Sugar is as addictive as tobacco or alcohol – and one of the toughest habits to kick because it’s a staple of the Standard American Diet (SAD). The average American adult consumes 140 pounds of sugar and about the same amount of white flour each year.
By beating sugar addiction, you can get multiple monkeys off your back. Sugar addiction contributes to diabetes, cardiovascular disease, anxiety and a plethora of other medical problems, and in day-to-day life it can just make you feel miserable. Common complaints include:
- fatigue
- getting irritable when hungry (causing major stress in relationships)
- chronic sinusitis
- digestive problems (irritable bowel syndrome and spastic colon)
- weight gain with inability to lose weight even on a diet
- poor concentration and memory
Here are eight tips to help you beat sugar bingeing this holiday season:
- Remember, pleasure is good! The key is to enjoy your sugar, as opposed to simply feeding addictive cravings and binging.
- Chocolate is a health food. But it’s not low-calorie. So go for quality, not quantity.
- Pace yourself. Slowly savoring a small square of chocolate enables you to feel satisfied and satiated. So, sometimes less is more.
- If you just try to go cold turkey without addressing the underlying cause of the sugar addiction, you’re likely to be miserable to be around and also fail at cutting back.
- Get irritable when hungry, aka, “hangry”? Fatigue of your adrenal “stress handler” gland is driving the sugar craving. Try increasing your salt and protein intake and drink a cup of licorice tea each morning.
- Have chronic sinusitis or irritable bowel syndrome? If so, you may have candida/yeast overgrowth that’s driving the sugar craving. Treating the candida and taking a good probiotic is a good one-two punch.
- In your 40s or 50s with anxiety and depression? These may be caused by estrogen or testosterone deficiency, and bioidentical hormones can make a world of difference.
- Stevia can be an excellent sugar substitute for those who like the taste.
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