Ever suspected you were? Sugar addiction is more common than we acknowledge. It moves through a spectrum of behaviors – fairly predictable ones over time.
“I believe that when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade — and then try to find someone whose life is giving them cake, and have a party.” – Ron White (with my apologies)
When I first learned about sugar addiction – way before anyone really knew about it – I went through denial about its reality. I knew the effect sugar had on me, but figured I could manage to keep eating it. You know, in secret.
I searched for a way out, an excuse not to quit. The holiday season is coming so I can’t quit now. I’m going on vacation so I can’t quit now. Jill’s party’s coming up, so I can’t quit now. It’s Wednesday, so I can’t quit now.
I spent time searching for substitutes – substitute sugars. I now call this Looking for a Loophole. For that one … sneaky … loophole sugar that would allow me to feel I had quit, even though I was still eating sugar. ‘Fancy’ sugars. The kind people lie about. Agave, manuka honey, others.
Eventually, it was time to give up those behaviors. I accepted the futility of pretending that sugar wasn’t causing my health problems or my mood swings. It was easy to believe these things because my doctor never connected those dots, so I told myself they had nothing to do with sugar.
Once I decided I truly wanted to win this battle, conquer this problem and move past it, it was definitely time to give up. Completely – including any fancy, loophole sugars.
From there, what did I keep? I kept healthful foods on hand because they worked well for me, both during my detox and beyond. I kept recipes that I loved, because I knew they could be reformulated without sugar.
For a while, I kept a box of dessert recipes. I never made them anymore and knew I couldn’t make them anymore, but I kept the boxful.
Finally, it was time to throw away. I learned to throw away tempting foods that would have led me off track – no matter who made them. And I threw them away. I didn’t keep them and promise myself I wouldn’t eat them. I got rid of them.
I also had to throw away habits that didn’t serve me, like ending every dinner with some sort of dessert. Expecting treats to be sweet. Expecting to have sweet foods, period.
I threw away my box of dessert recipes.
From there, I landed on the time to mend my eating behaviors without junky foods, without bad habits, and start fresh. This had actually already started, so I’m getting out of order on my “sugar timeline,” but I did a lot of mending once I had quit sugar completely.
Buddha said that the origin of suffering is attachment. Detaching from sugar ended the suffering it had brought me and continued to bring while I kept holding on to it.
Detaching from sugar also ended the suffering I thought I’d feel from going without it. Now it truly is “not food.” No attachments, no aversions.
How Zen is that? How effortless is that?
If you’ve ever struggled with sugar and would like to get past it, I’d love to help. Just visit www.LastResortNutrition.com and grab your free Empowered Eating Consult. Discover how easy it can be to make a few changes that produce huge results. You got this!
Brought to you by Dr. Joan Kent, best-selling author of Stronger Than Sugar: 7 Simple Steps to Defeat Sugar Addiction, Lift Your Mood, and Transform Your Health.
