Happy Birthday, David:) Hang in there!

Hullo Mr. Vanadia,

I’ve been visiting your website nearly every day since discovering it about a month ago.  This is only the second time I’ve ever commented on the internet in my life, but I wanted to tell you two things.

First, happy birthday!  (Does it bother you that you always feel lousy on your birthday because of all the sugar you’ve recently consumed?  I feel badly for you.)  Anyway, best wishes for a great year!

Second, you have a very useful, helpful and well-written website.  The clarity, thoughtfulness and style of communication are definately (as Garrison Keillor would say) Above Average.  One sees a lot on the internet that is sloppily thought out or written—not so here.  Please keep it up!

I’ve been avoiding sugar for some months now, and do feel better without it.  However, I’m tired of the constant sense of deprivation seeing my family eat all sorts of sweets and treats that I’m denying myself, and the holidays are coming up…I find I tend to overeat a lot of healthy foods in an attempt to make up for the sweets I want.
  I was never a life-long sugar addict; sweets (and food) only became a problem in the last decade when my life (job, family, young children) became so full there was no room/time for any other way to comfort or treat or enjoy myself.
I’m hoping I can start eating sweets again moderately, like the rest of my family does, and live a normal life and stop obsessing about food.
I know you’re not a physician or guru, but if you have any thoughts I’d be interested.
Cheers to you and Gwenn!

Thank you Julia and Lisbeth! It does bother me being so bloated and sweet on my birthday. Maybe next year I will not eat any sugar, or only have one sweet thing a day. Something different has to happen…

Lisbeth, as for wanting to eat sweets moderately, it is possible, you need to figure out what works. You’ll need to understand why you are eating sweets obsessively and under what conditions (when stressed? celebratory eating? alone time?) and then you’ll have to modify your behavior based on that understanding. The Stop Being Sweet book explains about replacement foods and how to understand and alter your personal rituals.

At this point it sounds like you view not eating sweets as depriving yourself a luxury that the rest of your family can afford. Do they make you feel bad or do you feel bad on your own for not eating sugar? Can you eat sugar only when your whole family gets together? What about your family eating sweets makes you feel left out?

Hullo again, Mr. Vanadia,

Thanks for replying!  Yes, I do miss sweets.  My family doesn’t mind my abstinance, but I’m starting to chafe. 
While I’ve learned to truly enjoy the many new healthy foods I’ve been eating since going off sugar, I do feel deprived, being unable to eat normal desserts.  I love to cook, and can’t eat the treats I make for my family or even sample the new recipes I try for ‘quality control’.  As an artist, you probably know how one likes to assess one’s efforts.  =^)

I know I tend to eat too much in general, and want to keep on eating things like sweetened cereals and baked goods, because they comfort and entertain me.  They make me feel mothered or happy when life as a busy working mother makes me feel empty and needy myself.  But overeating them makes me feel all the bad things described on this site.  Bad deal!

I was struck by how you keep pointing out that we are free grownups who do have wills of our own. 
I’m hoping I’ve come far enough now in dealing with midlife stresses, and in avoiding sugar, that I can stop fobidding and obsessing and start eating (including sweets) mindfully and sensibly.  “All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable.” 
I want the freedom to eat sweets *selectively*, only when they’re really worth it, without guilt or gluttony.
I want to be a grownup now.  I hope I can do it!
(Of course, I don’t at all mean to say that whatever works for others is not ‘grownup’. I’m only speaking for myself.)

I’ll certainly keep reading your excellent and helpful website for information and reinforcement.  It is a real benefit to many many people.  Perhaps I’ll buy the book?

Good luck with your upcoming 361 sugarless days!
If you (or any of your readers) have any advice, I’d be glad to hear it.
—Regards, Lisbeth

Lisebeth,

The first thing I notice is that you consider what everyone else eats to be “normal.” You only think that sugar is a problem for you, not for the rest of your family, and so you still make sugary treats for your kids. What would you think about sugary foods if you found out that you could be training your kids to have the same obsessive and needy feelings about sugar that you are experiencing?

I think of sugar as a drug that effects you physically and mentally. Just as some people can have a drink at a party and not again for six weeks while others have a drink at a party and end up drunk for six weeks, people who have the tendency to be obsessive will easily fall into negative patterns with sugar as the center of their behaviors. If it’s not sugar it will be something else.

Could you learn to moderate your sugar intake? Yes. But not as long as you USE sugar to feel comforted. And by baking treats for your family you are showing your love through sugar, teaching them that sweets = love and comfort.

There are tons of sugar-free treats you can bake and food-less ways to show low love to your family. But most likely you have been trained by your mother or father that the lover bakes sugary snacks to show love and the loved receives and eats the sugary snacks to show love in return.

Hi David,

Thanks—you make some very salient points.
I realize you’re correct in saying sugar is a drug…though I’d read that before, of course, it hadn’t really sunk in.  It is something I’ll have to use, and manage consciously, the same was as one would alcohol.  (I’ve never drank, myself.)

The rest of my family has always been very temperate and prudent about their use of sugar (and alcohol) and it’s time for me to join them. 

I think the link you provided to the “First Ourselves” website looks very promising, too.

Keep up the good blog, be well, live long and prosper!  =^)
Regards, Lisbeth