Viewing Category: Tips, Tricks, Info & News

Physically Addictive Foods Video

January 06, 2010 • Comments (0)

Neal Barnard MD discusses the science behind food addictions. There’s a lot of information in this video and it leans toward promoting a non-animal food diet. No matter how you feel about eating animals, this video has lots of food and health information worth hearing about.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Posted on Jan 06, 2010 • Comments (0)

SBS News and Goals for 2010

January 04, 2010 • Comments (5)

Happy New Year! There is so much to tell you. Here it is…

The Forum Is Back!

There was a forum on the site back in 2007/2008. It’s now back and working once again! Registration is free. When you login you will be logged in site-wide. That means you won’t have to enter in your name and email address when you comment on a post! You can add topics in the forum as well as write to other members to discuss anything you want. You can also make a profile. Your email is not visible to anyone. My hope is that we can all communicate to share knowledge, ideas, links and resources.

Dietary Goals for 2010

Meat

I have never been a big meat eater. I’ve always considered myself “almost a vegetarian” except that, you know, I ate chicken and sometimes had a hot dog or hamburger. Mostly I didn’t commit to not eating meat because I wanted to be free to eat whatever I want. And I am free to choose. However, after having done lots of research this year into where my food is coming from, I decided to try a no-meat diet for one year and see how it feels. This is my choice based on the things I’ve learned.

Gwenn and I rarely go out to eat. For some reason though, we found ourselves out more this year than in years past. One thing we noticed was that restaurant food is super-salty, especially at places that specialize in drinks. Another thing we noticed was how lousy we’d feel after eating meat (while out). This happened to us so many times, in fact, that we figured it was something to do with how the restaurants were cooking it. So we stopped ordering meat. Then we noticed the same thing at home and so we started to remove the meat from our food there as well. We always felt better after a meatless meal.

Bread

I still eat bread. However, in 2010, I am only going to eat Dave’s Killer Bread: Powerseed (sweetened with fruit juice) or Vita Bee bread (sweetened with honey and available at Fred Meyer). I will avoid all other breads. Until now, I’ve eaten bagels from time-to-time and white bread such as French or Italian dinner breads. At home it will be nothing but Powerseed and/or Vita Bee and out I’ll avoid bread when possible.

Without meat and white bread, I will not be going out for hamburgers in 2010. It wasn’t something I did all the time, but I definitely ate a few in 2009. Thing is, I’d always get fries to go with it and of course that included some Ketchup. Ketchup contains High Fructose Corn Syrup and I justified eating it by saying it was just a little bit. Hmmm…

Since 2005 I have managed to cut out all of my trigger foods and reduce sweets to only natural or specialty foods. Still, I’d go out for a burger here or there. (How can that be? Because I stopped being sweet instead of attempting to quit sugar forever. To stop being sweet is not an all or nothing kind of thing. It has taken me several years to be in a place where I can give up even more “comfort foods” and attempt a more challenging diet.) I can finally admit to myself that I was after the sugar in the meat, bun, fries, and Ketchup.

Goodbye Sweet Meat

On New Year’s Eve, Gwenn and I went out to eat. She got a chicken burger and I ordered a cheeseburger. (She’s going vegetarian as well. Doing it together certainly makes it easier!) We both felt really full afterwards. Thirsty too. This is going to be a challenging year!

Eating smeat

I Hope This Site Helps You

StopBeingSweet.com was created to help keep me honest while I attempted to quit sugar for a year. People offered such positive feedback that I wrote a book. Book sales help to offset some of the time I put into this site. My goal is more to help people who are addicted to sugar and have no idea how to stop eat junk food than it is to take on the role of “Sugar Police” or “Mr. Anti-Sugar.” I don’t go around smacking cookies from people’s mouths.

If you are going to stop being sweet this year, remember that eating healthy is a skill, a full-time pursuit, and something that you get better at by practicing. You’ll make mistakes and you might even mess up really badly, but you can always start again and get right back on track. Since it’s the first week of a new year, now is a great time to make a resolution. Best of luck to you in 2010, whatever your endeavors!

Posted on Jan 04, 2010 • Comments (5)

Sweet Suicide: or How Sugar Ruins Your Health

December 30, 2009 • Comments (0)

The following are clips from the DVD Sweet Suicide available through Nancy Appleton, who’s list of 146 Reasons Why Sugar is Ruining Your Health is most certainly worth the read.

Posted on Dec 30, 2009 • Comments (0)

20 Ways to Stop Being Sweet

December 28, 2009 • Comments (24)

The following are samples of sustainable sugar abstinence plans. Try one or make up your own and discover what works for you.

Eat sweets only on Sunday
Eat sweets once every two weeks
Eat sweets only when having dessert at someone else’s house
Eat just a particular type of sweets (i.e. Chocolate Chip Mint ice cream) and only one serving per week.
Eat sweets once a week but only if you have worked out three times (for at least an hour each) that week
Have a tiny a square of chocolate after lunch each day, Monday through Friday only (easier said than done!)
Have sweets every three months for a whole day
Only eat sweets at someone’s birthday celebration
Eat only sweets that are home baked by you or someone you know
Eat sweets only on bank holidays
Eat sweets only on the 1st of the month
Eat sweets only whenever you put $25 into a charity fund of your choice
Eat sweets only when you’ve been offered and the date is an odd number
Only eat sweets sweetened with natural sugar
Only eat sweets on Fridays during leap years
Eat sweets only on your birthday
Eat sweets for the shorter distance between New Year’s Eve and your birthday, avoid sweets completely the rest of the year
Eat sweets only on the 31st of the month
Eat sweets only on one holiday each year (Halloween, Thanksgiving, etc.)
Eat sweets only four days out of each year (use like sick days)

If you’ve never avoided sugar before, start with an easy plan and graduate to a harder one.

Posted on Dec 28, 2009 • Comments (24)

Happy Holidays!

December 24, 2009 • Comments (0)

Best wishes to you and your family this holiday season.

If you can’t make it through the holidays sugar-free, check back on Monday because I’ll be posting about ways to Stop Being Sweet in 2010!

Also, remember that the Stop Being Sweet forum will re-open on January 1st. It will be free to join and use so get some people together and get ready for a sugar-free new year.

Posted on Dec 24, 2009 • Comments (0)

The Truth About Sugar Video

December 21, 2009 • Comments (0)

In these videos, Nutrition by Natalie shows some familiar food products such as Starbucks, ketchup, pop-tarts, Coke, and how much sugar they contain. She also talks about High Fructose Corn Syrup and what it does to the body’s ability to know when we’re full. Watch this during your lunch break!

Part 2 gets even better…

Posted on Dec 21, 2009 • Comments (0)

Modern Marvels TV Show: Corn

December 16, 2009 • Comments (0)

Take 45 minutes and learn about how corn has become America’s most important crop on Modern Marvels from the History Channel via Hulu.com.

In the last few minutes of this video they explain a theory that High Fructose Corn Syrup depresses the production of hormones that regulate our appetite and so we are less responsive biologically to the chemical messengers that tell our body to stop eating. Table sugar doesn’t do that, they say.

Posted on Dec 16, 2009 • Comments (0)

Whoopi on the Cookie Monster

December 14, 2009 • Comments (0)

This video is hard to watch because they all talk over each other. But there’s an interesting discussion in here. After all, I grew up watching Cookie Monster on Sesame Street and I have a problem with sweet cookies. I don’t blame the Cookie Monster though, I never really liked him. Grover was always my favorite.

I get that he’s just a puppet. All kids love love cookies and they know that cookies aren’t something they should eat all the time. Given the choice between cookies and a healthy meal, kids know what’s right for them and they’ll choose the healthy food.

But if Cookie Monster was fat then we could see an issue, right? Or if the Cookie Monster also drank soda while he ate cookies. It would be over-the-top if he ate ice cream as well. He’s just the cookie monster after all, not the junk food monster.

What about if Cookie Monster was a woman? Would it be an issue if the female Cookie Monster loved and ate cookies in the same exact way? What if Ms. Piggy loved to rabidly binge on cookies? Easy, she’s just a puppet!

Maybe Cookie Monster could meet a woman called Veggie Monster and she could teach him about the value of a healthy meal. In return, Cookie Monster could teach Veggie Monster how fun and satisfying it is to uncontrollably binge on sweet cookies.

I don’t blame Cookie Monster for my sugar addiction, all of those sweet cookies and cereals were at my fingertips. I was just a kid who didn’t know any better. It took me well into my adult life to realize that junk food was killing me. Hmmm… Maybe a Veggie Monster wouldn’t be so bad after all. It would certainly make the job of parenting just a tiny bit easier. And maybe, just maybe, it would spark an idea in some kid’s head that vegetables are worth freaking out over.

Posted on Dec 14, 2009 • Comments (0)