Grow Youthful: How to Slow Your Aging and Enjoy Extraordinary Health
Grow Youthful: How to Slow Your Aging and Enjoy Extraordinary Health

Sugar addiction treatment / recovery

What is sugar addiction?

Test for sugar addiction

Healing sugar addiction

Symptoms of sugar withdrawal

Foods and drinks to avoid

Foods and drinks to use during recovery from sugar addiction

Weight loss and many other benefits

References

What is sugar addiction?

Sugar addiction and its consequences are life-threatening and life-changing. The most obvious sign of being addicted to sugar is being overweight or obese. Other signs of sugar addiction are detailed here, including research references showing that it alters both physical and mental / psychological characteristics and behaviour. Addicts may be in denial, and sometimes go to rock bottom before making a determined decision to recover from sugar addiction.

Sugar craving can also be caused by candida.

Test for sugar addiction

Are you addicted to sugar? This test for sugar addiction takes just a few seconds.

Healing sugar addiction

Breaking a sugar addiction needs your determination. You will not be deprived of anything. On the contrary, you'll feel happier, stronger, more balanced and contented. Of course, your body will look and feel healthy too. But sugar addiction has a grip as strong as alcohol, heroin, morphine, nicotine and other addictive substances.

While recovering from sugar addiction, you can:

Doesn't sound too difficult, does it? It's not a diet, because dieting doesn't work. (2)

However, as we have seen sugar is a highly addictive substance. Just knowing how harmful it is, and all the diseases it can cause, is not enough to get most people to give it up. Here are some steps to help you rid yourself of this addictive poison.

  1. Understand that your health and life are at stake.
  2. Stop the habits and rituals associated with eating sugar and refined carbohydrates multiple times each day. Do you give yourself a little sweet reward for performing a task? Do you have chocolate biscuit(s) with your 10am break? Do you regularly share something sweet with those who are close to you? Make a written list of these habits - you'll be quite surprised how many there are.

    It is very important to write down each of these habits. It makes them all quite clear, so there are no exceptions where your addiction can break the rules. Get smart with each of them - you don't have to give up a breakfast orange juice or afternoon Coke, just replace them with a tea or mineral water.

    Try to avoid these habits until you break your addiction. Where you keep your routines, replace the sugar with something sugar-free. Exercise if you want to - just stay away from the sugar after. Avoid the situations in which you habitually consume sugar.
  3. Eliminate sugar from your home, and all the other places you consume it. You simply have to throw out all the sweet things - in your home, workplace, car and wherever you go. Remove temptation. If it's easily accessible, it's almost impossible to kick the habit.
  4. Ask for help from your partner, family, workmates and friends. Tell them exactly what you are doing, and ask for their help. Whatever their behaviour, they'll admire you. Perhaps you can get them to join you on the same journey?
  5. Withdraw from sugar. Start your new sugar-free life. Reclaim your slim, healthy body. Give the same gift to those around you, in your home, workplace and social life.

You have to break the sugar addiction completely. If you continue to use sugar in any quantity, you will remain addicted and the dopamine-response sugar craving will continue. Just like any other addiction, you have to stop using the substance completely.

If you go cold turkey, breaking a sugar addiction generally takes a few weeks. Some people, usually women rather than men, can struggle with craving for a few months. At some point, your desire for sugar goes.

Sugar-withdrawal is different for each person. A few people feel just the mildest symptoms for a few days, and then the addiction is over. However, most people really feel the main symptoms for several days, before they start to taper off over the next weeks or months.

If you choose to slowly reduce your sugar intake rather than going cold turkey, it may be a little easier for some people. But expect a much longer withdrawal period, with symptoms lasting longer. Make sure you are actually reducing your sugar intake rather than kidding yourself. Keep an accurate sugar diary with weekly targets. If it is easy to break your own rules, this approach can be a frustrating waste of time and effort.

Symptoms of sugar withdrawal

For some people, it can be a couple of months before sugar and sweet foods completely lose their appeal and become repulsive. Others may take a year or even longer. At that point the sight of a syrup-dripping doughnut can almost make you feel nauseous, which is exactly what it should do to a healthy normal person. You'll be able to safely stand in front of a plate of chocolate cake or whatever your poison was, and not feel the slightest temptation.

As an ex-addict, it can take years before your body fully heals from the addiction. In the worst case, just one sugar binge can start the craving again, just like one glass of alcohol to an alcoholic. Thankfully, most people can handle small quantities of sugar after they get over their addiction.

Foods and drinks to avoid

Foods and drinks to use during recovery from sugar addiction

Weight loss and many other benefits

Your hormonal appetite control will start to return to normal during the withdrawal period. You won't want to overeat any more. You'll start to feel full when your body has had as much food as it needs. Try to avoid eating out of habit. Question your previous portion sizes, to find what really feels right for you.

You will probably enjoy your food more, so don't worry about not enjoying your meals. You'll need less, and appreciate real food once the sugar fog has lifted. With your mouth no longer craving sugar, your taste buds will be able to experience an intensity of flavour that you may never have known. What used to be bland and uninteresting will change. For example, ripe bananas will taste really sweet.

References

1. Margarine is not a food - the molecular structure is unknown in nature. In Grow Youthful I detail why it is so harmful.

2. Marcia Levin Pelchat. Food Addiction in Humans. Supplement to The Journal of Nutrition, April 2008.

3. Stice E, Burger KS, Yokum S. Relative ability of fat and sugar tastes to activate reward, gustatory, and somatosensory regions. Am J Clin Nutr. 2013 Dec; 98(6):1377-84. doi: 10.3945/ajcn.113.069443. Epub 2013 Oct 16.