Calling all recovering sweetaholics

I've had such a terrible week.  I feel out of control with what I'm eating.  I admit I'm an emotional eater.  Anyway I would love to hear from people out there who once loved eating sweets and foods that in general are bad for your body who now eat healthily and no longer feel the need to pollute their bodies with junk.  Right now I can't envision myself ever giving up sweets.  How did you stop wanting to eat these things? 

I'm on Day 3 of my new sugar-free diet! So far so good... I haven't had any cravings, but I'm not being too optimistic yet. I've gone without eating sweet stuff for about a week before, but then I usually end up caving. Happens (coincidentally) on Fridays when my boss brings in white chocolate chip macadamia nut cookies, which I LOVE.

I'm an emotional eater too and I find that I reach for cookies or chocolate when I'm having a stressful day. I've tried to replace it with shopping but that leads to other pitfalls... like a dwindling bank account :P

I think the key to weening yourself off sugar is to start replacing it in your diet with substitutes like fruit, or honey. If you ever find yourself craving something sweet, have some healthy snacks on hand. I'm keeping frozen blueberries in the freezer so if I'm ever craving something sweet, I'll thaw out a cupful of them and mix them up with some low-fat yogurt.

Some other good healthy but sweet snacks that I can think of are raisins (maybe even in a trail mix, with some almonds and cashews), or other dried fruit. Although in moderation... cuz these can end up being very high in natural sugar and therefore high in calories...

Hey there,

I have a massive sweet tooth right now but that's just my period playing around with my hormones.

Before eating healthily and BALANCED I was craving sweets all the time. I think the key lies in that you eat a meal that has a good ratio between carbs, proteins and fat.

You see if you only ate carbs your sugar level will skyrocket and what goes up must come down and when It does come down your body will ask for the same high again.

But if you combine carbs with the appropriate amount of fats and proteins your body will see it as a balanced, meal and there will be no sugar level skyrocketing.

I'm struggling with a sweet tooth again myself.  I made the mistake of re-introducing sugar into my diet again.  It made me go just bonkers.  I've had several sugar binges over the past few weeks.  So now I'm trying to cut out the sugar completely, at least til I lose 10 more lbs. 

I did discover a quick fix for a sweet craving however.  Apple slices dipped in no fat caramel dipping sauce, or in melted dark chocolate chips.  As long as you only use about 2 tablespoons of dipping sauce, lol. Your produce dept usually has that dipping sauce right with the apples this time of year.  :) 

Rachel

I've been through a lot of crap in my life but I swear not eating chocolate and not drinking Coke is the hardest thing I've ever had to do. It's especially bad because everyone in my office likes to keep CANDY on their desks and insists that you eat it when you walk by. My willpower faces its ultimate test. So far I have my days - sometimes I can resist it all day and sometimes I give in to the craving. Oh man, just writing this post my mouth is salivating.

That's a good idea, Rachel, I think I might go to the grocery store RIGHT NOW for some apples and caramel sauce.

I too eat a lot of raisins and dried fruit. I count them as I eat so I know exactly how many I'm putting in my body, otherwise I would eat way too many and I may as well have just eaten candy.

Giving up doritos was easy...giving up mini peanut butter cups is awful!  I still love them, but I just try to remember how much they love my hips...if they sold them in a smaller size I might be in more danger but they marketing folks haven't figured that out yet so I'm safe barring the occasional slip up.  I do still eat chocolate, just not usually too much.  I will have chocolate chips straight up, but I  put them in a creme brulee bowl so I can't fill it too full.

Oh boy, can I relate. I love carbs...chips, cookies, cake, you name it. For me two things helped. One was forcing myself to log every single calorie and recognizing that there really is no room in my diet for sweets on a regular basis. I mean, if you work on getting 100% of your required nutrients through balanced meals, you just don't have any calories left for a piece of cake. 1200 comes and goes really quickly.

Second, and this was the most important, was to STOP eating those things for an extended period of time, and start eating only low glycemic foods. The cravings fade the longer you go without having ANY. I mean, not even a little bite. I think it must be an insulin thing.

My advice is to replace all sugar with sweetener, agave, sugar alcohol or stevia or whatever sugar substitute you want to use. Switch to diet soda, cut out all refined carbs such as white bread, white rice etc, and make sure you eat less than 500 cals per meal. Your blood glucose responds more wildly to big meals, and wild glucose yoyoing is exactly what you DON'T want when you're trying to stop the sweet cravings.

I run evey ther day. Susequntly i get 300-400 possible 500 depending on how energetic I was extra calories n my run days. On those days I always have 2 dove cookies. or if it was a 500 cal day I ave some ice cream and a cookie. it all depends. I guess everything in mderation. I'm also the kind of person that smokes one cigarrette a day three on saturday and sunday. So Im not tempted to eat the whole box of cookies.