Category: Health

Sugar Addiction &Days Off From Workouts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHI-7I9kD5k

“I don’t stop when I’m tired. I only stop when I’m done.”

 

It surprised me to learn that the above quotation came from Marilyn Monroe. How many times have we heard those words in connection with athletics?

 

In the training and weight loss program I taught for 14 years, participants would sometimes wish for a day off, or even several days. They’d tell that to the strength-training coach, for example, and his reply was an annoyed, “There are no days off! This is it – the way you eat, the way you train – all the time.”

 

Men can get away with saying things like that more easily than women can, I think. Regardless, I appreciated him for saying it – and, of course, agreed with him.

 

One participant asked me if she could stop keeping her food log on the weekends. She acted as if (and maybe actually believed) she just wanted a break from logging.

 

It seemed obvious, though, that those days off would only encourage her sugar addiction. I imagined her stopping the log not on Saturday, but on Friday morning, eating sugar nonstop for three days, and re-starting her log sometime on Monday.

 

What I pictured most vividly, however, was her discovery that she wasn’t losing weight and asking for my help. We’d have no records of her weekly binges.

 

I told her the truth: I couldn’t stop her from doing that but wasn’t going to approve it. How could I agree to help her fail and then tell others that our program didn’t work?

 

Toward the end of 2014, I read an article for entrepreneurs on finishing a great business year. The author explained that the only way to finish the year strong was absolutely to understand that there would “never be a day that (would) not require dedication, discipline, perseverance, accountability, and the need to execute relentlessly.”

 

Wow. That article may have been written about business but is all about fitness, athletic training, and weight loss. We know success in those areas depends on consistent and persistent action, not on temporary changes till the pounds are lost or the goal is reached.

 

I must be in a quotation kind of mood because Dan Millman comes to mind:

 

“There are no ordinary moments.”

 

Isn’t that what wishing for a day off is – a wish for moments that simply don’t count? Moments with no repercussions, when we can do what we know we shouldn’t and not suffer the consequences?

 

I’ve wanted those moments, too: when the alarm wakes me at some ridiculous hour to go train, for instance, or when I was flat-out tired of writing my dissertation.

 

We’ve probably all had moments when we wish for ordinary moments. But since I’m quoting everyone else’s wisdom today, here’s the proverb I like best in this context:

 

“When climbing a mountain, give up a thousand times; just keep your feet moving.”

 

That one really works. We can mentally go in any direction – discouraged, foolish, negative, fanciful, absurd – but never let it affect our behavior or change our plan of action.

 

At this point in January, some of us may already be struggling with a motivation slow-down. Instead of trying to “recharge the battery”, which will need to be done over and over, why not encourage yourself just to keep your feet moving, no matter what?

 

And on that note, how about one final quote?

 

I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act, but I do believe in a fate that falls on them unless they act. – G.K. Chesterton

 

Anthony Robbins said, “Knowledge is only potential power. Implementation is power.” Nutrition coaching from someone who understands sugar addiction is implementation on steroids!

 

Ending sugar addiction can help you improve your moods, transform your health, and lose weight, even if diets haven’t worked for you. You’ll get a detailed execution plan so you can take action and get results as quickly and easily as possible.

Resource

sugar addiction |  sugar addiction expert

Defeat Sugar Addiction

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMV6vncmjJQ

Food logs. Could anything be more boring? Probably. Despite that, I’m going to argue that food logs can help you defeat sugar addiction.

 

Let’s acknowledge that self-report can (and always will) have its subjective side – and that’s an obvious drawback. Yet it’s still a lot more accurate than a verbal list of foods.

 

Study after research study has shown that self-monitoring through record keeping (your food, your workouts, and more) is an extremely helpful tool. This holds true whether you work with a nutritionist or just keep the log for your own use.

 

And you don’t have to do it forever! Even one or two weeks of logging will help you make changes that can help you defeat sugar addiction.

 

Why not just eat and hope for the best? In my experience, food logs can help you develop an awareness of food and eating behaviors that can’t be matched in any other way.

 

“I Always Thought I Ate More Vegetables”

 

My clients may think they know exactly what they eat, but they can be wrong. What they say they eat is often quite different from what their food logs reveal when they keep them and show them to me.

 

Clients who tell me verbally what they eat might be describing tendencies only, what they tend to have as a rule. Those general descriptions don’t (and can’t) include deviations from the basic plan – extra snacks, unexpected treats, lunches out, dinner invitations, beverage consumption, and so on.

 

Food logs will often be more accurate. They provide a record of all foods eaten, including the ones you might want to forget, or small tastes and samples that are easy to forget.

 

Food logs can reveal food groups that might be missing, such as vegetables or enough protein.

 

Important food facts include more than just which foods you eat. They include when you eat, portion sizes, and length of time between meals.

 

An accurate log will also show portion sizes. Taken together, all of this information can help you improve your nutritional balance, which in turn can help you control your sugar intake.

 

Logging Shows Patterns That Make You Stumble

 

Food logs can show patterns. I don’t suggest that you try to analyze your eating habits and patterns while you’re keeping the log, but I do suggest that you make it easy.

 

One client kept his log on his phone. Each page had only one meal at a time. To compare, say, his breakfast from day to day, I had to flip through three meals on each day – and of course memorize each of his breakfasts because there was no way to compare the meals side by side.

 

At least use a log that shows an entire day’s food intake on one page. Seeing your own patterns increases your awareness and your ability to change certain eating habits that may be getting in your way.

 

Nighttime binges, a common problem, might be due to skipping breakfast. The body will tend to “correct” the deficit by making up for it later.

 

A similar calorie correction can occur when you consume too little food throughout the day. If you know you’ll be gone all day and feeling hungry, try to plan convenient meals or snacks that don’t take much time to eat. Bring those foods with you, if necessary, so you avoid the starve-now-binge-later trap.

 

A client of mine used to avoid food all day because she always binged on sugar late in the day. She thought it would help her cut down on her calories overall. Of course, her daily “fast” was one of the reasons she binged later. Another reason was what she ate during the day.

 

Nighttime binges can also be caused by brain chemistry. The nighttime increase of endorphins (beta-endorphin) increases appetite. That may coincide with end-of-day stress relief.

 

If you have a habit of using food – especially sugar – for stress relief, it’s likely a result of both stress hormones and brain chemistry, not your lack of willpower. When stress ends as your workday does, that can trigger sugar binges (or over-consumption in general) in the evening. It might continue for several hours.

 

Patterns like these aren’t necessarily something clients can perceive themselves, which is another reason that a food log can help.

 

Logging Reveals What You May Be Hiding

 

Food logs can also reveal smokescreens – whether they’re intentional or not. This is best illustrated with some actual examples.

 

One client, a sugar addict, submitted a food log that was detailed in almost every respect. She included precise info on every food in every meal she ate, along with her exact portion sizes.

 

When it came to vegetables, though, the log would simply say “vegetables.” She never specified which ones – or how much of them she’d eaten.

 

It looked like a clear case of hiding how few vegetables she was eating. If she tasted one tiny morsel of broccoli, was she listing that as “vegetables”? Was she hoping I wouldn’t notice the vagueness because of all the other details?

 

I pointed out the discrepancy between the precision everywhere else in her log and the lack of precision with respect to her vegetable intake. She seemed confused. As I recall, she muttered something about needing to be more accurate.

 

Did she really not know what she was doing? Obviously, I couldn’t read her mind, but I half expected her to say instead, “Oops, busted!”

 

Another client reported that she had begun to eat vegetables – something she wasn’t doing when we started working together.

 

This client used to bring her food logs but never show them to me. One day, I asked if I could see the log for that week. She looked worried but let me look at it. The only vegetables she had eaten were corn and carrots – not the ones I’d been hoping she’d start eating. I always push green.

 

A third client told me that, on her birthday, she had eaten a slice of the cake a friend made for her. Her food log showed that she had eaten cake every day for 5 days.

 

Logging Can Stop a Binge In Progress

 

Logging your food can change what and how you eat. Most clients tell me that logging has made them more conscious of what they eat. Even better, they say it has stopped them from eating junk – just because they didn’t want to write it in their logs.

 

It’s almost instinctive to stop writing in a food log when a sugar attack hits. I’d suggest that you continue to keep your log – even if you don’t like it. Maybe especially if you don’t like it. It can stop the sugar attack cold.

 

One client kept having sugar cravings, but I never understood why. Based on the food logs he showed me, it didn’t seem possible that he’d still experience cravings. I never saw a single day with any sugar intake, yet he’d always tell me how difficult he found it to resist his sugar cravings.

 

I said they’d go away in time, but he seemed surprised. (That should have been a red flag for me.) Finally, he admitted that he stopped logging whenever he ate sugar.

 

It’s difficult to keep logging when you’re eating foods you know will sabotage you, but it can change your behavior very effectively. The following example shows the change.

 

One client ate sugar regularly and would then find herself bingeing. That pattern happened frequently. She would also stop logging as soon as the binge started.

 

We agreed that she would keep logging. She didn’t have to show me the logs, but she’d write down everything she ate during the binge.

 

When she did that, her binges got smaller. And the binge episodes became shorter than they were when she just abandoned her food log.

 

Logging Helps You Track Your Sugar Attack

 

A food log can help you track triggers for a sugar attack. Did you eat sugar early in the day? That can lead to changes in both appetite and food preferences, either that day or even the next day or so.

 

A client once asked if she could “take weekends off from logging” her food. Obviously, I couldn’t stop her from doing it, but I didn’t approve it.

It was certain to encourage her sugar addiction. I pictured her stopping the log on Friday – not even at the end of the day – then eating with wild abandon for several days and re-starting her log sometime on Monday. Or even Tuesday.

 

We would have no record of her food during those off-log days. I knew not keeping a record would encourage her to give in to her sugar addiction and cravings. With no log, there would be no responsibility and (in her mind) no consequences.

 

Of course, she wouldn’t lose the weight she wanted to lose, and I wouldn’t be able to coach her with any success because we’d have no record. She’d then probably quit the program and tell others it didn’t work.

 

Well, she did take those days off from “logging” for a while. She made no improvements during that time. When she finally decided to keep her log day in and day out, she lost the weight she wanted to lose. She also got such a great medical report that her doctor sent me a thank-you note.

 

Then there was the woman who had been to 8 different nutritionists and had kept a food log for every one of them. She told me I was the only nutritionist who actually read the logs. Yikes.

 

I can’t explain why the other practitioners did what they did – or how they could make helpful recommendations without knowing what their clients were eating.

 

What I know is this: A food log is a solid accountability tool, whether you show it to anyone or not.

Resource

how to get off sugar | how to quit sugar

Former Sugar Addict

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlS8TX5AKgg

Oh, the dark side of sugar’s sweetness! At one point in my life, it had such a hold on me that I would think nothing of starting my day with Pepsi and chocolate ice cream for breakfast. Morning muffins, pastries and sugar-laden cereals were the norm. I LOVED to have chocolate chip pancakes drowning in maple syrup! I inherited my father’s legendary sugar addiction and for many years I thought it was “normal”.

 

Once I started working post-college, it was the norm to eat sugar throughout the day because it was always available on someone’s desk and it helped with those late afternoon energy slumps. At least I thought it did!! I managed to eat this way until it hid me hard in my mid 20’s and I finally decided to get the monkey off my back. I was 30 pounds overweight, which was my first significant weight gain and I had NO energy and just felt terrible.

 

It was not an easy realization or accomplishment. But, all I knew is that I wanted to FEEL BETTER. At that point, I didn’t fully realize the grip that sugar had on me – I thought it was more about my lack of exercise and sitting behind a desk all day. I knew I needed more vegetables in my diet, but the grip that sugar had on my life was a rough awakening to say the least.

 

As is my nature, I started reading anything I could get my hands on to change my diet for the better and have more energy. Low and behold, it led me to discover the true depth of my sugar addiction and how it was impacting my life physically, mentally and emotionally.

 

So I did my first sugar “detox” and discovered just how strong the grip was – those first few days were so rough that I almost cried. I WANTED sugar so badly I think I could have ripped someone’s head off! Thankfully I had the wisdom to take a few days off of work to begin the process or my co-workers probably would have shown me the door. But I learned so much, lost the weight, and felt so much better that I was hooked!

 

However, over the years I let it creep back in and with it came the weight gain and anger at myself for letting it happen.. I would also turn to sugar when my marriage was suffering and when I wasn’t getting the “sweetness” I needed from my husband. What a POWERFUL realization that was for me; that sugar could be replacing something that I needed on an emotional and physical level!

 

I didn’t fully understand this about myself until I became a health coach and discovered the concept of Primary Foods. This involves taking a close look at what is going on in four key areas of their life – Work/Career, Spirituality, Physical Activity & Relationships. When you are fulfilled in these four areas, what we call “Primary Foods”, actual food becomes secondary.

 

In my case, I was turning to sugar when what I really wanted was a hug, love, or meaningful communication with loved ones. Once that emotional piece kicked into place for me, the roller coaster ride almost came to an end. I say “almost” because I do still indulge, but I do it intentionally AND I know how to get back on track afterward with nutrition and lifestyle choices.

 

It is a relief to now be able to look away from the Christmas cookies and opt for a bit of quality dark chocolate instead, most of the time. I naturally gravitate toward the quality option and I savor every bite. It’s not about deprivation; I simply don’t like how I feel after consuming white flour and refined sugar and I have loving relationships in my life that sustain me emotionally.

 

So, how can you become a former sugar addict? Here are a few tips that I hope you will find helpful to start you on the path:

 

Tip#1: Whenever possible, satisfy your desire for something sweet with a milder, less extreme food that doesn’t contain white sugar or flour. There are many healthy cookies or sweet treats made with whole grain flour and sweetened with fruit juice of barley malt, which is a sweet syrup made from barley.

 

Tip#2: Try incorporating sweet vegetables into your diet on a regular basis, which help to naturally reduce your cravings for sugary, processed foods. The following vegetables have a deep, sweet flavor when cooked: corn, carrots, onions, beets, sweet potatoes, yams and winter squash.

 

Tip#3: Experiment with natural sweeteners such brown rice syrup, barley malt and stevia. Explore your local health food store for a full selection. Consider not using one at all – I add cinnamon to my morning coffee and sometimes pure vanilla extract. Once you’ve eliminated the super-refined options, the “alternatives” taste much sweeter!!

 

Tip#4: Take some time to deconstruct that craving. Are you really craving sweetness from food or from someone or somewhere else? It’s entirely possible that a hug or supportive conversation from someone near and dear to your heart is what you are craving. Perhaps you need a change of scenery or some therapeutic self care like a massage or yoga class. Sit quietly for a moment, breathe, and then ask yourself the question… you’ll get the answer.

 

Tip#5: Lastly, when you simply must indulge that chocolate craving, go for quality and savor it. My personal favorite is the “Endangered Species” brand of 72% dark chocolate with cranberries and almonds. Just a few squares chewed slowly and thoroughly, and it is more than enough. Treat yourself well and, should you choose that brand, applaud yourself for preserving our endangered species in the process!

 

Is it time to stop letting sugar control your life?

 

Is it time to take the next step?

 

What if you had the support, tools, and strategies to feel healthy & vibrant? Let me help you discover your personalized road map to the life you have always wanted; the life you have always envisioned for yourself.

Resource

sugar addiction book | sugar addiction treatment