Nicki Waterman - Sugar Addicts’ Diet

So what can you do if you’re an adult with a sweet tooth? It is possible to retrain your sweet tooth so that you lower your sweetness threshold. One former sugar addict, Amila, says, ‘My love of chocolate meant that nothing but chocolate could satisfy my sugar cravings. But I’ve now weaned myself off it by eating other sweet foods such as fruit, and where I used to eat bars of chocolate at a time to get the sweetness I needed, I now find that just one piece of chocolate is sweet enough for me. It really has been a case of “retraining” my palate. If you’d told me before that you could do this, I’d never have believed you!’ As you’ll see as you read through this book, stabilizing your blood-sugar levels through a proper diet, and finding sweetness in new places such as fruit, can help you retrain your own palate. This also has implications for preventing your children from loving sugar too much (see Chapters 5 and 6 ).

If you simply love sugar, does it mean you have a sugar addiction? Doesn’t it just mean you really enjoy the sugar taste and experience? It’s when enjoyment turns to compulsion – a need – that we begin to get into the realms of addiction. An addiction is:

• an intense desire for a substance, a desire so severe it disrupts normal life

• very difficult to stop

• something that prompts a severe physiological (bodily) response upon stopping.

People who are addicted to something experience a loss of control over their behaviour. They use a substance repetitively and compulsively, despite knowing it might have undesirable consequences. Some experts say that, unlike cigarettes, alcohol and other drugs, there is still insufficient scientific proof that physical addiction to sugar truly exists.

But many people say that their own overwhelming desire to eat sugar is proof enough. Some studies have also suggested that addiction to sugar can be demonstrated. In 2002, a psychologist at Princeton University showed in experiments that rats not only eat sugar excessively, but they suffer from withdrawal when denied it and continue to crave it weeks later. However, as we’ll see in Chapter 2 , other experts suggest our desire for sugar (or, as they suggest, sugary, fatty foods) is more emotional than physical.

Whatever it is, there are lots of you out there who can’t get through the day without thinking about sugar – and probably eating it in excess, too. We don’t claim to be able to sort out the emotional side of why you want to eat sugar. That may be based on years of learning and habit, and addressing it may require soul-searching and even professional help. However, by focusing on sugar ‘dealers’ in Chapter 12 , we hope to help you see that there could be emotional trigger points to your desire for sugar. In combination with our 21-day plan, this will help you start to feel on a more even keel, physically and emotionally, when it comes to your desire to eat sugar.

Nicki’s Personal Addiction

My sugar addiction was with me all the time. Sugar was an obsession – the desire for it, how I was going to get it and how long it would be before I could taste it. I just wasn’t satisfied until I knew I could have that fix. Even a five-course meal wouldn’t satisfy the yearning for sugar. It’s as if there was a ‘good’ voice and a ‘bad’ voice inside my head. The good voice told me, ‘You shouldn’t be eating the sugar and should choose something else instead’. The bad voice said, ‘Go on – go for it! You know you want to…’ I felt out of control, as if sugar had cast a spell on me and I was powerless to do anything against it.

As soon as we told people we were writing a book about sugar addiction, they said, ‘That’s ME!’ Everyone we mentioned it to said they had a problem with sugar cravings. Before we started out, we thought we’d strike a chord but we didn’t realize it would be to this extent. Here are some of the things they say about their love of sugar:

‘I have to have it in the house or I don’t feel secure.’

‘Even after a huge meal I have to have two sweets to be truly satisfied.’

‘I’ve loved sugar ever since I was a child.’

‘I’ll ask to see the dessert menu before I order anything else – I often build the entire meal around the dessert.’

‘If I eat too much sugar I feel drained of energy, I struggle to open my eyes and I sleep more.’

‘Too much sugar and I feel like I have a hangover.’

Polly’s Story

I’ve been hooked on sugar since childhood. Sugar is a device I use to make me feel happy. But as well as giving me pleasure, I abuse it. Some days I really try and get myself in check. I think, ‘How can I let sugar rule my life?’ But it’s so powerful I sometimes feel it’s no different to someone who is on heroin.

Losing control over your behaviour when sugar is around, eating it repetitively and compulsively, problems stopping its use – already this may sound familiar to you. But to give you further guidance, listed below are physical and emotional symptoms experienced by many people who say they can’t live without sugar. As we’ll see in later chapters, addiction is often linked to the emotions sugar stirs up in you. But it’s also about what it does to you physically.

The symptoms listed here are typical of imbalances in blood sugar levels. They also reflect a diet low in nutrients and high in sugars and refined carbohydrates. Poor eating habits, such as not eating regularly enough, make matters worse. The Sugar Addicts’ Diet addresses all these imbalances to help reduce such symptoms.

As you read through these lists, you may recognize some – or even all – of these symptoms. However, even people who have none of these symptoms will find the Sugar Addicts’ Diet a sensible, healthy, balanced eating plan that will help them maintain good health and prevent these symptoms taking hold.

• Trouble controlling your weight

• Restlessness followed by a slump

• Lack of energy

• Trouble concentrating

• Dizziness and/or visual disturbances

• Headaches

• Tiredness and drowsiness, especially during the day

• Insomnia

• Cravings

• PMS

• Any of the conditions defined in Chapter 4

• Irritable and easily stressed

• Frustration and anxiety

• Mood swings

• Miserable, even tearful

• Nervousness

• Never feeling fully satisfied with food

• Euphoria when you first eat sugar

• Lying about how much sugar you eat

• Taking extreme measures to get sugar (e.g. midnight visit to the shops)

• Confusion about what to do to feel better

You may well have gone through the lists saying, ‘That’s me!’ To confirm that you have a problem with sugar, take a look at the checklist below. Some people who crave sugar, like Nicki, describe the following:

Answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to the following statements:

• You think about sugary foods more than any other types of food. YES/NO

Nicki says, ‘Every minute of the day, from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to bed, I’d think about sweet food, whether it was sweets, chocolate, biscuits or cakes. I’d even wake in the middle of the night thinking of it.’

• You’ve attempted to cut down on sweet food in your diet before. YES/NO