I finally quit smoking 19 years ago. While it took years and years of false starts, I did it, eventually, and now I hardly ever think of cigarettes anymore.And when it came time to quit sugar, I looked back to what i had learned from my quest to become a non-smoker.Sugar is just as addictive as nicotine. And nicotine is more addictive than heroin, I've been told. So if it's hard to give up either substance, there's a good reason for that.[]
If you see a little of yourself in this message, you're not alone. Many describe themselves as sugar addicts. They believe if it were only for that one thing, then they could reach their weight loss goals. If you believe only one thing stands in your way of losing weight, consider this: What if that one thing (an addiction to sugar for instance) were gone? Do you really believe, "If I could get past this, there is no doubt that I will reach my goal," or is it an easy excuse to stay stuck?If I told you I could show you a way to stop craving sugar, would you want me to show you how? Think about that for a moment. Close your eyes and really think it through. You've said if only you didn't crave sugar, then you could lose weight, but is that really true for you? Ask yourself these questions:
Eventually though, I managed to stay away. Among the last challenges: I really craved cigarettes when I was very stressed. And I was stressed a lot. And so I finally made a deal with myself. IF I simply HAD to smoke, I could -- ONE cigarette. And after that, it was back to all the Nicorette it took to get it back out of my system. It helped. Because, frankly, I didn't enjoy Nicorette at all.And finally, I started chewing a Nicorette instead of smoking a cigarette. And after a while, I stopped that too.Now with sugar, it's much the same thing. There's the taste, and then there's the physiological reaction. If you can manage to separate the two, it may take you along way on your path tame your sugar addiction.To eliminate the addiction factor, it was important to eliminate sugar completely, at least for a while. But would I really need to quit all the sweet stuff too?
If you've got a habit of watching your favorite TV show with a bowl of ice cream, then breaking that habit is another obstacle.If you don't work out ways to overcome your obstacles perhaps through discussion and compromise with your husband, or habit breaking exercises for your ice cream habit, there's bound to be a problem. Just saying you're not going to do something any more rarely works. Instead determine what might stand in the way of achieving your goals, find a way around them, and you're much more likely to actually achieve those goals once and for all.The statement, "if this one thing were handled, then everything else would fall into place" is an "If Then" statement and gets people into trouble. They want a fairy godmother to make it all better. A strong belief that one single thing such as, "eating sugar is my problem," sets you up to fail, especially if you really like eating sugary foods.Getting a handle on your cravings is not an all-or-nothing proposition. You must leave room for occasional deviations. It's not the occasional side trip that causes weight trouble, it's the road we usually travel.
The holidays are over and with them the unrelenting onslaught of sugar-filled goodies. You know those treats aren't good for you but you probably couldn't resist them. How about a fresh start, though? Now may be the perfect time to start coming to grips with your sugar addiction. Because there will be more sugar even if it isn't quite a ubiquitous as it was during the prime of the holiday season.Why? Sugar can hurt you. If you have diabetes or even pre-diabetes, a season filled with sugary stuff can push you over the top and cause serious damage. If you're working at managing your weight, sugar addiction will definitely make your weight creep in the wrong direction. Unless, of course, you find a way off the roller coaster. If you haven't managed to do so before candied plums and company start making their entry, at least give it a shot now that the worst is over.
While it may seem like a lot of effort simply to decide what you really want, going through these steps at the beginning helps you find potential obstacles which previously stopped you from moving forward. For example, if you decide you want to join a gym and start exercising every day but you've forgotten you don't even own a car and just lost your job, that exercise plan might not work out right now. If you did join a gym, you'd end up not going and then you'd think you'd failed, yet it was the plan that failed, not you. You didn't think it through. A better plan in this instance may be doing exercises at home, or within walking distance (or simply walking for exercise). Later, when you do have transportation, you can rethink the plan and perhaps join a gym then. There are always options.It's better to look at what you want from every angle, then put together a plan you know can and will work. Then when you know what you want, you'll also know you can make it happen and begin by taking that first step toward making it a reality."Achieving a Well Formed Outcome" is one of the sessions in the Ending Emotional Eating 8-Week Workshop. You can also find more information on this popular and well known NLP process by searching for "NLP Well Formed Outcome" in your favorite search engine.
It took me most of my adult life to come to the realization that I was an addict - out of control, unable to resist a seductive, toxic substance. I used it daily and relied on it to make everything right. No matter how bad I felt after the buzz wore off, I did not stop. I had to have it. Was I hooked on cocaine, heroine, crack, or crystal meth? Nothing so obvious. In a way, my substance was more insidious because it is widely used, labeled by the Food and Drug Administration as "generally recognized as safe," and often invisible. I am talking about processed sugar.Unless you are consciously avoiding sugar, you eat it all day, every day of your life. According to the American Dietetic Association, the average American consumes in excess of 130 pounds of sugar a year; in other words, 6 ounces a day or 2.6 pounds a week. Over 70% of all processed foods contain some form of sugar because it is used as a preservative, flavor enhancer, fruit plumper, acid reducer, curing agent, fermentation medium, crust colorant, moisture holder, shelf-life extender, and provider of bulk, texture and body.
I have always loved sugar in any form, from fudgicles to birthday cake to spoonfuls of brown sugar right from the box. My early love affair with it never seemed a problem until my 20s when I developed constant headaches. They were present upon rising and going to bed, often erupting during the day into migraines. As a result, I ate analgesics (which contain 65 mg. of caffeine per tablet) by the handful, upwards of twelve a day, every day. In addition, my periods were getting worse with simulated labor pains and water-weight gain up to 10 pounds. Anxiety insinuated itself into my every thought.I worried about the occurrence of the improbable and impossible. Depression slowly settled a dark, suffocating blanket over me. By the time I was in my 30s, I had run the gamut of neurological tests, but nothing revealed itself or helped. (No one asked about my diet.) I was tired all the time, weak, and cried at a moment's notice. To comfort myself I ate some Brach's Bridge Mix, 'Nilla Wafers, or Breyer's Fudge Swirl Ice Milk, only now in larger portions and more frequently to round off the sharp corners.As I turned 40, I developed night sweats, a 120-beats-per-minute heart rate, and insomnia. A prescription for the generic beta-blocker propranolol slowed my racing heart in between binges. By this time I was eating all the sugar-laden food I could lay my hands on. If I did not have candy around, I would go to the store at any time in any weather to get it, bake a coffee cake, or eat raw sugar. Heartburn and gas were a constant problem.
This is different for different sugar substitutes though, so you may want to experiment. Stevia is the healthiest of the bunch, so whenever possible, choose that one. Also, try to reduce the sweetness of what you eat gradually when you have control, for example with coffee or tea. Learn to like it with less -- and eventually even without.depending on which sweetener you picked, you may find that you don't WANT to eat more than a small portion because eating too much of certain kinds, particularly sugar alcohols (maltitol, sorbitol, etc.) leads to major gastro-intestinal distress. So you eat just a little... That's what's called "self-limiting" in medicine, and it works great for sugar addiction as well.
By the end of the first week I actually began to feel "up." The knot in my stomach had untied itself in non-social situations. My outlook seemed brighter and my life felt as if it held promise. I have been off sugar for many years now and have experienced no recurrence of my previous condition except when I tested this potential cause-and-effect relationship. There is no question in my mind that, at least for me, sugar seemed to be an "addictive" substance (perhaps both physiologically and psychologically) and that this substance significantly increased not only my anxiety symptoms. To what degree my anxiety was related, in whole or in part, to the amount of insulin secreted to metabolize all the sugar was something I could not determine. If you experiences anxiety, you might wish to consider the possible negative impact of your sugar intake on your condition. The best way to test it is to gradually withdraw all sugar-related substances to see how your mood, emotions, thoughts, and behaviors respond. This is not easy or comfortable to do. However, if sugar is negatively influencing your anxiety, you will tend to see a more positive mood and a lessening of your anxiety symptoms as you eliminate more sugars. If so, you have what appears to be a correlation - that these two events happen to increase or decrease together.But that does not tell you if sugar likely "causes" your negative moods or anxiety. After you have been off sugar for a while, you need to test to see if a causal relationship exists. To do this you re-introduce sugar a little at a time to monitor your anxiety: if it reappears or worsen. When you are working to alleviate your anxiety, you need to look for all possible concrete, specific contributors, including your diet, and especially sugar.
[Sugar Addiction Treatment]
If you see a little of yourself in this message, you're not alone. Many describe themselves as sugar addicts. They believe if it were only for that one thing, then they could reach their weight loss goals. If you believe only one thing stands in your way of losing weight, consider this: What if that one thing (an addiction to sugar for instance) were gone? Do you really believe, "If I could get past this, there is no doubt that I will reach my goal," or is it an easy excuse to stay stuck?If I told you I could show you a way to stop craving sugar, would you want me to show you how? Think about that for a moment. Close your eyes and really think it through. You've said if only you didn't crave sugar, then you could lose weight, but is that really true for you? Ask yourself these questions:
Eventually though, I managed to stay away. Among the last challenges: I really craved cigarettes when I was very stressed. And I was stressed a lot. And so I finally made a deal with myself. IF I simply HAD to smoke, I could -- ONE cigarette. And after that, it was back to all the Nicorette it took to get it back out of my system. It helped. Because, frankly, I didn't enjoy Nicorette at all.And finally, I started chewing a Nicorette instead of smoking a cigarette. And after a while, I stopped that too.Now with sugar, it's much the same thing. There's the taste, and then there's the physiological reaction. If you can manage to separate the two, it may take you along way on your path tame your sugar addiction.To eliminate the addiction factor, it was important to eliminate sugar completely, at least for a while. But would I really need to quit all the sweet stuff too?
If you've got a habit of watching your favorite TV show with a bowl of ice cream, then breaking that habit is another obstacle.If you don't work out ways to overcome your obstacles perhaps through discussion and compromise with your husband, or habit breaking exercises for your ice cream habit, there's bound to be a problem. Just saying you're not going to do something any more rarely works. Instead determine what might stand in the way of achieving your goals, find a way around them, and you're much more likely to actually achieve those goals once and for all.The statement, "if this one thing were handled, then everything else would fall into place" is an "If Then" statement and gets people into trouble. They want a fairy godmother to make it all better. A strong belief that one single thing such as, "eating sugar is my problem," sets you up to fail, especially if you really like eating sugary foods.Getting a handle on your cravings is not an all-or-nothing proposition. You must leave room for occasional deviations. It's not the occasional side trip that causes weight trouble, it's the road we usually travel.
The holidays are over and with them the unrelenting onslaught of sugar-filled goodies. You know those treats aren't good for you but you probably couldn't resist them. How about a fresh start, though? Now may be the perfect time to start coming to grips with your sugar addiction. Because there will be more sugar even if it isn't quite a ubiquitous as it was during the prime of the holiday season.Why? Sugar can hurt you. If you have diabetes or even pre-diabetes, a season filled with sugary stuff can push you over the top and cause serious damage. If you're working at managing your weight, sugar addiction will definitely make your weight creep in the wrong direction. Unless, of course, you find a way off the roller coaster. If you haven't managed to do so before candied plums and company start making their entry, at least give it a shot now that the worst is over.
While it may seem like a lot of effort simply to decide what you really want, going through these steps at the beginning helps you find potential obstacles which previously stopped you from moving forward. For example, if you decide you want to join a gym and start exercising every day but you've forgotten you don't even own a car and just lost your job, that exercise plan might not work out right now. If you did join a gym, you'd end up not going and then you'd think you'd failed, yet it was the plan that failed, not you. You didn't think it through. A better plan in this instance may be doing exercises at home, or within walking distance (or simply walking for exercise). Later, when you do have transportation, you can rethink the plan and perhaps join a gym then. There are always options.It's better to look at what you want from every angle, then put together a plan you know can and will work. Then when you know what you want, you'll also know you can make it happen and begin by taking that first step toward making it a reality."Achieving a Well Formed Outcome" is one of the sessions in the Ending Emotional Eating 8-Week Workshop. You can also find more information on this popular and well known NLP process by searching for "NLP Well Formed Outcome" in your favorite search engine.
It took me most of my adult life to come to the realization that I was an addict - out of control, unable to resist a seductive, toxic substance. I used it daily and relied on it to make everything right. No matter how bad I felt after the buzz wore off, I did not stop. I had to have it. Was I hooked on cocaine, heroine, crack, or crystal meth? Nothing so obvious. In a way, my substance was more insidious because it is widely used, labeled by the Food and Drug Administration as "generally recognized as safe," and often invisible. I am talking about processed sugar.Unless you are consciously avoiding sugar, you eat it all day, every day of your life. According to the American Dietetic Association, the average American consumes in excess of 130 pounds of sugar a year; in other words, 6 ounces a day or 2.6 pounds a week. Over 70% of all processed foods contain some form of sugar because it is used as a preservative, flavor enhancer, fruit plumper, acid reducer, curing agent, fermentation medium, crust colorant, moisture holder, shelf-life extender, and provider of bulk, texture and body.
I have always loved sugar in any form, from fudgicles to birthday cake to spoonfuls of brown sugar right from the box. My early love affair with it never seemed a problem until my 20s when I developed constant headaches. They were present upon rising and going to bed, often erupting during the day into migraines. As a result, I ate analgesics (which contain 65 mg. of caffeine per tablet) by the handful, upwards of twelve a day, every day. In addition, my periods were getting worse with simulated labor pains and water-weight gain up to 10 pounds. Anxiety insinuated itself into my every thought.I worried about the occurrence of the improbable and impossible. Depression slowly settled a dark, suffocating blanket over me. By the time I was in my 30s, I had run the gamut of neurological tests, but nothing revealed itself or helped. (No one asked about my diet.) I was tired all the time, weak, and cried at a moment's notice. To comfort myself I ate some Brach's Bridge Mix, 'Nilla Wafers, or Breyer's Fudge Swirl Ice Milk, only now in larger portions and more frequently to round off the sharp corners.As I turned 40, I developed night sweats, a 120-beats-per-minute heart rate, and insomnia. A prescription for the generic beta-blocker propranolol slowed my racing heart in between binges. By this time I was eating all the sugar-laden food I could lay my hands on. If I did not have candy around, I would go to the store at any time in any weather to get it, bake a coffee cake, or eat raw sugar. Heartburn and gas were a constant problem.
This is different for different sugar substitutes though, so you may want to experiment. Stevia is the healthiest of the bunch, so whenever possible, choose that one. Also, try to reduce the sweetness of what you eat gradually when you have control, for example with coffee or tea. Learn to like it with less -- and eventually even without.depending on which sweetener you picked, you may find that you don't WANT to eat more than a small portion because eating too much of certain kinds, particularly sugar alcohols (maltitol, sorbitol, etc.) leads to major gastro-intestinal distress. So you eat just a little... That's what's called "self-limiting" in medicine, and it works great for sugar addiction as well.
By the end of the first week I actually began to feel "up." The knot in my stomach had untied itself in non-social situations. My outlook seemed brighter and my life felt as if it held promise. I have been off sugar for many years now and have experienced no recurrence of my previous condition except when I tested this potential cause-and-effect relationship. There is no question in my mind that, at least for me, sugar seemed to be an "addictive" substance (perhaps both physiologically and psychologically) and that this substance significantly increased not only my anxiety symptoms. To what degree my anxiety was related, in whole or in part, to the amount of insulin secreted to metabolize all the sugar was something I could not determine. If you experiences anxiety, you might wish to consider the possible negative impact of your sugar intake on your condition. The best way to test it is to gradually withdraw all sugar-related substances to see how your mood, emotions, thoughts, and behaviors respond. This is not easy or comfortable to do. However, if sugar is negatively influencing your anxiety, you will tend to see a more positive mood and a lessening of your anxiety symptoms as you eliminate more sugars. If so, you have what appears to be a correlation - that these two events happen to increase or decrease together.But that does not tell you if sugar likely "causes" your negative moods or anxiety. After you have been off sugar for a while, you need to test to see if a causal relationship exists. To do this you re-introduce sugar a little at a time to monitor your anxiety: if it reappears or worsen. When you are working to alleviate your anxiety, you need to look for all possible concrete, specific contributors, including your diet, and especially sugar.
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