Sugar Addiction

[Tinuviel]

Don't do fake sugars, either. All these "sugar free" sweets are worse than sugar and (at least for me), just feed the desire for sweets. I pray your diet goes well!

 

[ChandlerFan]

My grandmother always told me it takes 21 days to build a habit and 21 days to end one.

Note where you are obtaining the sweets, if you're picking them up throughout the day try leaving your debit card at home or in the car. If it's when you're grocery shopping, try making a shopping list and avoid browsing.

Switch to natural sugars found in fruit, if you get a craving eat a banana or an apple. Try dried fruit and banana chips, they aren't the healthiest foods in the world but much better than cookies! Also, honey is sweet but is awfully good for you. Maybe fix yourself some tea with honey. Bananas, peanut butter, and honey are three things that go well together.

See if you can limit deserts to special events. Don't buy ice cream and cookies for the house, go to a bakery, a creamery, or a candy shop for a single serving and ideally no more than once a week.

It can be difficult, but you can do this!

So today I started my Keto or Low carb diet. Really, I'm just trying to stay away from carbs. The doctor told me this is probably the best diet for me right now. It was the first day. So far so good. I just keep telling myself what Lynx said "I can have the cookie, but do I really want it and all the baggage it comes with? No, I do not."

There is hope at the end of the tunnel. It hasn't been an easy day, but it was easier than I thought it would be. I'll try to do this for a couple of months just to rid myself of the addiction. Your prayers are appreciated. Thanks to everyone who gave me advice on here too!

I have done this diet before with great success by the way. But at the end of the summer (super stressed), I failed miserably and the addiction got so bad. Here's to hoping I can succeed again.

I think a lot of being able to overcome this begins with mindset/environment that then translates into influence on our habits. One of the best things you can do is to try to be one step ahead of yourself. Take steps to set yourself up to succeed and make the choice to avoid sugar easier for you than maybe it has been in the past. Foxtail's advice was really fantastic in that regard. Sticking to a shopping list, leaving the debit card at home, etc. are good potential was to set yourself up for success.
I would also say to try to avoid all-or-nothing thinking. Just because you ate a few cookies today doesn't mean that the day or the week is ruined. Keep a constant 'clean slate' frame of mind. If you mess up and eat sugar, give yourself a clean slate and move on. If you can keep one poor day from becoming two, three, or four, that helps a lot.
Also, especially when it comes to addiction, the key to beating it is to try and figure out what could be motivating you to go after the sugar from an emotional standpoint. Taking a moment just to examine your frame of mind and your motives can go a long way.

I also really loved the suggestion of finding tasty alternatives. So instead of focusing on what you can't eat even through calling your diet low-carb, focus on what you can eat and pinpoint some good things that you love. If I remember correctly, the keto diet is not only low-carb but high-fat, which to me leaves room for a lot of good-tasting stuff haha. For me, I find fruit, veggies, fats, and proteins that I love to eat, and I enjoy as much of them as my calorie limit will allow. Fruit is an excellent replacement to sugar too, although you'll want to keep it to like two servings a day. But man, once you are a few days away from high-sugar foods, a dish of strawberries tastes amazing and really does satisfy that sweet craving I think.

 

[Lynx]

Don't do fake sugars, either. All these "sugar free" sweets are worse than sugar and (at least for me), just feed the desire for sweets. I pray your diet goes well!

Yeah, what she said.

When you do indulge, make it something very good. There's valid psychological science (is that an oxymoron?) behind this. If you eat a slice of homemade lemon cheesecake it satisfies that craving a lot better than even ten bags of skittles. Always go for quality over quantity, price or convenience when you eat something that is eaten just for enjoyment.

Consider the french and their reputation for really good food. Also consider how many of them don't eat a lot. Think that's because they all have iron wills? Nope, it's BECAUSE they have really incredibly good food that they don't overeat.

Throw out the low fat ice cream, feed the store brand donuts to the dog. Find a restaurant that makes HOMEMADE desserts and makes them well. (If you ask them politely they will tell you if those pies came off the Sysco truck.) When you have to have something sweet, go get one of their homemade desserts and SAVOR it, eat it slowly and consciously enjoy it.

I bet you'll find you want sweets a lot less often than if you were eating a box of Wal-Mart "bakery" products. Yes, including the cheesecakes. Those Wal-Mart cheesecakes can't come within fifty miles of a real, homemade cheesecake.