Wish I could break the damn sugar carb addiction

(Tony) #1

Seem to have got into a cycle of strict Keto, weight falls off, binge on sugar and carbs weight back on, I know its wrong but bloody hell only way to describe it is addiction

(John) #2

I have had the same failure over the years. I would get to a good place, weight-wise, and then relax a bit and slowly slip back into eating sweets again until I was back where I started, or worse.

I know it is not necessary for some to be ultra-strict, but I determined this was the last time I was going to fight this battle. My calendar is ticking away and I don’t have many reboots left.

So I decided I would treat sugar like it was an addictive drug. And to not keep the “taste memory” alive, no artificial sweeteners either, not even the keto-safe ones like erythritol.

Took about 3 months of total abstinence before the memory and desire for a sugared baked good (I am intentionally not listing them so as not to trigger images and cravings) had faded to where it wasn’t kind of a constant nag.

I think I may have the addiction beat by now, but I’m not going to risk it, just like an ex-smoker can’t risk just one cigarette, or a recovering alcoholic can’t have just one drink, I can’t have one confection or one bakery thing.

I do still crave crackers, though, from time to time. Savory carbs. I don’t cave, because I could in the bad old days eat a full stack at once. Luckily with keto there are plenty of ways to satisfy a craving for “savory” without needing starchy carbs as a delivery vehicle.

Let me know if you need me to share ideas or tricks I used.

#3

If it’s a problem, set aside one day every couple of months or whenever where you allow yourself to indulge in the forbidden sugary product. If you have that in your mind, you’ll probably be less likely to binge.

(Lazy, Dirty Keto 😝) #4

What KC said. Also, I’d look into lower carb sweets to minimize the impact. Lily’s chocolates are great, I indulge in them every so often. They are sweetened with stevia. A half a bar is typically around 4g net carbs.

(Alec) #5

Tony
It most certainly is an addiction. Treat it like one. Treat it seriously. If you were addicted to alcohol or drugs, you would treat it seriously, right? This is harder as the thing you are addicted to is all around you, easy to get and cheap!

But it is poison.

What are your triggers? Why is it that you slip off the wagon? You need to identify those and develop avoidance strategies. You may not always be successful but you need to also build strategies to get back on the wagon as soon as possible after a fall.

Take care and take action. Your health depends on it.

(Carl Keller) #6

What helped me get over my addiction to sugar was to eat something fatty every time I had a craving… a boiled egg, a few nuts, a few pork rinds would take the edge off. Educating myself about sugar and what it does to me helped strengthen my resolve.

After about four months of abstinence, I was able to look at a donut or pastry with pure contempt. I refuse to go back to making rich men richer who knowingly poison me for profit.

Sugar is such a shady substance, it has more aliases than the devil himself:

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(less is more, more or less) #7

I treat sugar like the addictive substance it is, and I’m not alone in assessing it so.

I heartily commend that you listen to Dr. Cywes on the most recent Diet Doctor podcast:

He takes a holistic approach to nutritional management, including the fact that sugar is clinically addictive.

#8

I’ve really liked what I’ve heard from Cywes across the interwebz recently. His interview series with Zoe Harcombe really hit home to me. Same with his Low Carb MD episode.

(Jay Patten) #9

Bro, sugar is a like a drug and it is in fact addicting!! It alters your brain chemistry and stimulates the release of “pleasure hormones.”

Don’t be hard on yourself. Imagine if you could go to the gas station and pick up a oxycodone slushie and heroin protein bar… you would be addicted to that, too!

#10

Ooh, that hit a little close to home…

I dunno about Coopz, but I could use some. Going through a rough patch myself over here. :frowning:

(less is more, more or less) #11

#truth. Imagine the push-back we’d get if some ancient “nutritionist” pushed on behalf of heroin 5 decades ago. “You have to give up heroin bars? Too restricting!” Yea, sure is.

I also agree with Jay. Don’t be hard on yourself, if anything, you know better now.

“Progress, not perfection.”

(mole person) #12

I don’t believe that we have any reason to believe that there are any keto safe sweeteners. There is this assumption that the only manner in which a sweetener might negatively affect weight loss is via a glucose and subsequent insulin response to the sweetener itself, but nearly all the evidence showing negative effects of sweeteners on weight loss, calorie consumption, fat creation, fat breakdown, and glucose uptake are not mediated by a glucose response to the sweetener itself.

Now that doesn’t mean that I think artificial sweeteners have no place. In the early stages of many people’s keto journey they can successfully still lose weight with sweeteners and it can certainly help with an otherwise rough transition where it can feel like you are giving up so much. But many people seem to arrive at some point at a stall that can only be busted by giving up all of these “safe” sweeteners.

(Scott) #13

This is my addiction. I stopped snacking on them at the office but then I started eat macadamia nuts as desert after a meal because that way it is not snacking. Proof that an addict can make his habit justified by twisting logic.

This addiction talk makes me think back to the Simpsons cartoon where the big guy that talks like he is drunk all the time is in college. He said I don’t drink and someone said have beer, one beer won’t hurt. He drank it and morphed instantly into the drunk he is today.

(Murphy Kismet) #14

I equate getting off sugar to getting off crack while living in a crack house, ie:

  1. it’s always around you
  2. everybody’s doing it
  3. they all seem happy doing it
  4. you remember how “good” you felt doing it
  5. but now you want to quit, but the memories are always around you, always there.
  6. can’t move out of the crack house
  7. every “house” is a crack house

For myself, I created a mental mantra, or a “script” if you will, so I don’t have to think on the spot; the words are already there. If I see something I might have bought before keto, I tell myself, “no thank you, I’m fine”. This does three things:

  1. it’s a refusal, point blank
  2. it’s acknowledging the offer as something that might “help” now, but certainly not later!
  3. I reiterate that I AM FINE…just the way I am thankyouverymuch

And then I literally turn my back on that offer, or look away. Anything physical to shove that temptation away. It’s not easy! It’s so tempting! But then I remind myself, as well, I am tired of being “sick, fat, and nearly dead”, at least nearly dead mentally from the foggy brain and lack of foresight it brings.

(Karen) #15

Me too. Not the best. Donuts at choir. Fasting today. So frustrating.

I skip something fringe like another helping of broccoli only to eat a piece of carbier something later. Would have been better off with the veg or another helping of faaaaat.

(Tony) #16

Funny you say that I was listening to this actual podcast when I posted this

(Randy) #17

Watch as many Robert Lustig videos as you can stand. His videos made me hate sugar, not crave it.

(John) #18

These are some cognitive tricks using the executive brain function. Several have already been mentioned.

  • Replace your mental picture of the desired object with something else, or frame it differently. Alex thinks of it as poison. I used the term “broken glass” in my internal mental dialogs. “I don’t eat broken glass” is pretty much an easy rule that most sane people follow, so just creating the association between “sugary foods” and “broken glass” was a bit of intentional self-brainwashing.

  • Substitute another action. Carl mentioned eating a boiled egg, others use nuts. For me the correct substitution depends on what the trigger was. When I started doing this, I made a very conscious effort to stop and think whenever I was about to eat something, WHY I was doing it.

I found that one of my triggers was stress eating at work, very specifically when I was required to stop working on something I was in the middle of and redirect my efforts to some new urgency. Like a robot, I would get up and walk over to the break room and start scanning the vending machines for something to eat. The fact that there is nothing in our vending machines (not even a simple bag of nuts) that is keto-friendly gave my brain that time to pause and think about the WHY.

I wasn’t hungry. I needed a distraction, to clear my mind, and a “feel good” drug (sugar) to get me past the task-switching anxiety. So my substitution there was to go for a short walk in the facility, and grab a bottled water from the drink machine instead, so my mouth wouldn’t feel slighted by not getting to at least consume something.

A side effect was, once I realized what the trigger was and why, I really didn’t need to get up and go to the vending machine area. I might do a few squats or stretches in my cube, make some hot tea, or just drink some water anyway. It also made me mindful of that particular stressor and now that I recognize it, it bothers me less and I don’t really need to do much of anything.

  • Avoid situations where you might be tempted. Willpower is a powerful tool but weakens the more times you have to use it in a short period of time (like, a day). When willpower is fully charged, make the decisions for your future self. Throw out everything tempting, so when you get those midnight munchies, there’s nothing there but sardines and celery. Don’t go to that great bakery full of scents and sights of cookies and pastry, even if they do serve great coffee. Get coffee elsewhere.

Those are all cognitive tricks. I am learning about another set of tools from a book I am reading - using very specific positive emotions that make you much more likely to forgo short-term pleasures that are detrimental to long-term success. Gratitude, compassion, and pride.

I am already doing a pride-based trick. I replace the word “can’t” with “don’t” in my little internal script about who I am. Not “I can’t eat donuts” but “I don’t eat donuts.” One implies a restriction, the other implies a choice or a definition of identity.

You can go with more powerful phrases, like “I am not a person who eats sweets” which is clear statement about the kind of person you are, even more firmly making it a part of just who you are, and not a choice you are making every time you see a cupcake.

Over time, you become more invested in maintaining that new self-identity you are creating. You could use the same technique to incorporate Keto Cobra’s idea: “I only eat donuts one day a month, and it’s not today.” You are just programming your mind so that it can run on auto-pilot, and you don’t have to use limited willpower all of the time.

I am still reading about how to foster more gratitude and compassion, so any tips I come up with from that will have to wait for a later post. But essentially, be compassionate to YOURSELF, as well as others.

Pretend you have a best friend who is having these same struggles, and who you really want to help succeed. You wouldn’t belittle them or make them feel like a failure. You’d encourage them, tell them that it’s hard, people don’t always succeed every time, and that you know they will do better, and you are proud of them for trying and working so hard at it. Then pat them on the back and tell them to get back in the game. Except the friend is you, and you are having this exchange, more or less, with yourself.

#19

Thank you, John. Lots to think about there.

(PSackmann) #20

Yes, this. I can eat anything I want, anytime I want. I choose not to, 90% of the time. The longer I’m away from sugary food, the less worth it most of it is. It took time, including eating a pat of butter with salt when I wanted something sugary, now I don’t even chew sugar-free gum after meals. The cravings do go away, just stick it out.