I recently found this video, How to Quit Sugar, from Lucas Rockwood on Vimeo. He talks about the glycemic index, replacement foods, and explains the overall process very clearly—including what to eat and what to avoid. Watch it!
If you’re going to watch, click the WATCH THE ENTIRE FILM link because the display above will only give you a sample.
When you stop being sweet you must undergo an identity shift. It’s the kind of thing you can decide on very easily. The decision is simple. The practice is what’s difficult.
For example, you can decide today, right now, that you are going to become proficient at saving money. It’s easy to make that choice. However, tomorrow—no matter how hard you try—you will not suddenly have a month’s worth of extra cash in your pocket. Choosing to do something is easy. Following through is where we get lost. Saving money is something you can certainly do. Doing it well is a skill that takes time and repetition. Becoming proficient at saving might take a year or more of dilligent practice.
Getting off sugar is the same. For example, you can decide today, right now, that you are going to stop being sweet. It’s easy to make that choice. However, tomorrow—no matter how hard you try—you will not suddenly have a wealth of sugarless time behind you. Choosing to do something is easy. Following through is where we get lost. Avoiding sugar is something you can certainly do. Doing it well is a skill that takes time and repetition. Becoming proficient at avoiding sugar might take a year or more of dilligent practice.
The trick to avoiding sweets (and to saving money) is to do it a little bit at a time. Whenever you are presented with the opportunity to make a choice, choose the action that supports your preferred identity. The more times you make a choice that reinforces your preferred identity, the more you are what you chose to become. Eventually you will wake up and realize that you are the person you once wanted to be.
(PS - Avoiding sugar begets saving money.)
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A short video by Santeri Lohi.
Do you relate at all to anything he’s talking about? It got me thinking. Below is a brainstorm:
Sweets like drugs
Sweetie or druggie
Party means drugs, alcohol, sweets
Jonesing = craving
Sugar high
White powder = flour, sugar
Have a Coke, do coke
Do blow, blow out candles
Get baked, toasted
Wasted, create waste
Drug pushers, advertising in schools
Drug free school zone, sweet free school zone?
Just say no
Peer pressure
Everyone’s doing it
You have a problem when you do it alone
Addicted to sweets, alcohol, drugs
“Relax. Live a little.”

For many people across America, today is a day to pig out (and be thankful that you can). Perhaps you have been participating in the 2011 Holiday Sugar Challenge, in which case this is the day to eat whatever you want before we abstain from sweets until New Year’s Eve.
If you’re not yet participating in the Holiday Sugar Challenge, there’s no better time to join us!
Recently, Meredith on Twitter asked me if she should continue without sweets or if she should give in to the stress and eat junk. It’s a loaded question and one I have trouble with. Of course I think she (and anyone) should keep trying to abstain from sugar but I don’t want to force anyone to do something they don’t want to or are not ready to do.
Sometimes at dessert in social settings, folks suddenly begin confessing their guilt to me or justifying why they’re eating what they’re having. “I really usually don’t eat that much sugar,” they’ll tell me. I don’t care. I mean, it’s not that I don’t give a crap—I’m just not an under cover food cop.
It’s not my job nor is it my interest to follow people around and make them feel guilty about their food choices. So, when I spotted Erica tweeting about her giant slice of cake breakfast, yes I poked fun at her (she said she’d join the Holiday Sugar Challenge) but ultimately I don’t want her to feel badly. I want her to feel good because she’s off sweets.
Sometimes it takes an intervention to get someone to change their behavior (but they still have to want to change). I’ve been blogging for six years about the benefits of a sugar free life so of course I want you to stop being sweet. But I’m not going to chase you. Luckily for Meredith, her friends replied to her question about giving in to the stress and eating junk. They encouraged her to stay off sweets and she obliged. That taught me a lesson. Maybe it’s not a bad thing to gently nudge someone in the right direction. So I’m nudging you, dear reader, to join the Holiday Sugar Challenge.
Though I considered eating sweets this Thanksgiving, I have decided to stay on my usual sustainable sugar abstinence plan. That means I’m going straight through the holidays without sugary desserts and will continue abstaining until Halloween 2012. I DARE YOU to join me.
This detailed report talks about how aspartame received GRAS (generally recognized as safe) status through the FDA, how doctors now say the stuff is poison, and what Donald Rumsfeld’s role was in all that. You’ll heard scientific evidence from doctors and anecdotal evidence from people about the negative and potentially life-threatening effects of eating this artificial sweetener.
Below are the links listed at the end of the documentary.
http://www.dorway.com
http://www.aspartamekills.com
http://www.russellblaylockmd.com
http://www.holisticmed.com
http://www.mercola.com
http://www.namastepublishing.co.uk
http://www.sweetpoison.com

Are you sure you want to know how to end sugar cravings?
Are you prepared to hear the secret?
You have to be ready because I am about to tell you the only foolproof method for making your sugar cravings disappear.
In order to make your sugar cravings go away you must…
It’s so simple and yet so difficult!
To stop sugar cravings you need to stop eating sweets.
That’s it!
Sugar is like heroine (so I hear); the more you use the more you want.
The only way to end sugar cravings is to tough it out for a few weeks and then continue to abstain from eating sweets.
There is no magic cure. There is no pill to end sugar cravings. There is no course to take. The secret is absolutely free!
Even when you do stop being sweet, there will still be times when you want sweets. It’s not fair! But that’s how it is.
Good news: the longer you stay away, the easier it gets.
Ask yourself this: What’s stopping you from starting?
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INGREDIENTS: DETERMINATION, DESIRE (YOU HAVE TO WANT IT), FUN, WILLPOWER, SELF-WORTH, SUPPORT, CONFIDENCE, EXERCISE.

I realized I had a sugar problem back in 2003 after a weekend-long binge on raw chocolate chip cookie dough and chocolate covered pretzels. As a result, I began trying to quit sugar but kept failing. Finally, I figured out a way to stay off sweet junk food for good.
Don’t quit sugar. Stop Being Sweet instead! Questions? Please ask!