Sugar Addict

[bmccartney]

"Hi, my name is Bethany, and I'm addicted to sugar." I need to eat at least every two hours in order to avoid my blood sugar crashing, and most of my food choices are proteins or fibers to keep things on an even keel. My problem is, if I don't have some form of refined sugar each day, I get BAD headaches, I'm crabby, shakey...it's a mess. I cut out all of the cookies, cake, chocolate out of my diet for about 4 weeks awhile back, thinking I just needed to cleanse my system and then I wouldn't crave those things anymore. It didn't work. The daily headaches were nearly disabling, and I'd DREAM about stuffing my face with chocolate cake and ice cream almost every night (seriously). So fruit as a dessert doesn't work - I still get the withdrawl symtoms. I've had my blood sugar tested repeatedly; no problem except the hypoglycemia if I don't eat often enough.

Was the 4 weeks just not enough time? Are there other ways to "detox" myself without going through the awful withdrawl period? I don't have caffiene at all (except chocolate, which may be a small handul of M&Ms a few times/week), but I think it feels similar to drinking 10 cups of coffee per day to suddenly going cold turkey.

Ideally I'd like to be able to "get off the sugar." Any advice?

Bethany

[JodelleFitzh20]

Hi, Bethany, my name is Jodelle and I am a personal trainer and yoga instructor. I study nutrition immensely and I hope I might be able to offer you some advice on this. First things first, alot of people are sugar addicts and don't realize it because they don't realize that even foods that aren't sweet have sugar. But if I may, I think they're may a deeper problem than the sugar. Have you read about Candida? Candida is a type of yeast that everybody has that can grow out of control after too many months or years of sugar abuse. Symptoms can range from bloating, abdominal discomfort, insomnia, chronic fatigue, and headaches are one of the big ones. To rid yourself of candida or see if that's part of the problem you need eat foods that starve the candida, and those foods are acidy sugary foods. You said you did a 4 week cleanse of sugar, but did you give up cereals, breads, potatoes, fruits, nuts and dairy?? If not, you were still getting some sugars. If you would like to try a candida cleanse, it's something that might help you and you should try it for at the very least - 7 days. Basically what you will eat is only lean proteins, i.e. fish, chicken, eggs, and non-starchy vegetables, such as brocolli, celery, cucumbers salads, avocados etc.. You would want to AVOID the following foods: beans, potatoes, carrots, corn, nuts and nut butters (they can have mold from manufacturing that the candida can feed on), and all things containing sugars such as crackers, cereals, grains, breads, pastas, sweets, and even fruits. After 7 days if you can handle it, you will have begun the starving process and killed off some of the Candida, but the longer you can sustain this eating the better the results. After 3 days if you have followed it strictly your headaches should start to subside if that's what's causing them. 3 days is all it takes for the body to begin to kick an addiction. The first 3 days are always the hardest. Only drink water during that time too. No dairy at all, as all dairy contains some sugars. You will also definatley want to take some probiotics to restore the good bacteria that you need to fight off the candida as well! Garlic is also a great way to naturally kill candida. If you need more info on this check out:
http://altmedicine.about.com/od/popu...andidadiet.htm

Let me know if this helps. Maybe you've tried this....I just thought it might be helpful.
Jodelle

[bmccartney]

Jodelle,
Thanks so much for taking the time to reply. You know, I have read about candida but never actually committed to the diet as it seemed too impossible. The foods you listed NOT to eat are what makes up my entire diet. My husband joked that if I was to try the diet, to warn him first so he could stay in a hotel (due to my lovely disposition as I cut out the sugars ) I was taking ThreeLac for awhile, but without the changes in the diet, it didn't do much (of course...though the makers of ThreeLac will say that you don't NEED to change diet while on the supplements :S)

Anyway, I will research this a bit more and see if I can make it work for me. Thanks again!

Bethany

[JodelleFitzh20]

You're welcome...let me know what you research and what you decide. I'm here to help, if I can.
JODELLE

[Ginny V]

You may want to do some research on glutamine supplementation. There are some good articles on Bodybuilding.com.

I've been taking glutamine for about 2 weeks and can honestly say all of my cravings for sweets are gone. Also, I was a daily glass of wine drinker, which I enjoy tremendously, but decided to cut it out in order to really clean up the diet...I'm not missing that either. Really, I'm quite surprised. I'm not sure how much is my supplementation though and how much is the fact that I've just got my mind in the zone right now.

It may be worth your time to check it out. Good luck!

[Sugarbean]

Bethany,
I just read your post about how you get hypoglycemic if you don't eat sugar- if your blood sugar truly drops below 60-70 mg/dL if you don't eat, that is not normal. Your body should be able to use glycogen stores from your liver to maintain a normal blood glucose when you don't eat immediately following digestion of your previous meal. If this really is the case, you should make sure you don't have a more serious metabolic problem by going to see your doctor. Just my two cents...