@bloya89, this is a great suggestion! Thanks!!
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More great info, thanks!
Starting small but no sugar in the my coffee this morning. It helps that it is a cold brew, too, which is less bitter.
What else?
I like that topic. I have been going through a dramatic weight loss journey and learned a lot about eating habits, nutrition, etc.
I could probably write a book about it. Long story short, I lost 100 lbs coming from 243 now at around 143ish.
Anyways, sugar IS addictive - maybe not addictive in the traditional way but there is a certain mental addition. It’s almost impossible to completely avoid sugar and it is not needed, but you certainly want to avoid added sugars. That basically means that you need to almost avoid ALL processed foods and prepare everything from scratch. If you start looking at the ingredients list of certain (almost all) foods, you will be shocked how much sugar can be found.
Here are a few things I do:
Breakfast:
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greek non fat yogurt, add FRESH berries (blackberries, raspberries, strawberries). If needed, add some low sugar/non sugar cereal, but only very little (maybe 1/4 cup cereal in 1 cup of yogurt).
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bake your own banana or even better zucchini bread. I bake non-added-sugar ones. I created my own recipes. You will be unable to completely avoid sweetener. I use a little honey. Actually I want my piece of zucchini or banana bread every day in the afternoon
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bircher muesli - a German overnight oat recipe. I made my own recipe: Greek fat free yogurt, oats, banana, apple. nothing else.
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overnight oats: use steel cut. make it with water. NO Sugar but some salt. Add berries or some fresh grapes for sweetness.
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cottage cheese: again, berries taste great with cottage cheese. Use cottage cheese on sandwiches (buy no sugar added no syrup added bread or bake your own).
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No sugar or sweeteners in coffee. You’ll get used to it very soon.
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Avoid going out for dinner/lunch. Almost all places are adding sugar to all their dishes.
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while on the bike, I also avoid that sugary crap that is store bought. I eat my banana/zucchini bread or I use sugar free/syrup free bread and add peanut butter (only one but max 2 ingredients can be on the label: peanuts and if needed salt) with mashed banana. Don’t use normal peanut butter. Super bad.
I hope that helps a bit.
winoria
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Great info, thanks!
one more thing: eat nuts. but buy nuts without peanuts and no salt. You will love it and it will satisfy your sweet tooth. Still, watch for too much fat/calories from nuts. But maybe half a cup a day is not bad at all.
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Sugar isn’t addictive.
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there is a great experiment with mice/rats. they give them sugar and cocaine. After a while, the mice can only pick one, either sugar or cocaine. guess what they pick? It is addictive.
thanks
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I’d go for the sugar over the cocaine, too. That still doesn’t prove that sugar is addictive. Unfortunately there’s a trend in modern society to demonise certain foods and hold extreme views about the foods we eat. A bit of sugar isn’t going to kill you or make you morbidly obese.
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You are side tracking the discussion. Explain why many people can’t just eat “a bit”.
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There are many variations of this study. If the rats (or mice) are put in isolation then they are much more likely to choose the cocaine. However, if they are put in with many other rats then they are more likely to choose the sugar (and will even ween themselves off of the cocaine if they enter the environment addicted).
While it might be debatable that sugar is addictive in a medical sense or strictly by definition, I don’t think anyone would be honest in saying that it isn’t strongly habit forming. It can also have strong emotional ties that make it hard to just quit it cold turkey and will certainly show certain facets of breaking an addiction.
Just watch a young kid eat something sweet and tell me that there isn’t something hard wired in our brains to just love sugar. Luckily, in the context of this conversation, our tastes buds tend to change as we get older to trend toward more bitter and less sweet foods. In addition, as you eat less sweet foods your tastes will change and you will both crave sweetness less and be able to tolerate overly sweet foods less.
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I’ve gotten off sugar a few times and generally eat a low sugar diet now. I think the key is giving it up completely for 2-3 weeks. After that you loose the taste and craving for it.
I listened to this podcast recently:
They interviewed Stephan Guyenet whose stuff I’ve read in the past. I think he’s very on point.
The most interesting point I think he makes in this podcast was about hyperpalatable food. Sugar, salt, and fat all make food taste fantastic which then causes us to want to eat more and more.
One point he makes is the idea that food doesn’t have to always be super tasty. Sometimes food can just be fuel. Coffee doesn’t have to sweet. Oatmeal doesn’t need salt, butter, and sugar in it if you just wanted the carbs for a bike ride.
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You seem to have answered your own question. BTW, salt and fat aren’t addictive either 
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We were programmed by evolution to eat a bunch of berries when we found them in the wild. That was only a seasonable and occasional occurrence. Now sugar is in every single food and available constantly.
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Yup, agreed. Unfortunately many of our ancient evolutionary traits are at odds with our current environment.
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I have a big problem with sweets, snacking, and sometimes binging (especially if I’ve had a drink or two, or a puff). Having things like carrots and celery in hand is a good trick for me. I don’t limit foods like that, so I can just chow down until I’m tired of chewing!
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You also don’t need to eat the pure sugar stuff when on the bike, especially when training at home. Bananas are great, home-made muesli bars (with as much or as little sugar as you want), rice bars, trail mix with dried fruit, or, if you want sugar, jam sandwhich all work fine.
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That’s news to me. Can you expand? Is this really just arguing the definition of a true physical addiction? Sugar certainly feels addictive to me.
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Sugar has not been proven to be addictive.
Sugar, Fat and Salt all taste nice. We want to eat them. That is not the same as “addictive”.
Is it hard to reduce intake of them? Yes, particularly if confronted with free offers like in an office environment.
Losing weight is hard, and takes will power. After giving up smoking, and losing over 8 stone (after always being, apparently, “big boned”), I always say giving up smoking (which is addictive) was harder as no one came around the office offering me “just one” cigarette like they do with biscuits/ cake/ donuts.
Cutting out foods you like 100% is the path to disordered eating, if not eating disorders.
I’d really recommend following people like “The Fitness Chef” and Scott Baptie/ Food for Fitness for evidence based scientifically proven guidance @rkoswald
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The evidence just doesn’t exist that sugar is addictive. There are lot of quacks in the low carb community that will push the idea of sugar addiction. On the extreme end you’ll even find some that claim there’s such a thing as carb addiction. The rodent / cocaine study is a good example of people incorrectly representing research to push their agenda.
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Some of the confusion here, I think, comes from the difference between the scientific/medical use of the word “addiction” vs the colloquial use of the word.
There is certainly a physiological drive to consume sweet things. It can be habit forming. And for many sweet foods can be psychologically comforting. So for a lot of people I think sugar can feel addictive because they have such a hard time, both physically and mentally, giving it up but that doesn’t make it addictive in a scientific sense.
Similar to how a lot of people might say “I’m OCD about keeping my bedroom clean” when what they really mean is “I like my room clean and it makes me anxious when it’s messy”. They don’t have a true diagnosable case of OCD.
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