Experts are still debating whether or not sugar is an addictive substance according to the official meaning of the word. The definition of addiction is: a compulsive need for and dependence upon a habit-forming substance, accompanied by clearly defined symptoms upon withdrawal. That certainly seems to place sugar firmly into the addictive substances category, since people who try to stop ingesting sugar definitely experience unpleasant withdrawal symptoms.
However, even if that point is still under debate, there is also a secondary definition of addiction, and that is: persistent compulsive use of a substance known by the user to be harmful.
Even the knowledge that consuming large quantities of sugar is detrimental to our bodies isn’t enough to stop some of us from doing it every day anyway. We feel like we NEED it, so we keep consuming it.
Does this describe your relationship with sugar? Do you feel like you can’t function well without sugar?
If so, you may have developed a dependence upon it, and it will take a little effort to overcome it. But it CAN be overcome – so don’t feel like you’re stuck on the sugar roller coaster forever.
How is Sugar Addictive?
Before we move onto the strategies for overcoming a sugar addiction, let’s take a look at the reason why it can be addictive.
Just now I mentioned the sugar roller coaster, and that is an apt description for the reaction sugar creates in your body. When you ingest sugar, your blood glucose level rises sharply for an hour or two, then starts dropping back down. The problem is that it usually drops back down further than it was before you ingested the sugar, so now you experience symptoms of low blood sugar – irritability, fatigue, cloudy thinking, jitters, weakness, dizziness, and so on. That’s the “sugar crash” that people often refer to.
In order to feel normal again, you need to get your blood sugar levels back up, and most people will reach for a sugary or starchy food or beverage to do so, which creates another blood glucose spike, then another “crash” later.
By the way, I just mentioned starchy foods – and those react in your body similarly to the way that refined sugar does; creating blood glucose spikes and crashes.
So – whether you are drinking soda, fruit juice, coffee with sugar, or eating cookies, white bread or pasta, they all react virtually the same in your body – sharply elevating and then dropping your blood sugar levels.
Side Effects of Excess Sugar Consumption
Eating foods that contain large amounts of sugar triggers clear symptoms and side effects that can be felt for hours afterward. Below are a few of the most common:
- Nervousness and excitability
Children especially are prone to “sugar highs” – that jittery, jumpy, restlessness that occurs immediately after consuming a sugary food or beverage. If the food or beverage also contains caffeine, the effect is usually doubled.
- Trouble concentrating
Sugar is a mood-altering substance that can affect your ability to think clearly, especially during the inevitable “crash”.
- Fatigue
If you frequently ingest large amounts of sugar and then experience low blood sugar “crashes” afterward, it can create a cycle of constant ups and downs that sap your energy. You never feel stable – always either high or low, which is draining.
- Constant cravings
Sugar acts like an addictive substance because of the chemical chain reaction it creates in the body. You ingest it, your blood glucose levels are elevated, your pancreas must release a flood of insulin to process the sugar, which lowers your blood glucose levels and makes you start craving more sugar!
- Frequent urination
Elevated blood glucose levels often trigger your kidneys to attempt flushing out the extra sugar from your system, and they do this through frequent urination. This effect is even stronger if you are drinking sugary beverages that also contain caffeine, which is a natural diuretic.
- Compromised immunity
Ingesting too much sugar actually affects the ability of your white blood cells to destroy harmful bacteria, which makes you more susceptible to illness and infection.
- Mood swings
With all the highs and lows as your blood sugar levels rise and fall, your moods go along for the ride. You feel happy, sad, depressed, tired, energetic, irritated . . . out of control emotionally.
Signs That You May Be Addicted to Sugar
Just from reading the first couple of pages of this guide, you may already know whether you have a sugar addiction or not. However, just in case you’re still uncertain, below are some clear signs that will help you know for sure.
- Daily cravings
Do you spend a large portion of your day thinking about and craving sugar? While you’re watching television, working, or doing other tasks, do you suddenly feel like you need to eat or drink something sweet? These cravings are signals that your body is feeling an absence of something it has come to depend on – yes, it’s a symptom of withdrawal!
Even beyond physical cravings, it’s possible to crave sugar for emotional reasons. Eating or drinking something sweet triggers a release of a chemical called serotonin in your brain. Serotonin makes you feel more relaxed, calm, and happy. Consequently, you may find that you crave sweets when you feel stressed or unhappy.
- Gravitational pull
At a social event, do you often feel irresistibly drawn toward the sweeter end of the buffet table where all of the sugary treats are? This is more than just “liking” sweets – most of us do like sweets. However, if you feel almost compelled to eat sweets and starches in place of healthier options, it’s usually a sign that you’ve got a chemical dependence.
- Anxiety without sugar
Do you ever feel panicky or anxious if you don’t have any sweets in the house? Think back to the last time you started a diet and purged your cupboards of all junk foods, including sweet treats. Did you spend a few agonizing days feeling on edge, like you were without your safety blanket?
Anxiety almost always accompanies withdrawal symptoms – you feel like you need this substance but you won’t allow yourself to have it, so you don’t quite know what to do with yourself. Not just anxiety either; you may feel edgy, irritable, frustrated, tense, moody, or downright angry. These are all symptoms of withdrawal from an addictive substance.
- Like clockwork
Do you strongly crave sugar at specific times of the day, like first thing in the morning, mid-afternoon, or in the evening? You may have created a strong dependence upon sugar to pull you through periods of low energy or stress, and your body is now used to having it at those specific times.
- Dessert cravings
Do you feel like a meal just isn’t complete unless it is followed by a sweet treat? You may argue that it’s just your habit to eat dessert after meals – but if you feel frustrated or tense if you try to skip dessert, it usually means more is going on than just force of habit.
Getting the Sugar Monkey Off Your Back
Reducing your consumption of sugar can be done in two ways, like most other addictions: all at once, or by gradually reducing your intake. Let’s explore both options:
“Cold Turkey” Withdrawal Symptoms
If you have never tried to remove refined sugar from your diet and suddenly decided to give it up all at once, you would probably be in for quite a rude awakening as you experienced intense withdrawal symptoms like these:
- Headaches
- Fatigue
- Drowsiness
- Anxiety
- Restlessness
- Irritability
- Jitters
- Nausea
- Low energy
- Depression/moodiness
Going through a period of sugar withdrawal is definitely enough to convince you that sugar affects your body just like a drug! Symptoms of sugar withdrawal like these usually only last for a few days, but they are intense enough that many people feel unable to handle them.
Gradually Reducing Sugar Intake
Cutting down your sugar intake gradually may be less intense than quitting all at once, but this approach can also pose some problems:
- Inability to cut down
Some people find that they really struggle to cut down their sugar intake because the cravings are just too strong. They start out with the best of intentions to only eat a little bit of sugar once a day, or only eat one cookie instead of the entire package – but they have trouble controlling themselves and sticking to their intentions.
Another obstacle is force of habit. Even if you start each morning with a strong intention to avoid eating sugar, you may start eating or drinking something sugary before you even realize what you’re doing.
- Compulsive bingeing
It is also possible that your attempts to stop eating sugar may trigger an episode of binge eating, either before you start cutting back (“Since I can’t eat much sugar starting tomorrow, I’m going to eat all of the sweets in my cupboards today!”) or after you’ve started cutting back (“I can’t handle the withdrawal symptoms today because I’ve got a heavy workload, so I’ll just eat as much sugar as I can today and start fresh again tomorrow”).
The problem with binges like these is that you think you can kill the cravings by overloading them with sweets and you’ll get so sick of them that you won’t want them anymore – but it always backfires because eating sugar only makes you crave more sugar!
How to Cut Down Your Sugar Intake Sensibly
One of the best places to start is with sugary foods and beverages that you can really live without, but usually ingest habitually.
Examples:
Sugary Beverages
Instead of drinking sweetened iced tea or soda with your meals, start substituting water with a slice of lemon or lime. For the first few meals you may miss the sweet drinks, but it shouldn’t be unbearably difficult to stick to, and you’ll probably find that after a few days you don’t even feel like you need those sweet drinks anymore.
Added Sugar
Another good way to start cutting back painlessly is to stop adding sugar to foods and beverages. If you customarily add a few teaspoons of sugar to your morning cereal, try skipping it, or adding only half of what you usually do. Even better, slice up some fruit and add that to your cereal instead! It’s still sweet but much more healthful than refined cane sugar.
Do you also add sugar to your coffee or tea? If so, try cutting it out completely, or at least reducing the amount you add. You may be surprised to find that once you get used to it, you don’t even miss the extra sugar. Your taste buds adjust to a slightly reduced sweet taste, and you also avoid creating more cravings for sugar.
Sugary Foods
Reducing the quantity of sugary foods you eat may be most challenging, but there are simple, effective ways to do it.
Rather than trying to eliminate your consumption of all sweets, you could try reducing the quantity you eat. If you typically eat a large bowl of ice cream while watching television in the evening, try cutting down to a smaller bowl. Or buy ice cream that already comes in its own containers which usually contain about a one cup serving.
Rather than taking an entire bag of cookies with you to the sofa, grab a small dessert plate and place only two or three cookies on it. Eat them slowly and savor them so you feel like you really enjoyed a treat – this will help you to eat fewer cookies than if you are “mindlessly” gobbling them down.
Hidden Sugars
You may also want to start reducing your consumption of foods that contain “hidden” sugars – things like ketchup, jelly, jam, syrup, and most prepared foods; even those that don’t taste sweet can be loaded with sugar.
Remember the pitfalls of starchy foods also – white flour, white rice, potatoes, white bread, and white pasta all break down in your body and act very much like refined sugar by triggering a flood of insulin from your pancreas and setting you up for a “crash” and more cravings for sugar later.
Sugar Awareness
Also be aware that sugar has many names and faces that may seem harmless but actually trigger the same response in your body. Below are some common names for sugar and sugar relatives:
High fructose corn syrup, fruit juice concentrate, dextrose, glucose, maltose, cane sugar, evaporated cane juice, corn syrup, honey, brown sugar, maple syrup, sucrose, maltodextrin, carob syrup, barley malt, molasses, malt syrup, and others.
It’s very possible that you are ingesting much more sugar than you realize, even if you attempt to limit sweet foods and drinks! Avoiding these hidden sugars is as easy as educating yourself about the various names of sugar and keeping a close eye on food labels.
Is It Necessary to Completely Eliminate Sugar?
After reading about all of these horrible side effects caused by sugar, you may be wondering if you have to eradicate ALL forms of sugar from your diet and resign yourself to eating bland, non-sweet foods for the rest of your life.
Believe it or not, no, you don’t have to completely remove sugar from your diet to enjoy great health benefits. In fact, your body needs sugar and carbohydrates to function properly!
It’s WHERE you get your sugar that counts.
For the most part, you will definitely want to eradicate refined, processed cane sugar from your diet, since it is the cause of most of the problems we’ve covered so far. Depending on whether you are very sensitive to refined sugar or not, you may be able to indulge in a treat occasionally – but that is not recommended at the beginning while you are trying to overcome a sugar addiction.
You will also want to greatly reduce or eliminate altogether other forms of sweeteners that are almost as harmful as cane sugar, like honey, molasses, and maple syrup. They may have more nutrients than white sugar, but they still create a glucose roller-coaster effect in your body.
What About Sugar Substitutes?
Unlike some popular diet plans, I am not going to recommend that you switch to sugar substitutes like aspartame, saccharine and sucralose. While they may satisfy your desire for a sweet taste, they can also cause serious side effects like numbness, pain, dizziness, joint pain, depression, depressed immune system function, blurred vision, and even damage to various organs and glands in the body with long term use.
There are natural alternatives that don’t seem to have these damaging side effects – but keep in mind that they haven’t been extensively tested either. Two such natural sweeteners that are getting a lot of attention are stevia and agave nectar.
Stevia rebaudiana is a plant related to the chrysanthemum family and has been used for hundreds of years by native people in regions where the plant grows, like Brazil and Paraguay. The leaves can be used to make a sweet tea; the leaves can be dried and ground for using as a sweetener – and you can also purchase it in extract, powder and tablet form.
Beyond its extremely sweet taste (reported to be as much as 300 times sweeter than cane sugar), stevia has no calories and does not alter blood sugar levels, making it safe for diabetics and people with hypoglycemia.
Even better, stevia is reported to have additional health benefits, such as helping to lower blood sugar levels, stabilize blood pressure, and may even aid heart strength and function, but few conclusive tests have been done on these claims.
Regardless, stevia has been found to be non-toxic, has been available as a dietary supplement in health food stores for years, and is now being sold as an alternative sweetener in mainstream stores. Two popular recent brands to emerge are Truvia and PureVia.
Agave nectar is another natural sweetener becoming more popular. It is a sticky, syrupy amber colored liquid that comes from the heart of blue agave plants native to Mexico – that’s the same plant that tequila is made from.
Once the plant has matured for at least seven years, the leaves are cut off and sap is extracted from the heart of the plant, called the “pina”. Once this sap has been filtered and heated at low temperatures, you get agave nectar – a sweet, light syrup similar to honey but with a slightly different flavor.
Unlike stevia, agave nectar DOES have calories – 60 per tablespoon. However, it does not produce a rise in blood glucose levels like sugar and honey do, so it is reported to be safe for diabetics and people with hypoglycemia.
Keep in mind that sugar substitutes, whether natural or artificial, can still make you crave sugar. Just the taste of sweet foods and beverages can trigger sugar cravings, so be sure to use alternative sweeteners sparingly if you decide to use them at all.
Eating the Low Glycemic Way
One of the best ways to beat a sugar addiction for good is to adopt a low-glycemic lifestyle and stick to it. “Low-glycemic” refers to the Glycemic Index; which measures the impact that certain foods have on your blood glucose levels.
Foods that break down quickly in your system and elevate your blood sugar levels sharply are considered “high-glycemic,” while foods that take longer to be digested and create only a minimal elevation in blood sugar are considered “low-glycemic”. These ratings have a numbered scale that is used to classify foods and beverages as low, medium, or high-glycemic.
Pure glucose is used as the control for rating other foods, and glucose has a rating of 100 on the scale, which makes it high-glycemic. Foods that fall between 0 and 55 on the scale are considered low-glycemic; between 56 and 69 are considered medium; and 70 and above are high-glycemic. Eating a low-glycemic diet means choosing more foods that are on the low-to-medium part of the scale, and fewer foods that are on the higher end of the scale.
For example, some great low-glycemic foods are:
- 100% stoneground whole wheat bread (not just “wheat” bread, which usually contains refined white flour)
- Oatmeal (not instant)
- Cherries
- Apples
- Strawberries
- Brown rice
- Whole wheat pasta
- Nuts, seeds
- Meat, poultry, fish, eggs
- Most vegetables
Basically, the only things that make a food high-glycemic are:
- High sugar or starch content
- Low fiber content
Even foods that you might expect to be high-glycemic, like baked beans with a sweetened sauce, or peanut M&M’s, are actually considered low-glycemic because of the fiber and/or protein they contain, which help lessen the impact on blood sugar.
Sticking to a low-glycemic lifestyle is pretty painless once you educate yourself about which foods to avoid, and you’ll still be able to enjoy a few sweet treats here and there if you choose wisely. Before putting anything into your mouth, consider the impact it will have on your body – not just how good it will taste.
Tips for Reducing Sugar Cravings
As you work on reducing your sugar intake, you are bound to experience at least a few moments of sheer frustration as you crave sugar badly and don’t know what to do about it (besides give in and eat some sugar). The tips below can help you reduce the intensity of sugar cravings:
Eat Frequently
If you go too long without eating, your blood sugar is going to drop and trigger cravings for sugary, starchy foods. Be sure to eat lean protein, complex carbohydrates and healthy fats every 2-3 hours (small portions) to keep your blood sugar as balanced as possible.
Spice Things Up
Certain spices have been reported to help reduce sugar cravings: cinnamon and dandelion root are two that are well-known.
Cinnamon can be added to tea or sprinkled on oatmeal, vegetables or whole grain toast; and dandelion root comes in tea form and is said to not only reduce sugar cravings but help purify the liver and aid in fat burning. * Be sure to consult your doctor before taking anything in supplement form, especially if you have been diagnosed with a health condition or if you take medication for any condition.
Drink Plenty of Water
Keeping your body well-hydrated can help reduce cravings and minimize uncomfortable symptoms of sugar withdrawal, like fatigue, low-energy, headaches, and poor concentration. In addition, since your kidneys help in flushing excess sugar from the body, drinking plenty of water can help them do their job better.
Emotional Well-Being
Feeling stressed, depressed, angry, or bored can trigger cravings for sugary foods, so do what you can to prepare ahead of time and avoid emotional upheavals. Meditate, relax, take naps, stay busy with activities you enjoy – all of these things can help you avoid reaching for sugary foods to make you feel better.
Avoid Sugar
This is just common sense, but keep in mind that if you give in and consume some sugar, be prepared for a flood of cravings later on! To avoid this, just don’t give in to sugar cravings in the first place. It’s the best way to avoid battling cravings later. The longer you can resist the cravings, the better off you will be because the less your body is going to crave sugar.
For the first few days it might be a little rough to function without sugar, but after that you should find that your desire for sugar fades more and more – and eventually you’ll have little desire for it at all and you will be free from the addiction unless you slip back into eating sugar regularly again, which will quickly reactivate the blood glucose roller coaster. (Don’t do it!)
Life Without Sugar – How Sweet It Is!
When you successfully reduce your sugar intake so that your blood sugar levels remain balanced and healthy, you will notice a few things right away:
- Better energy
No more afternoon slump; no more feeling like someone stole your energy and vitality away. Keeping your blood sugar levels controlled means feeling much more vibrant and energetic – the same feeling you were probably seeking by ingesting all that sugar!
- Better concentration
You should also notice that you are able to concentrate much better without all that sugar polluting your brain – and you may also experience fewer headaches than you used to.
Many people have reported that JUST cutting refined sugar out of their diets resulted in significant weight loss over the following few months, even if they continued to eat the same amount of calories, or even more! Some of them didn’t even change their exercise habits at all – just stopped eating refined sugar and the pounds started melting off.
- No desire to eat sugar
One of the most impressive results that people notice after kicking a sugar addiction is that they suddenly don’t WANT to eat sugar anymore. They can look at a yummy, gooey dish of something sweet and shrug their shoulders and say, “no thanks”. It just doesn’t trigger the same rush that it did when their blood sugar levels were forever fluctuating up and down. In fact, some people report that after kicking a sugar addiction, sweet foods and beverages taste TOO sweet; cloyingly sweet; nauseatingly sweet.
If you are still in the grip of a sugar addiction this may sound completely foreign to you (how can anything be TOO sweet?). When you reach that point, you know that you are truly free!