Are you a sugar addict? I am.
In 2005 I vowed to quit and began
writing about life without sweets.
This site contains a forum,
product reviews, my journal,
educational Sugar Challenges,
and the Stop Being Sweet ebook.

Almost Done With Sugar Again

November 03, 2009 • Comments (6)

I feel terrible today. Last night I was tired early (unusual) after two days of hyperactivity. I felt as if I’d drank lots of coffee. I felt bold and willing to take risks. I took some risks.

Today I am bloated, gassy and tired. My energy is sapped. I feel easily depressed and sensitive. It can’t be that I’m eating lots of sugar. That can’t have anything to do with it. No, not that.

Even though it’s making me feel terrible, I still walk to the fridge and take out the chocolate. Why? Because in a day it’ll be off limits again. That doesn’t make much sense. I told myself today that I’m already done and tomorrow I won’t eat any sweets. Then I ate some peanut clusters tonight. Tomorrow night it’s all over. After that, I’ll announce some new stuff.

Posted in My Personal Journal on 11/03/09 • Comment

What My Brother Told Me

November 01, 2009 • Comments (0)

My brother and I were talking on the telephone recently. We ended up talking about sweets and smoking. He quit smoking and said he did it just like that. (It’s true, he decided to quit and he just did.) He said he’s had a puff off three cigarettes since he quit several years ago. He could name the times.

A friend of his found out he quit and she asked him how he did it.

“Well, it’s pretty simple,” he told her, “Just stop smoking!”

She retorted, “That’s it? There has to be more to it than that.”

He said it was that simple. She didn’t believe him and so he asked her if she likes money. She said she did. He asked if she could use more money. She said she could. He asked her why she doesn’t go and rob a bank.

“That’s crazy,” she said.

It’s true. It would be crazy for her to go and rob a bank. But still he asked her why she didn’t go and do it anyway.

“It’s against the law, and it’s wrong,” she said.

But that wasn’t his point. His point was that she didn’t go and rob a bank not because it’s wrong, but because she is in control of her own life. She has the ability to choose not to rob the bank.

She is in control.

In the same way, you choose to eat or not to eat sweets. You make the choice.

There is a difference between a sugar addict and a heroine addict. I highly doubt a sugar addict would break into a house and steal jewelry from someone’s dresser drawer to sell for money to buy cookies. First of all, cookies can be purchased nearly anywhere for pocket change and your family and friends will usually smile through supplying you with a sugar fix. Sugar is everywhere and it’s cheap.

So if sugar doesn’t make you go buy it and eat it, what does?

YOU. You make the choice.

“Of course you might use some nicotine gum and you’ll probably snack more during the first few weeks,” my brother added.

My point in telling you this is that the first thing you must do is decide you want to stop being sweet and then you have to make it happen. To “get off sugar” is like deciding you want to earn more money. After the decision is made you have to take action and start to figure out how you’re going to do it. Then it takes time and effort. You can stop eating sweets on your own—right now—if you’re ready. But then reality kicks in; avoiding sugar is a choice that has to be made by you over and over and over again.

Posted in Tips, Tricks, Info & News on 11/01/09 • Comment

November 1, 2009: Day 2

November 01, 2009 • Comments (10)

Day 2 of my “annual sugar bindge” (I am going to stop calling it that) has begun. I don’t want to eat all of the junk food I got. Still, I’ve eaten Fruit Loops, Pop-tarts, and chocolate. I’m not even enjoying it. It’s too sweet, too acidic, and it makes me feel awful. This is precisely why I do this every year.

Sugar is like a charismatic but abusive partner from the past. Sugar never made me feel good, sapped all of my resources, always got me into trouble, abused my health and my emotions, took my money, and wasn’t even good looking! But for some reason when I am away from sugar for a long time and see so many people having fun with the same sugar I used to love, I begin to feel nostalgic. Sugar starts to look good again. I long to spend time with my sugar. Sugar is always there waiting for me because it is I who left sugar. Sugar didn’t leave me. How could so many people be wrong?

Then I get excited. Sugar, I’m coming back to you! And sugar opens it’s arms. I run right back to that place only to find it colder and smaller than I remember. Less colorful. Desolate. Sad. Pale. Dry. Grainy. Sticky. Childish. Foolish.

Each year when I do this, it is clearer that sugar is a symbol of who I used to be. As I enter into the second half of my life I want to declare sugar gone. Something from way back. Something that makes each day without sweets a good day.

4:30 pm It’s strange. I ate all of the packaged candy and a bunch of chocolate covered pretzels. I feel awful. Bloated. Heavy. Tired. Gross. I look forward to Tuesday so that I will stop eating this stuff. It’s my own self-imposed parameters that “give me the window” to desecrate my body with junk food. Why? It makes me feel terrible. And yet I’ll eat this stuff until Tuesday. It’s like I’m worried I’ll miss something if I don’t eat it.

Why do you eat sweets? What are you getting out of it? It’s a complete waste of your time, money and energy. I bet, if you really look at it, there’s some kind of child-like motivation behind your desire to eat yourself into oblivion. Can you locate that motivation? Can you change your paradigm? It’s easily said and not so easily done. Or is it?

My brother says it’s easy..

Posted in My Personal Journal on 11/01/09 • Comment

Sugar-free Carob Chip Cookie Recipe

October 31, 2009 • Comments (1)

Ingredients:

1 cup of wheat flour
baking soda
2 eggs
vanilla
white grape juice concentrate
3/4 stick of butter
oats
carob chips

Instructions:

Mix 1/2 cup of flour, butter (softened), baking soda.
Add eggs, vanilla, grape juice, and another 1/2 cup flour, oats.

If it’s dry you can add water or milk.

Mix in carob chips.

Place on un-greased cookie sheet.

Bake at 315 degrees until done.

Sorry about the lack of exact measurements, I tend to just shake a little of this-or-than into the mix and judge the amount visually. If you have been eating sweets then the results of this recipe will taste like cardboard. However, if you’ve been off sweets for a while then these are pretty darn nice!

Addendum: Carob contains natural sugars. However, unsweetened carob has less natural sugars than sweetened chocolate and therefore does not cause me to want to binge on it.

Posted in Tips, Tricks, Info & News on 10/31/09 • Comment

October 31, 2009 - Halloween

October 31, 2009 • Comments (0)

I ate sugar last night—a whole pint of Ben & Jerry's Half Baked ice cream. I also had some cookies. Today I will eat more.

When I woke up this morning my eye had a big crusty in it. That's a sugar thing. It's rare that I wake up with crust in my eyes (de-lic-ious!) when I am not eating sugar.

So far this morning I just feel hungry. More to come, I will keep updating.

1:00 pm Amazing. I have a bunch of chocolate sitting there waiting for me but I am not craving it. I feel kinda gross having just eaten a few bites of a Nutella Crepe. Last night, after I ate the ice cream, my teeth were coated with sugar. It was way nasty.

5:00 pm I have a bunch of chocolate in the house but don’t want it. I am not craving it at all. I have eaten some chocolate covered pretzels and, although they were not very good, kept eating them. I am going to skip dinner and will probably have some more junk before the day is done...

Posted in My Personal Journal on 10/31/09 • Comment