Ever notice that every holiday has its sweets? Fourth of July ice cream, Halloween candy, Thanksgiving pies, Christmas candy canes; all are part of our rituals. I’ve noticed these holidays can be triggers to fall off the healthy wagon and start snarfing down junk food, particularly sugary junk food. I’ve done it myself more than once.
I’ve also been reading a lot about sugar addiction and when I went to my hiking wellness retreat earlier this summer, MountainTrek’s nutritionist went into this in great detail. Sugar is actually mildly addicting and, in our culture, it surrounds us, sneaking into foods that wouldn’t occur to us as being loaded with sugar.
A recent study confirms this as do at least a dozen others. We truly can become addicted to sugar. A diet fueled with sodas and processed foods pretty much guarantees it. When we try to wean ourselves off of it, we get headaches, cravings, all the classic withdrawal symptoms. It’s scary when you think about it.
How to Wean Yourself Off
1. Start reading labels. If you’re buying processed foods, start reading the labels. Look for glucose, fructose, syrups, all clues that you’re ingesting something high in sugar. If it’s listed as one of the first five ingredients, put it back on the shelf. If you see more than three of the ingredients are in the sugar category, put it back on the shelf too.
2. Embrace fruits. Fruits were meant to satisfy our natural sweet tooth. A serving or two of fruit a day is a good thing and our taste buds will quickly adapt to the sweetness of a grape or a plum or the sweet tangy flavor of an orange. Try swapping a piece of fruit for one of the processed foods you just put back on the shelf.
3. Eat at home more. It’s not likely you’re sprinkling a few heaping tablespoons of sugar over your evening dinner preparations, but if you’re eating restaurant meals you might be getting a lot more sugar than you realize. Cooking at home means you’re controlling the ingredients which automatically means you’ll make healthier choices for yourself and your family.
4. Eat whole foods. This phrase has come up a lot on my blog lately and I am a convert. Eat food as close to nature as possible and you can’t go wrong.
5. Don’t drink your sugar. Sodas (even “healthy” ones) are loaded with sugar. So are most fruit juices like apple juice and orange juice. When you take away the pulp of the fruit, you’re pretty much left with concentrated sugar water. You’ll be packing in empty calories and get little of the nutritional value that fruit offers. Try water with a little lemon or cucumber instead.
6. Ditch the fake sugars. Fake sugars are usually low in calories because they are highly concentrated in their sweetness. Therefore you don’t need to use as much to get the same sweetening effect. But the fake sugars confuse the body which sends out signals for more and a craving is born, a cycle set up, and it’s hard to break from it. Do yourself a favor; just skip it all together.
Have you had to fight a sugar addiction like I have? How did you wean yourself off? Have you ever tried the buddy system and done it with a friend? Let me know how it went!
Cheers,
Lisa