Sugar Free Roll Call

[lifechange]

Sugar Free Roll Call

August 31, 2014

Lifechange Day3

[lifechange]

Sugar Free Roll Call

So on the 31st I ate the mini choc-ice cream bars that were my go-to in case I got bad al cravings-- Now the house is clear and ...

3 September, 2014

Lifechange day 3

[skullbabyland]

Sugar Free Roll Call

Yesterday I had a total sugar binge-- now I'm bracing for the inevitable few days of withdrawal/funk. Gotta just get through it!

3 September, 2014

Lifechange day 3
Skull- Day 1

[NoSugar]

Sugar Free Roll Call

You can do it, Skull! Maybe write down how you feel right now - in gory detail - and put it on the refrigerator door.

[Londoner]

Sugar Free Roll Call

Starting this up tomorrow.

Need to mentally plan out my day. At the moment, my autopilot is waking me up and craving sugar - white bread with marmalade, a cake, whatever I can get my hands on.

So tomorrow, I'm going to only have a vegetable juice in the morning and then a low carb day in general.

I find a few days of low carb helps my taste buds re-adjust.

I'll then get back to my normal intake, where rice/potato makes up my starch intake and the rest is from proteins, fats and veggies.

No more instant gratification. Time to face life for what it is

[Rahulthesweet]

Sugar Free Roll Call

Ok Looks like I have become a soda addict. I don't know whether it's caffeine or sugar. But I look forward to have it in evening. Now I know it's not as bad as AL but need to check few things out especially my weight.

If I go 6 months back I was heavy beer drinker. 5 to 6 liters of beer everyday. Then along with that junk food. But I was absolutely not having any soda or ice creams or chocolates etc.

Now when I travel or even when I am at home I crave food, I cradle chocolates and ice creams and sodas. So far I have not been controlling it. Have been pretty happy being sober . But 6 months on and not much reduction in weight it does looks like my body has substitute of AL 2- sugar. It may not be from additive craving point of view but from filling up that appetitive for the empty calories point of view.

I need to change my life style, eat well, exercise, get healthy !!

[skullbabyland]

Sugar Free Roll Call

Rahul- it's probably the sugar. Sugar is CRAZY addictive.

I definitely noticed the same thing- after stopping the beer, my body/mind has shifted to craving sugars- ice cream, donuts, fruit jam, bread. It makes sense, bc all that beer was metabolized as sugar, so my body still wants sugar now.

I'm finding that mindset is everything- taking a hard line, Spartan approach is the only thing that works for me. When the answer to sugar is "well... maybe a little..." all hell breaks loose! But when the answer to sugar is always NO, I have a much easier time.

Day 2 of sugar free and feeling good. Hope everyone is well!

[NoSugar]

Sugar Free Roll Call

Hi, Skull

It seems like many of us here are all-or-none kind of people. I know I am, in just about all aspects of my life except when I actively work on not being like that. None is so much more manageable than Some.

I wrote this to a friend earlier today about the sugar/AL thing:

Many people who are big time carb-preferers (addicts??) switch to AL at some point (like you, I didn't get into this mess until I was in my 30s) and then are fine w/o the carbs/sweets when they are actively drinking. I stopped eating most sugary, starchy carbs in my early 30s due to medical issues. I think that low carb (my preferred nutrient!) background set the stage for my becoming addicted to AL. So, I just had the reverse situation of the people who give up AL and become dependent on sugar. It is like we are going to get that dopamine hit one way or the other.

Who knows why some people need that dopamine more than others but maybe it is genetic or epigenetic - but there clearly are people who must be low in dopamine activity for one reason or another and so who have what turn out to be inappropriate responses when they come upon a source of it.

That's my theory, anyway .

[skullbabyland]

Sugar Free Roll Call

NS- thanks for posting such an informative post- when I think about my own patterns, I totally fit with what you are saying- I really think there's something to your theory, it fits in almost exactly with my use patterns, though there are other factors such as social anxiety at play for me.

At any rate... yep, all or none, for me, seems so much easier/better.

Day 3 sugar free/healthy diet

[NoSugar]

Sugar Free Roll Call

Good job on day 3, Skull!

I agree this isn't the whole story - I think it is a biochemical background where psycho-social issues express differently than they do in someone with a different biochemistry.

Have a good AF, SF weekend! NS

[allankay]

Sugar Free Roll Call

NS, Skull here we are again.

I remember were here last year. I remember Skull got up to pretty high numbers at one point.

I agree with everything NS said. It is easier to manager all or nothing habits and a lot more difficult to moderate. I again went a whole week without sugar eating clean and healthy but I get pretty bad headaches and get slightly lightheaded without carbs. For example after a 2 hour walk, I felt my sugar levels drop rapidly and I felt weak and had to quickly go into a store and buy a chocolate bar and immediately felt better.

I also notice that I cant seem to get full eating clean. My appetite increases a lot and things like, lean meat, soup and salads don't make me full and also low sugar seem to affect my mood in a negative way. I am sure the body needs time to adjust but being cranky, have no energy and have headaches really take its toll on me after a few weeks.

Don't really know what to do?

[NoSugar]

Sugar Free Roll Call

Hey, Allan

I think you might need to increase your fat intake. The need for a low fat diet is being shown to have been a pretty big mistake. There are several articles about this in the recent popular press as well as some good books. Eating fat truly is not what makes people fat - but it does make food taste really good and it fills you up.

Have a good weekend, NS

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/02/he...diet.html?_r=0
Cutting Back On Carbs, Not Fat, May Lead To More Weight Loss | NPR Digital Services
The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet - Kindle edition by Nina Teicholz. Health, Fitness & Dieting Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

[allankay]

Sugar Free Roll Call

NoSugar;1702272 wrote: Hey, Allan

I think you might need to increase your fat intake. The need for a low fat diet is being shown to have been a pretty big mistake. There are several articles about this in the recent popular press as well as some good books. Eating fat truly is not what makes people fat - but it does make food taste really good and it fills you up.

Have a good weekend, NS

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/02/he...diet.html?_r=0
Cutting Back On Carbs, Not Fat, May Lead To More Weight Loss | NPR Digital Services
The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet - Kindle edition by Nina Teicholz. Health, Fitness & Dieting Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

NS,

I agree. I have read numerous article about eating enough good fat.

I get my fat from lean beef (which I think is 25% fat) and also from vegetables like avocados. I eat between 1,500 and 1,750 calories when I eat healthy which should be plenty. But my body craves processed sugars and carbs.

It is used to spikes of sugar that it gets from processed snacks that I feed it. Where as healthy carbs and fruit release sugar over a longer period of time. I often feel an immediate lift in my mood after I eat something full of bad carbs like crisps, chocolate or a piece of cake. Also my energy levels quickly return to normal, where as I constantly feel tired when I eat healthy. It should be the other way around but the body needs to take time to adjust like it did living without alcohol.

[Rahulthesweet]

Sugar Free Roll Call

I saw a documentary on BBC about two identical twins one living in London and one in new York with similar life style and similar physic go on a journey to study what is better high fat diet or high sugar diet. So for 30 days one had only high fat but low NO sugar in diet food, red meat, cheese etc . The other had only high sugar but no fat in his diet. At the end both gained weight and had issues in their lab tests but surprising it was no so bad. Yes both were bad but at the end the study concluded the WORST combination is combination of fat and sugar. Etc French fries, ice creams, cheese burger, pizzas etx . it went on explaining that in nature ALL edible items with with high fat or sugar has a either one high along with other important things like fibre. For example raw fruits has high sugar, low or no fat with fibre. And it will not make you fat. When we process it to make juice we remove fibre add all the stuff and even artifixal sugar make it really bad for health. Raw rice, wheat, barley (all the stuff from which breads are made which is sugar or carb) is not bad in raw form as it has combination of fibre. Similarly meat when taken raw with not much of processing is same. Its when we prices it to remove some and disturb the balance its screwups the natures balance. Take even pure sugar made from sugar cane. Originallynit has fibre but we remove all from it and get only sweet stuff out.

Probably nature added these additive stuff like sweetness or fat or take in these foods so that we can go out and eat them so that WD can survive and even take other good stuff like vitamins and fibre with comes along with it. When we process food we situeb the balance and only give food to brain and not to body.

It also went along and saying how sugar and fat on its own is not additive. Try eating pure sugar syrup even some who loves or crave sugar can not take much or will not crave for eating pure sugar. Same with fat but the when combines these are incredibally tastely and addictive : chocolates, ice creams, big Mac, fried etc.

I guess natures did add addictive stuff every where in all foosa in nature so that we are rewarded (rings a bell ?) When we climb up a tree to get a mango or hunt an animal. Food must be logically made rewarding so that we can survive! With food processing we have taken good stuff out and addicitce stuff in.

Alcohol is also made by processing food stuff. Rice, barley, grapes.

Just though of sharing what appealed to me when I saw it.

[lifechange]

Sugar Free Roll Call

That's really interesting, Rahul-- good to think about as it really makes sense. Here it was/still is popular to eat a "food combining" diet, which is essentially what you wrote--keeping carbs separate from proteins. Basically having a well rounded diet but keeping a certain amount of time (so that the body digests what was eaten) between some of the food groups. It always made sense to me and people seem to have great results with losing weight, not craving, etc.

Allan, I'm still wondering if you're eating often enough? And I've forgotten whether or not you ear carb-veggies? Potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, etc.?