How to overcome sugar cravings

[innerspace_cadet]

Thanks everyone for the replies; I just requested a copy of "Healing with Whole Foods" from the library.

[ShaktiMama]

[lydian]

Probably the most balanced approach I have seen. The approach is for lay people of all kinds. The creator of this system noticed during her PhD research that alcoholics were also addicted to sugar. Which is ironic since cookies and donuts are out on the tables for 12 step recovery programs.

 

http://www.radiantre....com/index.html

 

 

 

Thanks for the link.

What I find really interesting is the recommendation to eat a potato with skin but without additional protein before going to bed:

 

The potato changes your brain

The potato creates an insulin response that effects the movement of the amino acid tryptophan from your blood into your brain. Your body uses tryptophan to make serotonin, the brain chemical that makes you feel mellow and happy. Serotonin also helps you to "just say no" to sweets and other things by putting the brakes on your impulsivity.

Protein eaten along with the potato at bedtime will interfere with your serotonin-making process.

[Brian]

...

[ShaktiMama]

Thanks for the link.

What I find really interesting is the recommendation to eat a potato with skin but without additional protein before going to bed:

 

 

I found when I tried that recommendation that if I ate too big of a potato I would have really wild dreams and disturbed sleep because the serotonin levels are unbalanced. So one that is a size of a golf ball or a tangerine, like a new potato, works best for me. I can tell the difference in sleep quality if I don't have something like that before bed. It is better and more deeper if I have a little something without protein before bed. Everyone is different so you will have to try it out yourself.

 

Yes, Potatoes not Prozac is a very interesting book. Some quizzes in there to help you determine if you have a true sugar sensitivity.

 

The author of the website wrote: Potatoes not Prozac.

 

s

Edited July 15, 2010 by ShaktiMama

[voidisyinyang]

If you watch that Coca Cola Conspiracy video I posted by the doctor -- focusing on fructose as the single greatest cause for

 

hypertension

 

diabetes

 

obesity

 

He states that the normal level of sugar intake is 14 grams a day.

 

14 grams a day -- that's 5 prunes (dried plums).

 

So sucrose is half fructose and he says fruit are o.k. because of the fiber but still that's just ONE serving of fruit per day.

[Guest paul walter]

Well a normal amount of sugar a person supposedly should be having is 30 grams a day.. Just drink water, eat plenty of vegetables, and limit number of fruits.

 

Honestly I still have a cup of blue berries every morning or so.. But thats about all the sugar through out the day, just me.

 

Good Luck

Careful there--I did the same one summer-had great eyesight but it contributed to a damp condition in the body. The Dalai Lama did the same one year cause he heard that blueberies were good for his eyes--he got very sick over time from eating them every day.

Edited July 17, 2010 by paul walter

[voidisyinyang]

 

Nutrition by Natalie

 

Sugar Shock

 

How much sugar do you consume? You might be surprised just how much sugar there is in everyday food. In this video, Natalie shows you the shocking truth about how much sugar you're consuming.

 

You will be surprised just how much sugar there is in common things like a soft drink, McDonalds Value Meal, fast food, Starbucks drinks, etc.

 

Natalie shows you how much sugar there is in certain food items including; blueberry muffins, orange juice, a poptart, Lucky Charms cereal, barbecue sauce, a Coke, Gatorade sports drink, a Starbucks Chocolate Frappuccino Mocha, a chocolate cake dessert and others.

 

Natalie also talks about the relationship of sugar and high fructose corn syrup to weight gain, energy, diabetes and health.

 

This video is an eye opener even if you aren't on a diet.

 

Edited July 30, 2010 by drewhempel

[松永道]

I try to eat right and exercise on a regular basis, but I still get sugar cravings every day. I was wondering what to do about this. I tried going by the program in "Eat to Live" but I don't like to cook and found it very restrictive and couldn't stick with it. Recently, I bought a copy of "The Primal Blueprint" and have been following it as much as possible, but it is too soon to tell if it will help.

 

Does anyone have any dietary or exercise recommendations to give that will help? I already run and practice Tai Chi, but wonder if I should increase the amount of time I do them. Would going on a fast help?

 

space cadet,

 

As other posters mentioned, TCM views sugar craving as spleen deficiency. Sweet is the flavor of the middle, earth, spleen-pancreas-stomach. The right amount of sweet nourishes the earth, not enough or too much can damage it. Your damaged spleen craves sweet. It's the hardest organ network to balance because it is balance. It is the middle way. Not too much, not too little.

 

The earth element is your inner cook. Re-examine your relationship with cooking, and you may find a host of related issues will disappear.

 

If nothing else, cook a good breakfast. "For breakfast eat well, for lunch eat to fullness, for dinner eat little" is how the traditional saying goes. A good breakfast with adequate protein, slow carbs, and some spices between 7 and 9am for most people, can do wonders. It changes the whole day. You can even slow cook in a crock pot over night to save time in the morning.

 

 

 

Durkhrod,

 

Where do you get your info on vinegar? True white vinegar really isn't suited for human consumption, but apple cider, rice, etc? According to most sources, vinegar is sour, bitter, warming and enters the stomach and liver meridians. Certainly not indicated for externally contracted conditions (sour puckers the pores, directs qi inwards, when most of the time external illness calls for sweating), too much harms the stomach (too much acid), but I find no references anywhere on vinegar causing dampness.

 

Even back into the classics you find references to vinegar for circulating qi, relieving food stagnation, breaking blood stagnation and dispersing dampness. I definitely use it, or better fermented vegetables, to help everything go smoothly when I can't avoid a bowl of greasy Chinese noodles, or an order of fatty mutton dumplings.

 

Also, approaching things from another angle, fermented vegetables (especially lacto-ferments) are fantastic for spleen deficiency damp conditions. Dampness encompasses all manners of yeast, fungus, bacterial over growth & imbalances in the gut - ferments help put the good stuff back. Did you know candida even releases its own neurochemicals to induce sugar craving (and thereby get itself fed)!

[Suliman]

I have found im suffering with blood sugar alot,i do alot of exercise and am quite fit but i find my blood sugar levels are terrible but only at specific times of which i have no warning of them coming-

I have tried 80-10-10 fruitarian diet which is said by many advocates and followers of this way to transform the system and work wonders whatever disease or problem you have- its all fruit with little salad.

But i myself personally suffered terribly on that diet and certainly was NOT detox but then again living in north UK im not able to get access to wild organic non-(poisoned and irradiated + chemicals) fruits so i had a horrendous time on it.

Personally due to finances and change of diets many times with varying results i find simplistic diets of rice beans-little amounts and vegetables helps with sugar cravings but feel the best results i have acheieved is with raw sesame seeds + hemp(as long as u dont go overboard on the fat intake) - they work excellent for balancing blood sugar and i can go long periods of excersis and without food and when i feel hungry again i dont get the blood sugar drop and being spaced out i got on fruitarian diet-WHICH I KNOW WOULD WORK IN THE RIGHT ENVIRONMENT(i.e with alot of fresh air,sunshine and wild and pure organic fruit)

Hope this helps !

[Encephalon]

This is Day 5 without sugar. I would have to go back a decade to my fasting days at the Hot Springs to find a similar personal victory.

 

I must say, I never had to struggle with the "One Day at a Time" phenomenon when I quit drinking, stopped doing drugs, or gave up cigarettes. I was lucky enough to have family members involved in the alchohol rehab business so I had a pretty soft landing.

 

But sugar has been an entire different ordeal altogether. I was able to market myself as a personal trainer in LA a few years ago because I worked out at the gym for 4 hours a day (under the influence of ephedra, Red Bulls, and reefer) and didn't have to control my carb intake to get lean. My my... what a difference four years can make. Since it no longer makes sense to lift heavy, I'm taking the dietary route to getting cut once again. When I'm 130 and 9% bodyfat I look like I'm 145. When I'm 150 @ 18% bodyfat I look a slightly pregnant pig; not a powerful marketing tool for a PT business in LA.

 

Like marijuana, sugar sits atop an American cultural faultline. There are those corporate and industrial elements in our society that believe that there should be no limit to the amount of sugar that is introduced into the American food supply. My personal experience tells me that every life goal I have for my second 50-year stretch depends on a pristine diet that categorically denies every component of the American diet. Wrestling with the political ramifications of all this has been a fun study, but actually having to modify my diet the way I have been instructing my clients for so long has been a real eye-opener.

 

Anyway, Super Colon Cleanse, a ton of water, and two large sprouting jars of lentils going full time has been a lot of help. But this whole ordeal is nothing less than a vast commitment to training of the Will.

Edited August 8, 2010 by Blasto

[Encephalon]

Today marks the 15th day without sugar madness, with the following exceptions that I fell prey to while on a roadtrip up to San Fran; two homemade bluberry muffins that my mother-in-law baked last Friday morning: an ice-cream cone following a visit to my mother on Sunday (wretched): a bag of peanut M&Ms last night at the movies.

 

Every one of these instances left me feeling not too good. The First three days were a bitch but by the 10th day I was feeling very energetic. I'm back home in LA and have no desire to eat any more of it at all, since it just feels better to be off it.

 

I just gotta say, if it weren't for my four sprouting jars going full time in the kitchen, I probably wouldn't have been able to pull it off so easily, but I really needed an exercise in Will Power development, and this test really foot the bill.

[idquest]

Today marks the 15th day without sugar madness

Blasto,

 

Do you consider fruit as food with sugar or not?

 

When I moved to North America in 2002 I was astounded how much sugar is added in literally all food. When I realized that they add sugar even in beer I stopped drinking it: it is like drinking some sugary syrup in fact. Of course if somebody has been drinking sugary beer all their life it is difficult to notice.

[voidisyinyang]

Blasto,

 

Do you consider fruit as food with sugar or not?

 

When I moved to North America in 2002 I was astounded how much sugar is added in literally all food. When I realized that they add sugar even in beer I stopped drinking it: it is like drinking some sugary syrup in fact. Of course if somebody has been drinking sugary beer all their life it is difficult to notice.

 

According to this "year without sugar" blog the corn syrup is only used in super super cheap beer and even then the yeast converts the corn syrup into alcohol.

 

http://myyearwithout.blogspot.com/2009/02/is-there-sugar-in-my-beer.html

 

An obscure Belgian style called Faro (a lambic back sweetened with candi sugar after fermentation) is the only beer that I am aware of that routinely contains unfermented refined sugar.

 

Virtually no other beers contain sugar molecules from refined sugar because even when they are used the yeast converts them into alcohol and carbon dioxide.

 

Some English and American style beers (even lower gravity ones) may have a small proportion of refined sugar added to the wort to help lighten the body.

 

Due to the influence of the Reinheitsgebot (Bavarian brewing purity law) no German brewers add refined sugar (or anything besides malt, hops, yeast, and water) to their beer.

[Encephalon]

[Vajrahridaya]

I try to eat right and exercise on a regular basis, but I still get sugar cravings every day. I was wondering what to do about this. I tried going by the program in "Eat to Live" but I don't like to cook and found it very restrictive and couldn't stick with it. Recently, I bought a copy of "The Primal Blueprint" and have been following it as much as possible, but it is too soon to tell if it will help.

 

Does anyone have any dietary or exercise recommendations to give that will help? I already run and practice Tai Chi, but wonder if I should increase the amount of time I do them. Would going on a fast help?

 

Eat fruits or things flavored with natural fructose.

 

I cut out refined sugars for a while during my sadhana and after a few weeks found I only needed 4 to 5 hours sleep a night due to eating non-refined products and eating more naturally.

 

I've since gone back to eating pretty much whatever fits my fancy. But, I just burn through it as I have a very active job... like... super, duper active.

[Vajrahridaya]

[Encephalon]

Wow! That's awesome Blasto! You should throw in some wheatgrass juice and blue green algae in there for good measure!

 

Hah! You may notice that the unifying factor of all these products, with the exception of coconut oil, is total cheapness! Wheat grass and BG algae is way beyond my budget.

[metal dog]

With all due respect this is by far the worst advice possible for a person who wants to control there blood sugar. Just plain bad.... A fruit based diet will only promote more dependence on sugar and "good" "bad" sugar, CHEMICALLY sugar is sugar, fruit just has a little more fructose that more processed forms but the difference is not huge. Yes fruit is better in priciple becuase of many factors but 400 grams of carbs form fruit is 400 grams of carbs from any source the same and WILL cause problems in glucose control

 

Science is finding out that the body does not treat all sugars the same.

Cancer feeds a lot more on fructose than glucose.

 

When it comes to what you stick in your mouth it is pure willpower and not always what you eat...but what is eating you.

Edited August 19, 2010 by metal dog

[idquest]

Cancer feeds a lot more on fructose than glucose.

Can you provide any reference to that?

 

I have some medical ear condition that results in bad reaction when I eat somewhat more sweet than I should. I wanna say my ears don't distinguish between sugars and fructose, no difference at all. My conclusion is that fructose is bad for a body to the same degree as sugars. Especially new selectioned types of fruit that were designed to accumulate much more fructose than their wild cousins.

[voidisyinyang]

Can you provide any reference to that?

 

I have some medical ear condition that results in bad reaction when I eat somewhat more sweet than I should. I wanna say my ears don't distinguish between sugars and fructose, no difference at all. My conclusion is that fructose is bad for a body to the same degree as sugars. Especially new selectioned types of fruit that were designed to accumulate much more fructose than their wild cousins.

 

Oh fructose is literally a poison for the body and this is proven in great detail now by new science.

 

 

Watch this amazing science lecture by Dr. Robert H. Lustig on exactly why fructose is different from the other types of sugar.

[King Kabalabhati]

Oh fructose is literally a poison for the body and this is proven in great detail now by new science.

 

 

Watch this amazing science lecture by Dr. Robert H. Lustig on exactly why fructose is different from the other types of sugar.

 

THANK YOU DREW for the link, I am now better armed in my battle against sugar poisoning..