Extreme Sugar Addiction

Those who laugh when they hear the term “Sugar Addict” are those who never experienced what it’s like to be a sugar addict. This blog is for people who are or were like me. I used to eat sweets every. single. day.

I used to make special trips to purchase candy, cookies, and ice cream. My addiction was at its worst when I lived in New York City because every street corner held an opportunity to get a cheap sugar fix. It was there where I realized my problem and began to experiment with abstaining from sweets to prove to myself I could control my sugar intake (and thus keep eating sweets).

Am I comparing sugar to heroine, cocaine, or Oxycontin? Yes and no. Yes in that sugar is an addictive substance and addictive behavior is addictive behavior. No in that sugar addicts can function in society whereas other addicts tend to slowly drop out of functionality, and out of society. In many cases, people who eat sweets don’t even know they’re addicts. They also don’t know what a healthy diet looks like.

What to you think of the following shopping list?

· Grape Fruit Drink
· Cookies
· Chocolate Milk
· Sweet Pickles
· Pasta and Pasta Sauce
· Chips and Salsa
· Doritos
· Frozen Pizza
· Salad and salad dressing
· Pre-made Sub Sandwich
· Starbucks Coffee
· Liter of soda pop
· Twinkies
· Hot dogs
· Ketchup
· Hot dog buns
· Relish
· Mayonaise
· Captain Crunch Cereal
· Pop-Tarts
· Frozen Dinner
· Orange Drink
· Pancakes and Maple Syrup
· Energy Bars

Now look at the list and see which items contain added sugars.

· Grape Fruit Drink sugar
· Cookies sugar
· Chocolate Milk sugar
· Sweet Pickles sugar
· Pasta and Pasta Sauce sugar
· Chips and Salsa sugar
· Doritos sugar
· Frozen Pizza sugar
· Salad and salad dressing sugar
· Pre-made Sub Sandwich sugar
· Starbucks Coffee sugar
· Liter of soda pop sugar
· Twinkies sugar
· Hot dogs sugar
· Ketchup sugar
· Hot dog buns sugar
· Relish sugar
· Mayonaise sugar
· Captain Crunch Cereal sugar
· Pop-Tarts sugar
· Frozen Dinner sugar
· Orange Drink sugar
· Pancakes and Maple Syrup sugar
· Energy Bars sugar

For some of you, the list looked sugar-laden. For others, the list looked pretty normal. If you thought the list looked normal, you need to start reading labels and learn about sugar consumption. How do you do that? Where do you start?

If you’re going to get into something new you don’t just dive into it head first. That’s why many people fail, they try to completely quit sweets in an instant. If you don’t know anything about cars, you don’t rip the engine out and expect any good to come of it. You start by changing something small. The same goes for getting off sugar. Do it a little at a time. Start small. Start today. Start right now.

The Pump Energy Food Video

That’s an advertisement for The Pump, a restaurant in New York City that makes fresh, healthy food. Hopefully this is the start of a new kind of “fast food” trend that will sweep the nation. Can you imagine your kids screaming that they want to go to the drive-through for a happy meal that’s not laced with sugar and HFCS?

10 Sugar Free Snacks to Help Wean Yourself Off Sugar

Yes some are carb-heavy. No you won’t eat like this forever. I’m not a doctor or a nutritionist. However, I did manage to get off “hard” sugars by eating these foods as I weaned myself off the candy and cookies. If you are diabetic please consult a professional. I am not affiliated with any of these companies. If you’re looking for less carbs, see this post. Otherwise, here they are, in order of recommendation:

1. Apples and Peanut Butter

While on vacation years ago, my friend Steve sliced up an apple and dipped it into some weird-looking peanut butter. I was curious and tried some. It was delicious! Turned out it was natural PB. I had never heard of it before. It’s a bit of a shift since you have to stir it when you first get it. I recommend Adams brand natural PB combined with your favorite type of apple. There are different kinds of apples so try a few (I used to think there were only red apples) and see which one suits your taste. I don’t know what I would do without this combination. It’s a staple in my diet. Thanks Steve!

2. Larabars

Larabars are all natural treats. At about $1.50 each they aren’t much more than a “regular” candy bar and they’re pretty delicious. They’re gluten free, dairy free, soy free, non-gmo and kosher. They’ll satisfy your chocolate cravings. Keep in mind that they’ll be a bit of a departure from your usual candy bar in the flavor department but once you’re off sugar these things are a little slice of heaven. 

3. Pop Corn

Did you know you can pour some oil in a pot and pop some corn? It’s true, you don’t need a special gizmo. All you need is oil and corn. However, in this day and age microwave popcorn will probably be the choice of many. Read the label and get the one with the least amount of added junk. Pop corn fills you up and leaves you pretty satisfied.

4. Cheese and Crackers

Cut up some real cheese (not cheese spread) and eat it with crackers. Crackers are baked with sugar, yes, but it was Ritz crackers that helped me get off sugar when I first started. Try different kinds of crackers. I still eat crackers to this day, but I don’t buy them. Eating crackers makes attending house parties doable.

5. Pretzels

My favorite kind of pretzels are chocolate covered pretzels but they’re one of my trigger foods and so I avoid them. Pretzel sticks make a nice snack as the salt prevents you from just chomping them all down.

6. Potatoes

If you make potato salad, be careful that the mayonnaise you use isn’t laced with High Fructose Corn Syrup. Use natural ingredients and this snack will give you that satisfied feeling. Hot potatoes are nice when it’s cold and potato salad is a nice summer snack.

7. Pasta

I love good pasta. Try wheat pasta if you can eat it. Beware that the frozen stuffed pasta often contains sweetened cheese. Most jarred pasta sauce has sugar in it. Most varieties of Classico brand sauce do not. Check the labels. 

8. Sandwiches

I eat Vitabee bread. Sometimes I’ll eat artisan bread from the local bakery, but Vitabee is where it’s at. You can buy it at Fred Meyer stores in the Pacific North West. Everyone else will have to find your own local brand. Check to make sure there’s not HFCS in it. Look at the sugar per slice and go for the lowest. Then stick veggie slices, cheese, lettuce, etc. inside two pieces and you’ve got yourself a sandwich! Beware: Sandwich meats are often laced with sugar! Read the labels.

9. Cheerios

Can Cheerios get any more innocent? Avoid any variety but the plain ones in the yellow box. Honey nut roasted whatever flavor basically means coated in sugar. If you don’t or can’t drink milk try rice milk with natural sugars.

10. Cheezits

Totally nuts, I know, but it’s a good last resort. These crappy crackers helped me when I was at my weakest. The habit of eating junk food took years to develop and it doesn’t disappear overnight. When you’re down and in trouble and you need a helping hand, Cheezits are better than a bag of candy. What’s more, you just can’t eat that many of these without feeling sick.

Sugar is Not the Problem

My friend read this blog and said that some people don’t have an issue with sugar, they just like to have something sweet now and again. I agree. It’s the same thing with smoking; some people just want to have a cigarette once in a while. Cool. There are also people who like to have a drink on occasion. To each their own. However, sampling an addictive substance once-in-a-while just isn’t an option for addicts, especially if they don’t consider the substance they’re using to be addictive or harmful.

Sugar is everywhere. Sugars are added into food products available in supermarkets across America and beyond. It’s fed to our children in schools. It’s in health food. It’s in organic food. There are no laws against putting sugar into nearly everything we consume. The paradigm around sugar is that it’s a harmless kiddie food that isn’t good for us, but “whatever” because everyone knows better than to try to live on the stuff. Most people wouldn’t cut sugar from their diet unless forced due to health reasons. In many cases, even that doesn’t work. It’s strange that a person would keep smoking or drinking or eating sweets even though it could have dire consequences, isn’t it?

The other night I was in a large retail store. At the register, an out-of-shape man with a panicked look on his face ran from the checkout line leaving his son behind. A moment later he returned with a bottle of coke and placed it on the belt next to his kid’s bottle of Coke. They had matching 20 oz. bottles of sugar water. I wanted to ask him if his skin complexion or his pot belly had anything to do with his diet. Would he know? He knows which soda he likes to drink.

Meanwhile, the entire register was surrounded by refrigerators stocked with plastic containers filled with flavored liquids wrapped in bright and powerful advertisements. An assortment of candy was stacked shoulder-high to my right and the mother standing before me in line helped her kid pick out two 20 oz. bottles of some kind of power drink from a nearly empty fridge. When the mom asked if he wanted it in the bag or with him the kid said, “out of the bag.” They left the store each carrying their own bottle and I imagine they finished their drinks by the time they got home. Hopefully all of that extra energy helped them get their bags from the car into the house faster and more efficiently than they would have had they drank water from the fountain. But where was the fountain? The fountain was not near the register. It’s hidden next to the toilets. It’s kind of gross to drink next to the toilets, don’t you think? Why don’t retailers don’t put clean water fountains near the entrance to the store?

If people want to drink liquid sugar instead of water then that’s their prerogative. Some people like to have a sweet, a smoke, or a drink once in a while. That’s fine. What isn’t good is that many people think power drinks are better than water because they contain water plus all the extra energy stuff. A professional athlete might want an energy drink because they run around and actually do things after taking a gulp. They don’t get in their car and sit on their butt for 40 minutes as they drive home, chewing cookies all the while.

Pepsi owns Gatorade. Gatorade has High Fructose Corn Syrup in it. HFCS is cheaper than other forms of sugar. They feel their drink is better than water because, “Gatorade is specially formulated to give athletes what water cannot.” So they’ve got unthinking consumers feeling like athletes on the drive home. All of that extra energy goes into pressing the gas pedal.

Sugar is not the problem. People are the problem. Guns don’t kill people. Cigarettes don’t kill people. Drugs don’t kill people. Junk food doesn’t make us fat. We do. We do it all.

Procrastination is a Sugar Binge

Admit it. You eat sugar when things don’t go your way. You eat sugar when you have something pressing on your to do list. You eat sugar to escape from the real world.

You tell yourself (and others) that you eat sugar because you like it, or because you LOVE it. The sweet flavor and the fun of choosing which candy/cookie/product to snack on next keeps you going back for more. That’s what you think. But deep down, if you look at it, you know that you’re eating sweets because of some hidden problem that you’re not facing. Quitting sugar isn’t only difficult because you stop eating “fun” foods. It’s also difficult because you can’t avoid confronting issues by escaping into a sugar high anymore.

Q: What will you do when sugar isn’t an alternative? 

A: You’ll cave or you’ll care.

You’ll cave if you perceive the problem as too big for you to deal with. Instead of coping, you’ll retreat to the safety of the sweet-known and another helping of junk food is in your hand. Without the sweet-escape option you’ll have to take notice of what you’re feeling, doing, and saying. You have no choice. You’ll be forced to step into the ring. Face your problems like a boxer faces an opponent. Spit poetic disses at the biggest issues. Take them on, slowly and carefully. The first step is avoiding your favorite sweets—your trigger foods.

You’re reading my website about sugar addiction for a reason. I used sugar as a crutch. Don’t be like I used to be. Stop being sweet. Ridding yourself of sugar is like removing the wood from the fireplace of procrastination. Don’t put it off any longer. Start now.

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