June 07, 2009 ↓ 7 Comments

I Still Crave Sweets

It has been years since I’ve eaten sugar on a regular basis. Still, to this day, when things get stressful I walk into the kitchen and stare at the cupboards. I’m after something. It’s sugar.

Sugar graph

Last night I was telling a friend about how I used to drink iced tea made with powdered ice tea mix. We used to drink the stuff more than water. My friend and I recalled getting to the end of the water part and then drinking up the sugar layer at the bottom.

In my life, I’ve been a sugar fiend longer than I haven’t. The majority of my years have been spent eating and drinking sweets. This whole “no sugar” lifestyle is still relatively new to me. If I were to pie graph my life there’d be a larger area devoted to eating sugar than not.

But that’s not going to stop me.

By the time I’ve lived my entire life, I want at least half of that pie to be sugar free.

Sugar graph

If given the choice, it would seem that living the earlier stages of life without sugar would be the way to go. That way your bones, muscles, and organs would develop sans-sweets. However, for most people, it works the other way around. I’m now attempting to reverse the effects from years of sugar consumption. It’s a slow process.

There will never be a way to tell for certain, but I wonder if I would live longer had I not eaten all that sugar.

What does your pie look like? How many years are you going to remain a sugar addict?

(7) Comments: I Still Crave Sweets

Paula
Jun 24, 2009

I am trying to quit sugar starting today. I am not hopeful

Traci
Jul 10, 2009

I do good for a week, relapse, then lose hope entirely. Then I eat tons of sugar until I am so miserable I try to quit again….and repeat….is there any hope?

Dawn
Jul 11, 2009

I began my sugar free journey today. My head is actually killing me. I have been following the Radiant Recovery website to get me through today. I ate better than I have in about a year…...and feel worse than I have in about a year!!!!! Egads!!! Tell me it will be better tomorrow!! Will keep y’all in my prayers for success.

Candie
Jul 15, 2009

David,
I have not been posting but have been reading occasionally. A year ago, I posted that I was starting my sugar-free journey. And within the week, I gave up and ate sugar. Something clicked this time around. Today, I am 116 days without sugar! I believe what made the difference was first realizing that sugar was ruining my life, my marriage, my relationship with my son. It was that bad. So everytime I craved sugar, I asked myself do I want my marriage and son or this sugar, and I always made the right choice. Also, I took a different journey of being sugar-free. I looked at the content of sugar in every food and first eliminated the ones with the most sugar and so on. Thank you David for being inspiration for better health.

Unsweet David
Jul 17, 2009

116 days without sugar! Yes! So did you eat low sugar content foods in the beginning?

Candie
Jul 19, 2009

First, I eliminated the high sugar foods like candy bars, icecream, cookies, cinnamon rolls, etc. while eating lower sugar foods like molasses cookies, vanilla milkshakes, blueberry pie. Then, I slowly elimintated those foods. My goal this year is to be free from the addiction of refined sugar. Next year, my goal is to be free from the addiction of Diet Coke, articfical sugars. I have to take small steps. I feel I am addicted to a lot of junk. For this to work for me, I have to break down my addictions and tackle them one at a time.

LoopDetector
Aug 03, 2009

After hitting rock bottom with my sugar addiction and deciding to give up sugar on April 19, 2008 I have been relatively successful, in part, because of this community and website. I have avoided all food items with refined sugar including honey, maple syrup for the last 15 months. I thought after many, many months of being refined sugar free that I could reintroduce sugar into my diet in moderation. You know, an ice cream cone here, a piece of cake after dinner there. It totally failed. I am a complete addict and it didn’t work. I had an ice cream cone on hot day, then one the next day and then I had two on the same day a couple of days later. What I learned is that I am a complete sugar addict and that I cannot handle eating sugar in moderation. I have noticed my irritability has increased significantly since starting to consume sugar again. Sugar is amazingly addictive and I need to recognize it’s power and keep it out of my life completely. So I am revisiting this website to gather the strength to get back on the sugar-free horse and take control of my sugar addiction.

I have found that foods sweetened with agave and fruit sweet make for tasty natural sugar substitutes and for some reason I don’t want to consume large amounts and they don’t give me the irritability or the creepy side effects of fake sweeteners.