Do I Have a Sugar Addiction?
Most of you reading this article likely have a true sugar addiction.
WAIT!!
Was your first response to roll your eyes, quickly reach for the “X” out option, or to immediately dismiss the word “addiction?” I can hear the rebuttal’s already:
- “Addiction? I love my food, but it’s not an addiction!”
- “I may have trouble getting the weight off, but I’m not an addict!”
- “How can you be addicted to food? It’s something everyone NEEDS in order to SURVIVE!”
Yes – I hear you, I acknowledge your denial, and I raise you three questions:
- How long have you been struggling with weight / diet?
- How many times have you started a healthy diet and failed?
- Is it interfering with your quality of life and relationships?
What is Sugar Addiction?
If you’re like me, the answers are something like this:
- As long as I can remember
- At least 50
- Yes, a resounding yes! Diabetes or Pre-Diabetes anyone? Obesity, high blood pressure, depression, anxiety? If not diagnosable health issues, how about always tired, sore, swollen, foggy-headed? And the list goes on and on.
The three questions above are what patients are often asked to analyze if an addiction is present. If we can’t stop doing something that impacts our quality of life and/or relationships negatively and we keep trying and failing – that is the very definition of addiction.
Take the Are You a Sugar / Carb Addict quiz – BE HONEST! This will help you evaluate if you are an addict or not.
Will the Real Sugar Addicts Please Stand Up?
The rest of this article is for sugar / carbohydrate addicts. I am not a medical expert, but I have found success for over 4 years after a lifetime of failures. I want to shout from the mountain tops to share what worked for me. If you can take anything away from my journey that helps you, that makes me ecstatic! **Always check with your doctor before making any drastic changes to your diet or lifestyle.
My Sugar Addiction Story
I topped out the scale at 289 pounds and was truly at rock bottom. I was a successful business owner in a happy marriage with two beautiful almost grown daughters. I had a great group of friends, a wonderful church family, and pretty much lived life thinking there was nothing I couldn’t accomplish…EXCEPT for losing weight and eating a healthy diet.
I failed time after time after time after time. My first diet was Weight Watchers when I was 10, and that is where my next 43 years of yo-yo dieting began. I never made it on any diet for long, as whenever I would cheat, I felt like I just couldn’t get over the failure and it would drive me back to the unhealthy foods. It was a horrible pattern that became so predictable, I finally just gave up trying, and that is when I ballooned to 289 pounds.
No Moderation with Addiction
I reached out to a health coach who finally made me realize I have a true addiction, and the reason I kept failing was because I was trying to control my addiction with moderation. She said, “There is no moderation with addiction.”
It was like a switch flipped in my head and EVERYTHING fell into place for me! It wasn’t that I was a failure where eating healthy was concerned. It was that sugar and carbohydrates are a very real addiction and I was SEVERELY addicted.
I quite literally woke up in the morning thinking about the Deep Dish Pizza Hut pizza I would be ordering as soon as they opened, and then WHILE I was eating that pizza, I was thinking about what delectable high carb, high fat, high sugar meal I would be ordering for supper. Cook? Psshhhh! I didn’t have time to cook! I was running a full-time business, raising two teenage daughters who were very involved in extracurriculars, and led a very active church volunteer life. Eating on the road was a must for me!
Calories Shmalories
I finally began to understand that the way to successfully follow a healthy way of eating was NOT to count calories, but to count carbohydrates! And sugar is simply a HARD no! There is no room for sugar in a sugar addict’s life. This means sugar in ALL forms.
There are over 100 names for sugar on food labels. Learn them all Here.
I know there are some keto dieters that eat berries, but I’m here to tell you, the sugar in fruit is a problem for those of us who are severely addicted to sugar. I tried adding blueberries to my lunches and I immediately started to have cravings for more sugar. I mean immediately as in within 5 minutes of eating them. They also raised my blood sugar and because I tried them for a week, I started to notice that my ankles were hurting again. I believe it was from inflammation from the blueberries. I stopped them and all cravings went away and my ankles stopped hurting.
I use myself as a human guinea pig to figure out what works for me and what doesn’t. Due to bio-individuality, we can never say, “Because this affected ME this way, it’s going to affect YOU this way too.” I am here to tell you MY experiences, and it is up to you to figure out what works and doesn’t work for you. All I know is sugar is NOT your friend. It’s a sneaky addictive substance, and I believe most food manufacturers use added sugars to CAUSE addictions to their foods so we continue to buy more.
Sugar Abstainer vs Sugar Moderator
I call myself a sugar abstainer. Some on the keto diet are sugar moderators, because they don’t have an addiction, or they are in denial. But me? I’m a full-fledged sugar addict and I MUST abstain from any type of cheat.
What I learned over the past four years on keto, is there is no room for “cheat days” for addicts. I discovered that in my past, it wasn’t that any time I had a cheat day, it made me feel so bad about myself that I simply gave up. It was that having a “little” of my “drug” led to the return of uncontrollable cravings. You don’t see a meth addict saying, “I’m only going to use once a month”, or an alcoholic saying, “I’m only going to drink on holidays and special occasions.” Addictions do not work with moderation.
So how do you get started on a Sugar Sober Life?
I’ll show you how I do it in this article:
How to Kick a Sugar Addiction with the Keto Diet
Are you a Sugar Addict? Take the Quiz here:
https://adaptyourlifeacademy.com/sugar-and-food-addiction-bonus/
*Disclosure and Disclaimer: I Heart Keto Mart is not a health care provider. We are an online keto educational site that shares keto approved products and low carb products and defines and rates their ingredients. I Heart Keto Mart’s hope is that our viewers will educate themselves on “all things ingredients” so they can easily identify keto approved ingredients and eliminate or greatly restrict unacceptable keto ingredients. I Heart Keto Mart is the best online keto store and online low carb store with 1000s of products. We are keto affiliates and each of the keto approved products we rate is linked to the vendor’s site where the product may be purchased. I Heart Keto Mart may earn a small commission from these sales. Amazon is one of these affiliates.