If you can't say no to candy, cookies and soda, you may be one of millions of people who are addicted to sugar. For some people, sugar acts like a drug in the body, and like any other drug, can cause an initial high followed by withdrawal symptoms.Symptoms of sugar addiction include,powerful cravings for sugar, refined carbohydrates or alcohol,mood swings,anxiety,depression,irritability or anger,fatigue,headaches,dizziness,feeling better after eating sugar,It's not just lack of willpower - it really is an addiction,Studies have shown that sugar has a similar effect to cocaine, morphine and other drugs of addiction. Eating large amounts of sugar releases a brain chemical called dopamine that makes you feel alert, energized, motivated and enthusiastic. But over time, sugar reduces the brain's sensitivity to dopamine and you start to become addicted to sugar - you need more dopamine just to feel normal and without a sugar hit to boost your dopamine production, you feel sluggish, tired, foggy and irritable.[]
The scary truth is that sugar is found in all carbohydrates, not just table sugar. Whether it's an apple or a biscuit, a tomato or a slice of bread, once it has been chewed, swallowed and digested it is released into the bloodstream as sugar. This means that all carbohydrates have the potential to be addictive, depending on how quickly they enter the bloodstream as sugar.Whilst some carbohydrates break down into sugar and enter the blood very slowly (low glycaemic carbs), other carbohydrates break down into sugar and enter the blood very quickly (high glycaemic carbs). You won't be surprised to find out that the carbohydrates that have the fastest and biggest impact on blood sugar levels are refined pasta, bread, potato, alcohol and 'empty foods' (sweets, biscuits and cakes) - all the foods we turn to when we're feeling low, stressed or in need of a pick me up. Food companies have also been spending years researching ways to make these foods deliver the sugar even quicker, making them hyper-addictive and ultimately more profitable.
David Kessler, former head of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), claims that manufacturers seek to trigger a 'bliss point' when people eat certain products.It is time to stop blaming individuals for being overweight or obese. The real problem is we have created a world where food is always available and where that food is designed to make you want to eat more of it. For millions of people, modern food is simply impossible to resist - Junk food triggers our 'bliss point', The Sunday Times, June 28th 2009.
Signs and symptoms you're a sugar addict.Up to 60% or more of your diet is made up of high glycaemic carbs.You have strong cravings for sweet, sugary foods throughout the day.You struggle to give up bread, chocolate, alcohol and sugary drinks.You often finish whole packets of sweets or biscuits in one sitting.You serve yourself extra portions of rice or pasta even when you're full.You finish leftover bread, rice or pasta from other people's plates.You buy chocolate or sweets for your family but eat them yourself.When you are denied access to sugary foods you become irritable and low.When you eat sugary foods after withdrawal just one piece triggers a binge.The moment you eat sugary foods after withdrawal you feel an instant rush.
If you find it hard to eat fruit, as I used to (partly because if you eat a lot of artificially-sweet things like chocolate and ice-cream, fruit will not taste very sweet to you), try making fruit salads. Chop up your favorite fruits, mix them together and enjoy a generously-sized bowl every day.Be aware that fruit varies in quality, so you may need to hunt around to find fruit that's to your taste. Not all apples are created equal! Also make sure your fruit is ripe before you consume it. You may need to leave fruit in your kitchen to ripen for a few days after buying.
I remember a two-week period of time where I ate fast food every morning before work. Every morning! I also remember sitting in my car before work one morning, not having stopped for fast food (lack of funds), and wondering just how I was going to get through the whole day without my sausage, egg, and cheese biscuit and vanilla ice coffee. I actually called my husband and begged him to bring me my fast food breakfast or my day just wasn't going to start!After I got what I wanted, and the day went on, I began to wonder just how did I end up a fast food breakfast junkie? Why was I reduced to calling my husband away from his daily routine in order to bring his wife fast food across the other side of town? I found the answer sometime later, and it has something to do with sugar addiction (really, it does!).Fast forward a year later, where I had received some pretty interesting and enlightening information about the majority of fast food: over 70% of the foods served at many fast food restaurants are made up of high fructose corn syrup!
High fructose corn syrup is basically a cheaper form of sugar; but it is also a very nasty little animal that produces cravings for more sugar! Not only does high fructose corn syrup produce sugar cravings, it actually interferes with the hormone that tells you when you are full! Anything that contains high fructose corn syrup is a trap for overeating.If you have an addiction to sweets, it is most likely because of the sugar content. Yes, it is an actual addiction. A study from Princeton University yielded results that show a striking similarity between sugar addiction and heroin and cocaine addiction! The research discovered that sugar causes an increase of dopamine levels in areas of the brain that are associated with addictive behaviors.
The type of exercise you need to reduce sugar cravings is the type that makes you breathe harder to a degree that feels taxing but comfortable, and your heart beat faster. Preferably you should be sweating. You don't have to go to the gym or run around the block; you can buy an exercise bike or cross-trainer and use it in the privacy of your own house. Even a skipping rope will do the trick. While very cheap exercise equipment may be unusable and put you off exercise, a good exercise bike or cross-trainer can be had for as little as around a hundred dollars online, and you can often rent out equipment locally.Try to get at half an hour's exercise every other day. Start your exercise with a five minute gentle warm-up. Listen to music while you exercise; find the most upbeat, up-tempo song you can that you like, and listen to them on an mp3 player while you exercise. Once your warm-up period is done, allow the music to entice you to exercise harder.
If you aren't used to exercising, you might need to start off doing only five minutes at a time while you get used to it, but rest assured you can get used to it and can learn to enjoy exercising.Once you have used these techniques to diminish your cravings, cut sugar out. You do not physiologically need sugar. Fruit contains plenty of it in a healthy form in any case. At first you may miss sugar very badly, but stick with it; the time will come, perhaps after as little as a week, when you no longer think much about sugar. Then you can allow yourself to enjoy sweetened foods occasionally as a treat. But your dependence on sugar, the thing that drives you to eat it every day and makes you feel as though you want nothing more and can't do without it -- that you must break, if you want to gain control of your eating habits.
To help deal with your cravings psychologically, try to replace your regular sugar consumption with doing something else enjoyable instead. Watch TV or play computer games if you have to; do whatever you need to, to get through the first difficult couple of weeks of craving.If you are overweight, ask yourself whether you want that chocolate bar or you want to be thin. You probably can't have both. Don't allow yourself to think that you can defer the challenge indefinitely; recognize that your cravings have to be faced head-on. If you particularly crave sugar at certain times of the day, brace yourself for a battle.If you prepare sufficiently by eating fruit and preferably exercising too, you can reduce your cravings to a manageable level, then you can start winning your battle with your cravings. After a few weeks you won't even remember why you had such terrible problems in the first place.Change Your Life Scientifically.Break sugar addiction, lose weight, ditch your boss or move to another country.At Fascinating Experiments we discuss how to gain control of your life so that you can do the things that you want to do.Among other things, we look at ways of making money at home, how to get more money in your existing job, how to change career, and how to lose weight and increase your energy levels; with a focus on concrete steps you can take without spending any money and without signing up to dubious programs or buying dubious products.
The scary truth is that sugar is found in all carbohydrates, not just table sugar. Whether it's an apple or a biscuit, a tomato or a slice of bread, once it has been chewed, swallowed and digested it is released into the bloodstream as sugar. This means that all carbohydrates have the potential to be addictive, depending on how quickly they enter the bloodstream as sugar.Whilst some carbohydrates break down into sugar and enter the blood very slowly (low glycaemic carbs), other carbohydrates break down into sugar and enter the blood very quickly (high glycaemic carbs). You won't be surprised to find out that the carbohydrates that have the fastest and biggest impact on blood sugar levels are refined pasta, bread, potato, alcohol and 'empty foods' (sweets, biscuits and cakes) - all the foods we turn to when we're feeling low, stressed or in need of a pick me up. Food companies have also been spending years researching ways to make these foods deliver the sugar even quicker, making them hyper-addictive and ultimately more profitable.
David Kessler, former head of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), claims that manufacturers seek to trigger a 'bliss point' when people eat certain products.It is time to stop blaming individuals for being overweight or obese. The real problem is we have created a world where food is always available and where that food is designed to make you want to eat more of it. For millions of people, modern food is simply impossible to resist - Junk food triggers our 'bliss point', The Sunday Times, June 28th 2009.
Signs and symptoms you're a sugar addict.Up to 60% or more of your diet is made up of high glycaemic carbs.You have strong cravings for sweet, sugary foods throughout the day.You struggle to give up bread, chocolate, alcohol and sugary drinks.You often finish whole packets of sweets or biscuits in one sitting.You serve yourself extra portions of rice or pasta even when you're full.You finish leftover bread, rice or pasta from other people's plates.You buy chocolate or sweets for your family but eat them yourself.When you are denied access to sugary foods you become irritable and low.When you eat sugary foods after withdrawal just one piece triggers a binge.The moment you eat sugary foods after withdrawal you feel an instant rush.
If you find it hard to eat fruit, as I used to (partly because if you eat a lot of artificially-sweet things like chocolate and ice-cream, fruit will not taste very sweet to you), try making fruit salads. Chop up your favorite fruits, mix them together and enjoy a generously-sized bowl every day.Be aware that fruit varies in quality, so you may need to hunt around to find fruit that's to your taste. Not all apples are created equal! Also make sure your fruit is ripe before you consume it. You may need to leave fruit in your kitchen to ripen for a few days after buying.
I remember a two-week period of time where I ate fast food every morning before work. Every morning! I also remember sitting in my car before work one morning, not having stopped for fast food (lack of funds), and wondering just how I was going to get through the whole day without my sausage, egg, and cheese biscuit and vanilla ice coffee. I actually called my husband and begged him to bring me my fast food breakfast or my day just wasn't going to start!After I got what I wanted, and the day went on, I began to wonder just how did I end up a fast food breakfast junkie? Why was I reduced to calling my husband away from his daily routine in order to bring his wife fast food across the other side of town? I found the answer sometime later, and it has something to do with sugar addiction (really, it does!).Fast forward a year later, where I had received some pretty interesting and enlightening information about the majority of fast food: over 70% of the foods served at many fast food restaurants are made up of high fructose corn syrup!
High fructose corn syrup is basically a cheaper form of sugar; but it is also a very nasty little animal that produces cravings for more sugar! Not only does high fructose corn syrup produce sugar cravings, it actually interferes with the hormone that tells you when you are full! Anything that contains high fructose corn syrup is a trap for overeating.If you have an addiction to sweets, it is most likely because of the sugar content. Yes, it is an actual addiction. A study from Princeton University yielded results that show a striking similarity between sugar addiction and heroin and cocaine addiction! The research discovered that sugar causes an increase of dopamine levels in areas of the brain that are associated with addictive behaviors.
The type of exercise you need to reduce sugar cravings is the type that makes you breathe harder to a degree that feels taxing but comfortable, and your heart beat faster. Preferably you should be sweating. You don't have to go to the gym or run around the block; you can buy an exercise bike or cross-trainer and use it in the privacy of your own house. Even a skipping rope will do the trick. While very cheap exercise equipment may be unusable and put you off exercise, a good exercise bike or cross-trainer can be had for as little as around a hundred dollars online, and you can often rent out equipment locally.Try to get at half an hour's exercise every other day. Start your exercise with a five minute gentle warm-up. Listen to music while you exercise; find the most upbeat, up-tempo song you can that you like, and listen to them on an mp3 player while you exercise. Once your warm-up period is done, allow the music to entice you to exercise harder.
If you aren't used to exercising, you might need to start off doing only five minutes at a time while you get used to it, but rest assured you can get used to it and can learn to enjoy exercising.Once you have used these techniques to diminish your cravings, cut sugar out. You do not physiologically need sugar. Fruit contains plenty of it in a healthy form in any case. At first you may miss sugar very badly, but stick with it; the time will come, perhaps after as little as a week, when you no longer think much about sugar. Then you can allow yourself to enjoy sweetened foods occasionally as a treat. But your dependence on sugar, the thing that drives you to eat it every day and makes you feel as though you want nothing more and can't do without it -- that you must break, if you want to gain control of your eating habits.
To help deal with your cravings psychologically, try to replace your regular sugar consumption with doing something else enjoyable instead. Watch TV or play computer games if you have to; do whatever you need to, to get through the first difficult couple of weeks of craving.If you are overweight, ask yourself whether you want that chocolate bar or you want to be thin. You probably can't have both. Don't allow yourself to think that you can defer the challenge indefinitely; recognize that your cravings have to be faced head-on. If you particularly crave sugar at certain times of the day, brace yourself for a battle.If you prepare sufficiently by eating fruit and preferably exercising too, you can reduce your cravings to a manageable level, then you can start winning your battle with your cravings. After a few weeks you won't even remember why you had such terrible problems in the first place.Change Your Life Scientifically.Break sugar addiction, lose weight, ditch your boss or move to another country.At Fascinating Experiments we discuss how to gain control of your life so that you can do the things that you want to do.Among other things, we look at ways of making money at home, how to get more money in your existing job, how to change career, and how to lose weight and increase your energy levels; with a focus on concrete steps you can take without spending any money and without signing up to dubious programs or buying dubious products.
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