I have quite a sweet tooth, eat far too much sugary shit. I keep trying to stop but only seems to last a few days before my willpower collapses, I need help. How can I kick my sugar habit.

Go to Slimming World. I went for the first time last night and it was close to being the worst two hours of my life. I have never been more motivated to lose weight as I have promised myself and Mrs I will keep going until I am at target weight. I hated every miserable second if it so the sooner I lose weight the sooner I stop going.

Stop drinking full sugar pop, reduce what you put in tea/coffee humans love sugar though as it’s a basic need. Treat yourself now and then to something good and sweet to help with the urge.

Not a “howto” but Tim Noakes has done some interesting work on the subject

Start a cocaine habit.

Soon, you won’t give a shit about sweeties

Start a cocaine habit.

Soon, you won’t give a shit about sweeties

Funnily enough, I have wondered about micro dosing lsd, and how that might affect will power and focus.

Stop drinking full sugar pop

I would say stop drinking all sweetened drinks, whether sugary or not. They still taste sweet even if you don’t get the crack-like sugar rush. IMO it’s just a case of weening yourself off overly sweet things. Try more strong-tasting savoury foods, spicy curries, rich foods, umami etc so you don’t need to associate “treats” with the sweet taste. You’ll probably find very quickly your palette changes and you start appreciating other foods/craving sugar less (I did). Just don’t try and go cold turkey, you’ll end up killing everyone 🙂

Why not go full dose and then you can then watch in 4D what sugar does to your body/universe.

I gave up sugar when I realised it actually left a bad taste in my mouth as the bacteria fed off it, wrecking my teeth. Drinking it in a dilute solution of phosphoric acid is even more bonkers because the acid strips the enamel from your teeth.

Was chatting with a waitress at my hotel in Johannesburg and she was complaining about her weight – it has to be said that she had an absolutely mahoosive bottom. I asked her what she ate and drank in a day and she casually mentioned that she was chugging her way through two or three two-litre bottles of cola a day. She was a bit shocked when I explained how much sugar she must be drinking and what effect that would be having on her health.

Just stop using it, which is easier than it sounds if you stop buying it and stuff with sugar in it. No fizzy pop either, diet or otherwise.

Been off refined sugar for getting on 3 weeks now. Day to day is fine, I just eat lots of fruit. However when some bastard brings cake into work I do struggle. However the cravings are starting to decrease slightly.

Edit: I am surprised how much everyday food has refined sugars in it

Start with no sugar drinks. Get rid of all sugar from the house. Do not carry any money for vending machines.

you will be grumpy. If you have a desk job you will probably want to boredom eat/drink. You need to find a substitute.

for me I used bananas, satsuma and apples at key points in the day alongside pacing the halls… Given the option I would still just live on cake, chocolate and biscuits so I need to isolate myself and maybe just have once per week treat.

edit: also acceptance that every so often you will drop off the wagon and gorge. Just restart and get back into the reduced sugar routine

given up for quite extended periods – listening to some guy on the radio last year and he said something like “takes at least two weeks for the craving to disappear and after that its easy” – not sure any science but seems to work for me and hadn’t sort of realised on prior efforts that takes that long  – I’m off the back of summer southern hemisphere skiing and riding some alpine cols and a few drinks of coke and love of  biscuits got me hooked again but been clean for a couple of weeks now – beware bread – I make my own and beware habits – if I’ve got to do the ironing then I have some biscuits  and a coffee – not bothered to do the ironing

i Drastically reduced sugar intake at the beginning of the year. Still have a small amount in coffee but have cut out chocolate bars, cakes etc during the day. Hard work but the kgs dropped off with a bit of exercise and carb reduction.

I still miss all the shite though. 😂

This is worth a read.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B006T5JNGM/ref=oh_aui_d_detailpage_o01_?ie=UTF8&psc=1

She did a podcast with Abel James if you want to know more about her:

http://fatburningman.com/karly-randolph-pitman-on-sugar-craving/

There is nearly always something on the savoury side of things that is just a pleasurable/moorish to eat as anything sugary.

Try switching to nuts, or a fruit-nut combo.

Brazil nuts are good, although you can overdo them. Plain cashews.

Mondelez did us a service by making Cadbury’s chocolate so rank, so it is easy to avoid anything there.

Exercise more, especially cardio, it is a lot easier to avoid snacking when cardio fit.

Weigh yourself everyday then you can see the effect of that sugar,

Forever trying and failing at this myself, I went through a phase of eating Soreen or Cream Crackers with peanut butter when the cravings hit, that seemed to keep me on the straight and narrow. Black tea sort of distracted from the chocolate craving for about 5 minutes.

I think dark chocolate is supposed to be a good substiture? Especially with chilli in it, seems to satisfy far quicker than milk chocolate.

It annoys me that there isn’t a simple percentage of ‘refined’ sugar in the nutritional info. ‘Carbohydrates of which sugars’ isn’t telling the full story, so all you can go on is the relative height of ‘sugar’ in the ingredients list…

I think dark chocolate is supposed to be a good substitute?

Decent dark chocolate is a good substitute for crappy stuff, especially with a cuppa 🙂 +1 on Cadbury’s being shit helping the cause though 😆

These bad boys from Lidl-

are very tasty 😀

It’s the buzz/ rush that makes it tough, whether it’s a can of coke or half a bag of haribo. The thing I find helps is knowing that after the buzz feels rank, with a furry/ dry mouth, headache etc.

That said, there’s still times when I feel a ‘want’ for a hit of something sugary.

Do it a bit at a time. My biggest cut was dropping sugar from Tea.  I don’t have sugar in coffee.

I don’t drink fizzy drinks either.  I also cut out snacks.  Don’t go all out though, one thing at a time.

If you get past the few days it gets a lot easier, to the point at which you stop liking it if you try it again. Knowing this might help! Also agree with the above re dark chocolate, even 100% which Montezuma do, takes a bit of getting used to mind!

I have a terrible sweet tooth, but going on a very low carb diet was miserable for less than a week, then no cravings whatsoever.

A long time ago my dear old Mum inadvertently made me a cuppa with 6 sugars in it.

I think it made me hypersensitive to sugar. Since then I can taste it in all kinds of foods (esp bread & milk) and I’m not fond of food that’s obviously sugary such as cake, biscuits, sweets, chocolates etc

I think maybe it was mentioned, but I found having a bag of mixed nuts – Tesco do a good one for £2.50 (though I do realise you’re in Germany)  – and a bloody toothpick 😀 – helped a lot during the day.

In the evenings, it was just a case of not having any shite in the house. If it’s there, it’ll get eaten.

After dinner was some chopped bananas, apple, strawberry and grapes with some natural yoghurt instead of a pot of mousse, scoop of ice-cream etc. Yes, eating sweeter fruit isn’t “cutting sugar out” but it’s better than the alternative puddings.

Also, allow yourself something every so often. I worked on the being good at work and home but allowing a bit of being bad if out and about.

There is nearly always something on the savoury side of things that is just a pleasurable/moorish to eat as anything sugary

We agree. But not for everyone I guess.

Stop buying stuff is the key.

You will feel better for it.

Some good practical advice here. I would ignore the daft end of the spectrum pointing out how much sugar there is in fruit (fruit juice I would and have culled though)  and just remove the obvious suspects and sub in sugar free where necessary (like the occasional needed hit of pop is Pepsi max now, switch to black no sugar coffee all day). 99% of ‘excess’ is just in crap you eat almost without thinking, get that out first.

I used to deal with my sugar habit by not buying the stuff and having it in the house. Problem is that since her first pregnancy my wife picked up a sugar habit and now the house is full of ‘treats’. She doesn’t see the issue (despite putting on loads of weight), and I have no willpower when it’s under my nose.

Mondelez did us a service by making Cadbury’s chocolate so rank, so it is easy to avoid anything there.

+1

Was just given a bag of Green & Blacks assorted mini bars.  This would have been a (personal) cause for celebration in the 90s.  I loved the stuff.  Now I know why they gave them away.  Was like eating some kind of rectangular, claggy semi-polished fecal matter.  Except with oil/fat and sugar added in an attempt to make palatable/put fur on tongue.  It did put fur on tongue so half of the brief was filled.

These days I stick to one or two squares of the good Lidl dark choc (J D Gross?)

The Orange and Almond one is v good.  I used to inhale whole bars of Cadbury choc, but now it’s bags easier to walk on by.  A square of the Lidl stuff with a cup of black coffee staves off the demons all day.  Maybe a satsuma or orange once in a while.  ie fruit.

On related note – whilst quaffing an ale one eve last week I fancied a bag of Walkers Cheese and Onion crisps to punctuate the pint with some savoury, salty goodness.

Now, it has been a while since my buying Walkers Cheese and Onion, yet nothing coupd have prepared me for the face I made upon tasting the first one.   Were these a new, ill-considered ‘vote for new flavour’  cheese-dessert variety?  Horrified, I checked the back of the pack to see SUGAR sneaked into the ingredients.  Wrecked.  On the plus side, I’ll not be picking up another bag, and my gut will be thanking me.  At least until I spy ntil I spy the chilli nuts/scratchings/Scampi Fries.  But how long until they all have sugar, MSG and added fats?

Add them to the list of good stuff that got messed up in the silent endless war upon our senses.

We are all USians now.  Beware creeping* sugarism.

*Let’s be honest, it’s an avalanche.

I switched to diet coke and switched snacking to chewing on sugar-free gum. Yes you get alot of artificial sweeteners, but I would argue better than masses of sugar (it was causing me to pack on weight, hence my motivation, which also involved cutting down on booze).

+1 ditch sugary drinks and adding sugar to tea/coffee.

Careful swapping sugary drinks for fruit juice though, as they’re full of natural sugar. Though still helps reduce the craving for sugar as may not taste so sweet.

Tea/coffee without sugar just needs a little time to adapt, then you find sugar in them is way too sweet.

I’d try not to swap sugar drinks for “sugar free” / diet fizzy drinks, which may be full of sweeteners that are questionable on health, plus the drinks are just empty garbage anyway. I’m trying to keep to just tea/coffee and water. Occasional fruit juice.

I’ve never been a fan of sweets and chocolates anyway though would go for sugary biscuits, shortbread stuff etc. I snack a lot there. I try to pick the least sugary biscuit, though does mean more bland ones, which discourages the snacking anyway.

I’d just say that trying to cut out snacks all together can be difficult so make your own snacks. If you get hungry mid afternoon or something and you’re prepared then you have a pretty healthy snack (like carrot sticks and homemade hummus or something) and won’t resort to a chocolate bar. I eat quite a lot of fruit too but as far as I’m concerned that brings its own health benefits and at least it isn’t refined sugars. I also make “energy balls” (https://deliciouslyella.com/2016/08/13/sesame-and-vanilla-nut-free-energy-balls/), lots of dates in them so you still have to not eat the whole lot in one go but they’re pretty good at hitting the spot with just one anyway.

It sounds obvious but eat less sugar.

I successfully kicked the habit by switching from normal sized chocolate bars to kids size bars (chomp etc).

Then I ate every other day rather than daily. It then becomes easy.

I’ve found that reading a good book on the habit or ‘thing’ i want to change helps and gives me more discipline to follow through and commit. After reading “easy way” by Allen Carr, which helped me to quit smoking after 20 years I realised the power a book can have on your mindset.

I’ve tried many times to cut things out, Alcohol, sugar, gluten only to fade out after a few days because my mates are out drinking or there’s a party, or we go out for a burger.

“It starts with Food” (the Whole30 diet) is one book I have read which is very good for cutting out sugar.  Although it is a “Strict Diet” it really helped me to reset my palate and crave natural food, and also help isolate foods you are allergic to.

What is really amazing is the withdrawal symptoms I get when cutting sugar, the first 2 days are fine, but then on the 3rd day its like I have a body flu, crazy aches and pains throughout the whole body – this has only ever lasted 24hrs then on the 4th day I’m absolutely fine again.

just stop.

its not difficult. if I pick something up in the supermarket i check the sugar content and have a rule of not going over 16-20% sugars depending on the food type. obviously i break this rule with jam and honey but the jam is the ones with very little refined sugar and made with fruit and grape juice.

most supermarket factory made cakes are just cheap fat, refined white flour and sugar. just don’t buy them!

don’t drink fizzy drinks, after years of not drinking them and eating rubbish cakes like iced buns if i do waver they taste absolutely vile and make me feel sick. i still eat the odd brownie or cake but if they taste ‘sugary’ i tend to avoid them.

chocolate. i love dark chocolate and eat the 85% stuff every day, cheap chocolate with high sugar content just tastes of sugar now.

i guess it took about 3-4 months to get used to this way of eating, i still smash a baklava and double espresso now and again and ride the caffeine and sugar hit but on the whole i find it easy to stick to this ‘diet’, in fact i don’t even think of it as a diet it’s just eating healthily.

for me the key is looking at the crappy food and literally visualising a pile of white sugar, a pile of refined white flour and a chunk of lard.