If you accept that sugar may be causing a biochemical reaction in your body that may be doing it harm,(weight gain, bad skin, tired all the time etc.) and you are saying that is could be an addiction, then the question is: do you have to give up sugar for the rest of your life for this to work?
If I only had a nickle for every time I’ve been asked this question. (remember when your dad used that saying?)
Seriously, everyone seems to want to know if lifetime abstinence from sugar is the only answer to the very serious problems sugar may be causing in their lives and this society. Most people have some serious terror, yes terror, when proposed this question.
Just try and be honest with yourself and think how you felt just now as you read that headline:
Do you have to give up sugar for the rest of your life?
By the time you arrive at SugarAddiction.com, you already have an intuitive knowing that sugar has an “unusual” hold on you. You’ve quit a few times, lost a few pounds but always returned to eating it.
You may have been to a 12 step meeting, or read a famous doctor and heard that some of the more successful people abstain from all sugars and you just thought that was too much.
I get that.
Let me propose a radically simple alternative…
If you think it’s logical and might have a grain of truth in it – why not just try it?
Just try to not use sugar, in any form (and don’t substitute tons of flour), one day at a time – and let’s just see what happens?
It could prove once and for all if you’re controlling your sugar intake or it’s controlling you!
If you commit to this little life hack, life experiment you’re going to need to do a few simple things to make it a true experiment and not just another one of those fad diets.
You’ll need to journal your experience so you can go back and see it in chronological order
You need to take it seriously
You may have to do this experiment more than once and if you fail after a few days you have to return to it, just to prove to yourself that you can do it physically, socially and within your existing living arrangement.
You’ll have to string together some time so you can see what the “longer term” effects are on you. “Some time” is different for all of us but a safe bet is that if you can accumulate just short 30 days then you’ll be able to see both worlds and decide which one is best for you. I would suggest 60 days but 30 to 45 will put you into a solid understanding of how your body is reacting.
Sound fair?
If you are willing to do that and it’s not something that becomes more positive in your life than negative, then what’s the worse case scenario?
The worst case is that you return to exactly where you are and say “I tried and it didn’t work for me.” That’s the worst thing that could happen!
Sometimes the catalyst to being able to do something like this in your life is to find someone who has done it and ask them to help you. But more than that it’s the emotional support that they give rather than the nuts and bolts technical stuff. Let us be that for you. Let me be that for you.
No, I’m not being insanely generous. I’m out to prove to you and to the world that sugar is a subtly powerful psychoactive drug that we’ve all used for many years to control and regulate some of our emotions and when we give it up — strange and crazy emotional things happen to us – seeming unrelated to our diet, weight or health.
Therein lies both the secret and struggle. Quitting sugar, which in excess will make you fat among 100 other proven maladies, is more emotional than physical.
“Quitting sugar is more emotional than physical.”
That, my friends, is the missing ingredient (and the title of my next post) in all weight loss programs… more on that in the coming weeks.
