Sugar Addicts’ Diet

I’m not saying I don’t ever have cravings, but I seem to be able to control them a lot better. I control them – they don’t control me, as they did in the past. A big part of it has been developing strategies to help me avoid situations in which I might be tempted to slip off the straight and narrow.

A WIDESPREAD ADDICTION

Since I made the decision to tackle my sugar addiction, I’ve discovered how many ‘secret’ addicts there are out there. ‘And I thought I was the only one like that!’ is something I now hear a lot.Sugar is everywhere and it’s hard to avoid it. That’s why it can be such a battle to kick your addiction. But I’ve come a long way, and I want other people to know they can do it too. Like me, you will find you lose excess weight, feel fantastic – and lay the foundations for a longer and healthier life.

I’ve been shocked by people’s lack of knowledge about the hidden sugars in their diet. There are confusing messages about sugar all around us, whether it’s on food labels or in fast-food joints. I have written this book to help sugar addicts like me understand why they crave sugar, and how they can get it out of their system and beat the craving once and for all.

IT’S NOT ALL BAD

A lot of people think that all sugars are bad, but my focus here is on refined sugars. Due to illnesses in my family, I’ve had the (mis)fortune of spending time with some of the world’s leading oncologists. They all say that refined sugars – those found in processed foods, sweets, cereals, bread, etc. – are a real danger. Obesity is just the start of it.

Some people have said that naturally occurring sugars are equally bad; I vehemently disagree. Natural sugars in fruit, for example, are unbleached, unrefined and delicious. Mankind has been eating fruit since the dawn of time. Like everything, it’s sensible to eat it in moderation and as part of a balanced diet. While fruit may contain varying quantities of natural sugar, called fructose, most varieties are still reasonably low in calories and come with a whole raft of nutrients that keep us feeling and looking good – including vitamins, minerals and fibre, which can help protect against stroke, heart disease and high blood pressure, and may lower the risk of certain cancers.

A HEALTHY EATING PROGRAMME FOR LIFE

My co-author, Martha Roberts, is an experienced, award-winning health writer with an avid interest in nutrition. She’s also one of the few people I know who isn’t addicted to sugar.

People often say if you want something done, ask a busy person. Well, it could also be said that if you want to understand how to enjoy non-sugary food, ask a person who’s not hooked on it! Together, as a writing team, we represent two opposite sides of the sugar-eating spectrum. We hope to present an unbiased, balanced view of how sugar affects all of our lives.

The Sugar Addicts’ Diet is a healthy eating programme for life. It will teach you about sugar so that you understand what it does for you (both good and bad), where it is in your food and how you can have more control over it so that it no longer controls you.

It’s really about lifestyle – learning skills for life and changing your ways without too much effort or heartache. And whether you’re reading this book because you want to lose weight or you’re fed up with being controlled by sugar, we hope it gives you the guidance and support you need to finally kick your sugar habit for good.

Part 1: (#u7f9b8be5-033e-56c9-b92e-4d0c05900cc8)

1 (#u7f9b8be5-033e-56c9-b92e-4d0c05900cc8)

Are You a Sugar Addict? (#u7f9b8be5-033e-56c9-b92e-4d0c05900cc8)

For many of us, being told how something can affect our health in the future is a big yawn. We’re told smoking can kill us and the sun can age us. Now we’re being told that sugar is one of our biggest enemies. It seems everyone’s out to get us. But many of us have the philosophy, ‘Why deprive yourself now on the off-chance that you will get ill in years to come?’

While eating sugar might not send you to the grave, it can lead to problems such as obesity and related illnesses that can make your life a misery. Symptoms or conditions linked to eating too much sugar may not be life-threatening but they can certainly threaten your quality of life. Even the government is now worried about the amount of sugar in our diets and has pledged to put it on its health ‘hit list’ after salt. And even before you start to suffer from the types of medical condition outlined in Chapter 4 (#u7473120a-dd8e-5e9c-8c49-9edb20ba4794), chances are you’re already suffering from sugar overload. This can lead to troublesome symptoms that spoil your sense of health and wellbeing.

OUR NATURAL LOVE OF SUGAR

Most of us love sugar. We are biologically driven to enjoy sweetness because it helps us identify foods that are safe to eat rather than poisonous (as bitter foods might suggest). Experiments on 10-day-old babies show that when an adult gives them a dummy dipped in sugar solution, they gurgle and look pleased when they see that adult again. Our desire for sweetness is something we can learn from a very young age – and never forget.

But an extreme love of sugar isn’t an inevitability – that’s something we can prompt by our actions when selecting foods for our children. Professor Aubrey Sheiham, Professor of Dental Public Health at University College London, has written extensively on sugars and health. He says there’s a crucial ‘window’ for overdeveloping this natural preference for sweetness in children and it becomes apparent when a child is weaning. At this point, they become ‘picky’ as they learn which foods are likely to be ‘safe’ and which are likely to be ‘harmful’. If this preference is indulged with lots of highly sweet foods, they will generally prefer sweet foods from that point onwards. Professor Sheiham says, ‘If you give them lots of sweet food in that window between the ages of two and four, their threshold and their liking for sugar will increase and they’ll want more. Equally, if you give them mildly sweet things, like fruit, their threshold will be lower.’

So what can you do if you’re an adult with a sweet tooth? It is possible to retrain your sweet tooth so that you lower your sweetness threshold. One former sugar addict, Amila, says, ‘My love of chocolate meant that nothing but chocolate could satisfy my sugar cravings. But I’ve now weaned myself off it by eating other sweet foods such as fruit, and where I used to eat bars of chocolate at a time to get the sweetness I needed, I now find that just one piece of chocolate is sweet enough for me. It really has been a case of “retraining” my palate. If you’d told me before that you could do this, I’d never have believed you!’ As you’ll see as you read through this book, stabilizing your blood-sugar levels through a proper diet, and finding sweetness in new places such as fruit, can help you retrain your own palate. This also has implications for preventing your children from loving sugar too much (see Chapters 5 (#litres_trial_promo) and 6 (#litres_trial_promo)).

WHAT IS SUGAR ADDICTION?

If you simply love sugar, does it mean you have a sugar addiction? Doesn’t it just mean you really enjoy the sugar taste and experience? It’s when enjoyment turns to compulsion – a need – that we begin to get into the realms of addiction. An addiction is:

• an intense desire for a substance, a desire so severe it disrupts normal life

• very difficult to stop

• something that prompts a severe physiological (bodily) response upon stopping.

People who are addicted to something experience a loss of control over their behaviour. They use a substance repetitively and compulsively, despite knowing it might have undesirable consequences. Some experts say that, unlike cigarettes, alcohol and other drugs, there is still insufficient scientific proof that physical addiction to sugar truly exists.

But many people say that their own overwhelming desire to eat sugar is proof enough. Some studies have also suggested that addiction to sugar can be demonstrated. In 2002, a psychologist at Princeton University showed in experiments that rats not only eat sugar excessively, but they suffer from withdrawal when denied it and continue to crave it weeks later. However, as we’ll see in Chapter 2 (#u43ac6e52-ad80-51e8-8873-569366e5011f), other experts suggest our desire for sugar (or, as they suggest, sugary, fatty foods) is more emotional than physical.

Whatever it is, there are lots of you out there who can’t get through the day without thinking about sugar – and probably eating it in excess, too. We don’t claim to be able to sort out the emotional side of why you want to eat sugar. That may be based on years of learning and habit, and addressing it may require soul-searching and even professional help. However, by focusing on sugar ‘dealers’ in Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo), we hope to help you see that there could be emotional trigger points to your desire for sugar. In combination with our 21-day plan, this will help you start to feel on a more even keel, physically and emotionally, when it comes to your desire to eat sugar.

Nicki’s Personal Addiction

My sugar addiction was with me all the time. Sugar was an obsession – the desire for it, how I was going to get it and how long it would be before I could taste it. I just wasn’t satisfied until I knew I could have that fix. Even a five-course meal wouldn’t satisfy the yearning for sugar. It’s as if there was a ‘good’ voice and a ‘bad’ voice inside my head. The good voice told me, ‘You shouldn’t be eating the sugar and should choose something else instead’. The bad voice said, ‘Go on – go for it! You know you want to…’ I felt out of control, as if sugar had cast a spell on me and I was powerless to do anything against it.

What Other People Say about their Sugar Addiction

As soon as we told people we were writing a book about sugar addiction, they said, ‘That’s ME!’ Everyone we mentioned it to said they had a problem with sugar cravings. Before we started out, we thought we’d strike a chord but we didn’t realize it would be to this extent. Here are some of the things they say about their love of sugar:

‘I have to have it in the house or I don’t feel secure.’

‘Even after a huge meal I have to have two sweets to be truly satisfied.’

‘I’ve loved sugar ever since I was a child.’

‘I’ll ask to see the dessert menu before I order anything else – I often build the entire meal around the dessert.’

‘If I eat too much sugar I feel drained of energy, I struggle to open my eyes and I sleep more.’

‘Too much sugar and I feel like I have a hangover.’

Polly’s Story

I’ve been hooked on sugar since childhood. Sugar is a device I use to make me feel happy. But as well as giving me pleasure, I abuse it. Some days I really try and get myself in check. I think, ‘How can I let sugar rule my life?’ But it’s so powerful I sometimes feel it’s no different to someone who is on heroin.

Sugar Addiction: the Symptoms

Losing control over your behaviour when sugar is around, eating it repetitively and compulsively, problems stopping its use – already this may sound familiar to you. But to give you further guidance, listed below are physical and emotional symptoms experienced by many people who say they can’t live without sugar. As we’ll see in later chapters, addiction is often linked to the emotions sugar stirs up in you. But it’s also about what it does to you physically.

The symptoms listed here are typical of imbalances in blood sugar levels. They also reflect a diet low in nutrients and high in sugars and refined carbohydrates. Poor eating habits, such as not eating regularly enough, make matters worse. The Sugar Addicts’ Diet addresses all these imbalances to help reduce such symptoms.

As you read through these lists, you may recognize some – or even all – of these symptoms. However, even people who have none of these symptoms will find the Sugar Addicts’ Diet a sensible, healthy, balanced eating plan that will help them maintain good health and prevent these symptoms taking hold.

Physical Symptoms

• Trouble controlling your weight

• Restlessness followed by a slump

• Lack of energy

• Trouble concentrating