Are you a sugar addict? I am.
In 2005 I vowed to quit and began
writing about life without sweets.
This site contains a forum,
product reviews, my journal,
educational Sugar Challenges,
and the Stop Being Sweet ebook.

Do You Have Sweet Dreams?

February 03, 2012 • Comments (0)

After jumping off the wagon for two weeks, I’m back to being sugar free. Like clockwork, I had a dream about it.

I was in China with my friend Maria (we went to college there together in real life). In my dream she had moved back and I was visiting. We were in line at a food market, which was outdoors and similar to a bizarre. The checkouts were in turn styles, like when you enter or exit a subway, and I jumped to the next exit because they were selling sweets behind glass counters that lined the pathway.

Maria questioned me. I explained that I was eating sugar again. I purchased a large cookie with black and white icing because the other cookies were flat and looked over cooked. One was crispy with almonds in the center and looked like it was baked with way too much butter. There was a limited selection.

Dreaming about eating sweets is a common and expected part of getting off sugar. I’ve written about my past sweet dreams here and here. When you stop being sweet, you can look forward to a weird (and often guilt riddled) dream about eating sugar. That’s how you know you’re passing the threshold from sweetie to unsweetie.

Posted in My Personal Journal on 02/03/12 • Comment

Toxic Truth About Sugar Video with Robert Lustig, MD

February 02, 2012 • Comments (0)

Dr. Robert Lustig talks about how sugar consumption is a huge problem and how it gets treated as “personal responsibility” instead of something bigger. Watch this video if you have trouble maintaining your weight, can’t stop eating sweets, and feel guilty because you think it’s all your fault.

Do you think that sugar is like alcohol and drugs? Is sugar the cigarettes of the future? Will we one day have our ID checked by the cashier if we want to buy a six pack of soda?

Posted in Tips, Tricks, Info & News on 02/02/12 • Comment

Do You Have Parameters?

January 31, 2012 • Comments (0)

Chocolate shop in Paris that sells in bulk by weight.

(Above is a photo of the sweet shop that I mentioned in Part 3 of my self indulgent post about eating sweets in Paris, France.)

Sweetaholics often state that they wish that they could simply get their sugar consumption under control. Nobody wants to give the stuff up, let alone quit sugar forever.

If you have an issue with sugar then you know how hard it can be to maintain an “everything in moderation” type of eating practice. What is moderate? One person’s moderation is another’s over the top. There’s one thing that you need to know when you stop being sweet. You must know your parameters.

What Are Your Parameters?

You must know what you’re willing to do or not do. The only way to figure that out is through experience. Remember, getting off sugar is not all or nothing! When you succumb to the all or nothing mindset you are in trouble from the start. How is it that I could go on a trip and eat sugary junk food (like a mad man) for two weeks and then stop short upon returning home? It’s because I have parameters.

Parameter - a numerical or other measurable factor forming one of a set that defines a system or sets the conditions of its operation.

I have a ritual of only eating sweets four days out of each year. I don’t go to France every month and so the fact that I went and ate sugar means it was an anomaly. By the time I got back from my trip I wanted to be off sweets and was looking forward to it. Next time I go away I won’t eat sweets, it’s not worth it.

Figure out your parameters and keep on conditioning yourself to be sugar free. It takes time but it’s worth every step. Whatever you do, don’t lose hope!

Posted in Tips, Tricks, Info & News on 01/31/12 • Comment

Parlez-vous Sucre? Part 3

January 30, 2012 • Comments (1)

An afternoon snack? How can you say no? That would be rude!

(Continued from Part 2)

After having eaten a small chocolate in Bubry it was all over for the rest of my visit to France. I began to look for excuses to eat sweets and justified desserts by telling myself I’d appear rude if I didn’t partake. Then I found myself annoyed that people would be watching me as I ate (while we visited with family) so I couldn’t just binge on all of the sweets in my sights. Luckily Gwenn’s Godmother insisted I eat two helping of King Cake during our visit to her home. She also offered us hot cocoa and some chocolates!

Me and my feve.

Eating King Cake is a tradition that happens once a year in France. It’s a sweet pie of sorts with a ceramic “feve” baked inside. Whomever gets the feve is the king or queen and they get to wear a paper crown that comes with the cake. I won twice during my trip. That means I ate about half or more of a whole King Cake. Heated up slightly, King Cake is a dangerous treat.

Gwenn, Claire, and a €40 Nutella.

Gwenn noted that she could tell what kind of day it was going to be by whether or not I had sugar first thing in the morning. On the days where I ate a fresh crepe (or two) filled with Nutella, I’d be especially interested in sweets the rest of the day. However, after eating crepes with Nutella I started to feel sick and eventually stopped eating them in favor of other sweet things. While at the department store BHV, Gwenn and our friend Claire spotted a huge €40 jar of Nutella for sale! Are you reading Adams peanut butter? As for Nutella, it always made me feel terrible so I’m off that stuff for good.

Junk food begets junk food. (Upper left corner image = Paris face.)

A little voice in my head started telling me all the things I needed to eat before returning to America. There were aisles of interesting cookies to try at the supermarket. There were things in the bakery and pastry shops. Just as an experiment, I had some French peanut M&Ms—you know, to see if they’re different. We also had McDonald’s French Fries for lunch (also to see if they’re different) and compared them to Quick’s (the France version of McDonald’s) french fries. McDonald’s won the taste test.

In Paris we stayed at a place that offered cafeteria style breakfast. They served Cocoa Puffs cereal and milk in the morning, which I ate along with my croissant and egg. By the third day I had no interest in the croissant and egg but instead wanted a second and third bowl of chocolaty sugar cereal. Things got pretty bad.

These cookies were supposed to be my last.

We stopped in a small pastry shop and I purchased a chocolate chip cookie. As I was warned, it wasn’t good. Apparently the French don’t do chocolate chip cookies well. While there I also got a single chocolate dipped cookie like in the image above. For the next day and a half I was craving more. After looking all over the city I ended up going back to the same pastry shop and purchasing the box in the image above. As I ate all of them I remembered that my grandparents used to purchase that type of cookie and bring them over on special occasions. What I forgot is that the cookies have some kind of jelly on the inside which gets dry and becomes a tiny sheet of grossness—so I ate around the jelly like I did as a child.

Macarons in a fancy, jewelry-like display.

It’s true. The French are serious about their sweets. We went down a tiny street somewhere in Paris and on each side of the road were small sweet shops selling expensive, high end chocolates and snacks. I wonder if Parisians ever eat at those shops of if it’s just tourists who think that paying $2 per macaron in Paris is très romantique.

Edible chocolate sculptures in a window display.

In Paris there were many stores that sold sweets of all kinds. Some places (like in the photo of a window display above) had edible chocolate sculptures while other stores had every kind of gourmet chocolate snack you could imagine in bins and for sale by the pound. As a tourist it would be difficult to stay off sweets in Paris.

Physical Reactions

My entire mouth felt odd, as if my taste buds had been numbed. I wasn’t interested in real food but instead sought out more and more chocolate variations. Being in the center of Paris made that easy.

My hands swelled up with temperature changes as I went in warm buildings and out into the cold air. That used to happen to me a lot, especially as a kid. My hands haven’t done that for such a long time that I forgot about it until this trip.

I crashed. We moved a bunch of furniture and household items and I felt weak. Yes, I was jet lagged but I have had enough sugar crashes to know the difference between them and jet lag. Because I was loaded up with sugar, I nearly dropped my half of the washing machine as we were carrying it—not fun.

People’s Reactions

We had dinner with an acquaintance who said she had gone a week without sweets once but felt no physical difference. As for my being tired she said, “That could be anything. It could be jet lag.”

Had I NOT eaten sweets at people’s houses I think they would have been really put off. I don’t eat meat. I don’t drink alcohol. Imagine if I didn’t eat dessert! Only once did I choose to say no and it seemed to offend our hosts. When you can’t understand the spoken language you get keen at listening to body language. So no meat, no drinks, no dessert, and I don’t speak fluent French?!

Consommation

Over the course of two weeks I ate the following sweets:

Peanut M&Ms
King Cake
Chocolate dipped cookies
Mikado chocolates
Granola brand chocolate dipped digestive cookies
McVidie’s brand chocolate dipped digestive cookies
Crepes with Nutella
McDonald’s French fries
Quick French fries
Lots of chocolate
Speculoos cookies
Ice cream
Chocolate cookies
Two bites of a brownie
And more…

Eating the last pack of McVidie’s digestive cookies.

Things got pretty bad. I went for a walk alone and secretly purchased a sleeve of McVidie’s chocolate covered digestive cookies and ate them all by myself before getting back to the house. Then I got another sleeve and kept them to be the grande finale of my sweet time in France. However, I just kept going after the finale.

Back on the Wagon

Newark Airport cookie.

It wasn’t hard to stop being sweet upon my return to Portland. I did however, continue to eat sweets long past when I said I would stop. For instance, we were delayed and put up in a hotel in Newark so I extended my sugar eating to last until the final flight back to Portland. I ate a peanut butter cup, chocolate chip, chocolate dipped cookie in the airport and got another one for the flight. It was way too much and I wasn’t feeling good physically by the time I got home. With my stomach full and my veins coursing with sugar it was easy to make the choice to return to my no sugar lifestyle once I got home.

Roller Coaster

Eating sugar is a little like riding a crazy ride at an amusement park. It’s sort of fun and exciting the first time. The second time is just okay. The third time is too much and the fourth time you start to look forward to going home and getting your feet on the ground.

Any Regrets?

Sugar junkie.

I don’t regret jumping off the wagon. However, I think I’d have felt better about myself had I stuck to my guns and been writing this blog post about how I did NOT eat sugar in France. While the sweets were good, there was nothing I ate in France that I couldn’t find in America and nothing worth an “I just HAD TO have it” kind of justification.

Fancy Paris ice cream.

It would seem to me that the best part about eating sweets in France is simply being in France. From an American standpoint, being in a European city means getting outside of the usual routine and experiencing a different culture. Being on the trip overseas and outside of my everyday should have made my life sweet enough. Next time, I’ll stay off sugar—I think. At least I’m going to try.

My “last” sugar in Paris.

There are so many photos of me eating junk food because I kept asking Gwenn to take my picture while eating my “last sweets of the trip,” as if having a photo would stop me from going on to eat the next sweet thing. I wish now that this post had photos of not eating sweets. We’ll just have to go to France again so I can avoid sugar and make up for this entire mistake!

Posted in My Personal Journal on 01/30/12 • Comment

Parlez-vous Sucre? Part 2

January 28, 2012 • Comments (0)

A scene from Bubry, France

(Continued from Part 1)

The start of my trip to France was bittersweet. Gwenn’s French grandmother passed away and Gwenn’s mother was taking care of the final duties that come at the end of a person’s life. As Annie (Gwenn’s mother) stressed, this wasn’t a vacation. For me, however, the trip was enlightening and fascinating. There’s a lot to say about visiting but I am going to focus on the sweet story of sugar.

The idea of eating sugar in France was in the back of my mind when the trip was planned. Being in another country seemed like the perfect way to wrap a restrictive envelope around my debauchery. I’d only eat sugar while in France and would return to my regular sugar-free life when I got back to America. That was the plan.

Before my trip I considered all of my options. I’d only eat sweets once a day, or if they were given to me. Or, I’d only eat the fancy French pastries but would avoid anything else. Or I’d just stay off sugar altogether and keep things simple. Then it happened.

Inside a small shop in Bubry, France.

I lasted through the airport temptations and bypassed the metro. It wasn’t until I got to Bubry and was handed a small chocolate by a local shop keeper named Jeannine that I gave in and justified eating it by claiming I was just accepting her hospitality. As you can see from the photo above, it would have been rude to turn down such a gift. Jeannine saw Gwenn grow up so receiving a candy from her made us feel like kids again. I mean, how could I not eat it?

It was a good chocolate, but frankly it was just chocolate. That’s not to negate her kind gesture or the fact that it was good chocolate. I’m saying that it was just chocolate—nothing extraordinary and nothing that couldn’t be found in other parts of the world. I thought perhaps there was some other chocolate in the country that would be more French and of course I’d have to try it to see if there was a difference.

It’s funny. If you go for a long time without chocolate and then eat it, you find that it’s exactly as your remember it being. You think, “Yep, that’s chocolate alright!” Then you’re screwed. It’s not like you can have a tiny piece of random milk chocolate with a dark chocolate center one day and then stop the next. Especially when the store is right there and you have to go in to buy bread in the morning!

...and so began a two week sugar binge disguised as a trip to France.

Continued in Part 3.

Posted in My Personal Journal on 01/28/12 • Comment