I get asked this question a lot. Which is better, assuming they are asking easier, weaning off sugar slowly or going cold turkey?
The answer is two-fold, maybe three.
The answer is – it depends.
It depends on how big your habit is.
I would never suggest a person with a huge sugar habit go cold turkey. I would suggest tapering down for a few weeks first.
But for the most part, the above example aside, the only real way to get any semblance of control over sugar in your life is to go cold turkey – for a time.
To stop ingesting sugar in any form, one day at a time, and see what happens.
Feel the feelings.
Live the actual withdrawals.
Try and remember them when you crave something sweet and relive them in your mind so you don’t have to do in real life.
Your memory of withdrawals can save you from any actual withdrawals by not picking up that first cookie.
Get an intimate understanding of how the product is affecting YOUR body.
Do you believe in the old adage “what goes up, must come down”?
How is it possible that we feel SO lousy when we stop this stuff?
Seriously folks what is causing that?
Not that I want you to relapse all the time folks – I don’t.
What I do want you to do – is to pay attention to what you feel like when, and if, you do get a little abstinence under your belt and then do relapse.
This is the barometer you should really be searching for and understanding. ^^
By the time we are adults the only thing ingesting sugar is doing is staving off withdrawals.
What I really want you to pay attention to is how GOOD, how REALLY good, you feel after you have had four or five or more days with no sugar at all – zero.
Pay attention to the heightened sense of well-being, the marked increase in ability or productivity – for about twenty or thirty minutes. (Then, of course, the crash and subsequent cravings for MORE).
A real nice mellow buzz! That “all’s right with the world” feeling. It’s very real!
SERIOUSLY.
Once you start to put this second part of the equation together – not the “how bad you feel when you quit” but the how GOOD you feel when you have a little healing under your belt AND how fleeting and temporary it is.
Then, and only then, will you begin to understand why you, and your body and mind, are so drawn to this substance.
And why, as children, we are so very drawn to it. Insecure and scared of these huge humans around us and a little sugar and we feel invincible.
You may not believe that your particular sugar habit has anything to with how good it makes you feel, most folks don’t – at first.
Until they are super vigilant for a good long time and some well-meaning aunt throws some Agave syrup (up to 97% Fructose) into their citrus salad dressing and they feel like they were given some kind of drug.
It’s those ah ha’s that I long for.
Because at that point the “buzz” is annoying. It’s a pain. You end up sweating that night and what’s even worse. – You end up so massively depressed the next day you just can’t believe it.
Once you start tying these feelings you thought were just “you” to sugars of all kinds you start to understand why it’s causing so much trouble in the developed world.
If you’re finally ready to jump off the merry-go-round just jump over here and join our little band of sugar-free and sugar reduced brothers and sisters. Quit Sugar Now.
Equal to the cold turkey vs weaning off question is this one: “Do I have to quit sugar forever?” Only you can answer that question but here’s one thing you can’t do:
You can answer that question ON sugar..
Make sense? Quit Sugar Now.
