Monday Munchies: Am I Addicted to Sugar

Am I addicted to Sugar?

I believe more of us actually want to ask this question, but are we brave enough to say it out loud?

For me, a lot of shame was attached to my food addictions.

In my opinion, shame is the lie held within all of our toxic behaviors, especially food addiction.

Why do I say that? Because it is what I run into the most. “I am eating well, I don’t know why I’m not losing weight”, “This diet isn’t working, I workout all the time but I’m not losing weight” and without even asking, it’s an unspoken truth between the two of us.

Where is that secret place you eat, and it’s either sweets or fats or both? Because you and I both know it exists.

And why don’t we just come out and say “I am addicted to sugar!”

Well…for me it was because that morning I would have absolutely promised myself to quit forever…and then secretly stuff my mouth later that same day with that exact food…usually with the guise of “just one last one before I’m done”…and then, SHAME encasing my body, and soul, and the cycle was happening again. Shame feeding my need to “feel better” by eating just “one more”…and one more…and one more…

I am sure you’ve heard of and understand the dopamine cycle created by addictive foods, so I won’t go into details here.

You’ve also, no doubt, heard that sugar increases belly fat and inches, has a very small peak for energy and then a huge crash, usually right before we need to be able to continue, and it increases the acidity in the body. Acidity in the body is whole nother nother, but in short it puts us in higher risk for many other issues including cancer.

It’s the Shame I’m focusing on. Can we right now agree to own what we are doing?

(If you are like, I don’t have a sugar addiction, wellllll, do you have a salt addiction. Some of us (hand raised here) are challenging enough to be obsessed with both sugary and salty.)

Both addiction high sugar and high salt food come with major compromises to our health.

But we know that don’t we? Have you got a bag of Peanut M&M’s in the bottom drawer at work, or a box of powdered-sugar mini-donuts in your catch-all drawer?

They’re hidden, which says it all. Because we eat our sugary junk food when no one’s looking.

Here’s where I’m going with this, so yes yes the junk food is toxic to our health, but then we emotionally beat ourselves up about it!? Why?

And we wake up the next morning, vowing to do better. Cue the cycle.

How can we break that sugar habit?

With a plan!

Set some rules that naturally sweet foods, like fruits, are allowed. All God-made foods allowed, limited or no man-made. In other words, more fresh, and no or limited prepared.

But no birthday cake, donuts at the office, soda, no or limited to 1 every other day chemical sweetners (like what’s in diet soda) allowed—not even ketchup. Although you can buy naturally sweetened ketchup in the health food section.(Yep, ketchup is full of corn syrup. In fact 74% of our packaged foods are loaded with sugar)

Set a time frame for this commitment (3 months, 6 months or even a year) with a GREAT reward on the end of it that’s NOT FOOD BASED.

For me doing this for 3 months at a time was more doable. I didn’t want to miss out on my children’s birthday celebrations completely.

But by abstaining completely from sugar for 90 days, I learned how powerful shame was. Because when I did eat sugar at the end, I was filled with shame, guilt, and dread at feeling as though I had undone everything. Why? Obviously I hadn’t. What was this power it had? That sick feeling that felt like and old memory I couldn’t really place or remember.

Has this ever happened to you?

An interesting thing happened during those first 3 months. I decided to say NO to shame. No more self-shaming.

I can’t say I don’t ever eat sugar. Sometimes I do. But not very often. I can go days, and weeks, without it—and I don’t over indulge any more.

Learning not to let sugar be an addiction that controls me has taught me that life is still so amazingly sweet, without rewarding myself constantly with sugar.

Can you do this for me? Can you just choose to remove sugar for 5 days? Completely remove sugar for 5 days.

It’s simple. And it will prove something to you that I already know, but that YOU need to know. And that is, you are strong. Much stronger than you think.

You are naturally attracted to the colors, textures, and flavors of actual real food. That is your genetic makeup, and those natural, whole foods are what your body will respond to.

BUT, you can’t discover this UNLESS you quit sugar for 5 days. (And I know you can.)

It’s just 5 days.

PLAN!!! Choose the days of the week you face the fewest temptations, and plan ahead with delicious, flavorful whole-food meals that will fill you and satisfy your taste buds.

What if you don’t find the sugar cravings completely disappearing after 5 days?

There’s nothing wrong with you. DON’T LET SHAME LIE TO YOU. It serves no one. Addictive behaviors we allow to drive into those hidden places thrive in the darkness. Shame is not our game, so stop it. No Shame in the game.

You’re no different from me, and I make my living telling people how to eat healthy, and how to exercise!

Truth? It takes some people a little bit longer, ESPECIALLY if they have a hidden candida yeast overgrowth (have dealt with this recently personally in clients and with my daughter, and in the past, myself) or they eat more than average amounts of sugar, or soda.

I know you’ve heard this, but have you actually looked at the studies? It’s astonishing! Sugar is more addictive than crack cocaine. It stimulates the same part of our brain that opioids do.

It can be broken. Five days off of sugar, you’ll notice huge changes. You CAN break your sugar addiction.

So, let’s see if you’re up for the challenge. Let me know how it went. I’m one of your biggest fans! You’ve got this.

Stay grateful. Stay humble. Stay in the mode of always becoming the best YOU! There's no shame in the game! The best is yet to come! Here's to you and the ABSOLUTELY AMAZING YEAR ahead of you! Healthy Looks Good On YOU! ~d If you like the post, be sure to like or comment and share! And click subscribe so you don't miss a blog post!