Jay, I heard on the news this morning that the farmers are gearing up for being out of business as the nation begins eliminate HFCS from its foods!! :carrot: I feel bad for the farmers, but gosh, it's about time. I heard this on the radio so I only got a 10 second snip-it of the story.

I agree with this and the alcohol analogy - that some people are more susceptible and need to completely avoid it, but that others are able to partake in small quantities and it's ok.

Personally, I try to avoid HFCS because that stuff just seems nasty to me. But while I have certain trigger foods that I tend to avoid because I have a tough timing limiting them, I think it's more about those particular foods than sugar itself. And I suspect my inability to limit some foods is more habit or simply enjoying the taste that much, rather than any physiological craving.

I think this is one of those things that everyone has to figure out via trial and error.

But they don't have to go out of business, they just need to change their product. We need them to produce more healthy local foods. Find providers of seeds that have not been genetically altered and use them to produce healthly crops that can reproduce more healthy crops next year. You know, like it used to be done. Oh to be able to buy a really really good flavorful tomato at the grocery store like we could when I was a kid.........sigh.

Jen, thanks for this timely reminder of why I need to avoid the sugar today and every day after this. I'm a a sugar-a-holic and I've known this for years. I know that it makes me moody and depressed. I know that it makes me have headaches and it triggers my allergies. I feel so much better when I'm off the stuff! I also have a strong history of alcoholism and depression in my family. Now, my two daughters have weight issues and are extremely moody. Sounds like this Mom needs to make some changes around here. Again and for good.

I was just speaking about this to someone. We were speaking about however *controlled* and *safe* we make our environment at home, how impossible it is to control their outside world - school, friends home, candy shop and that if you make it *so* off limits to the kids, will it trigger in them the need to *sneak* it from others? I was saying that it would be best to not only limit the foods, but to do our best to educate them as to why they shouldn't have sugar. VERY hard. Just look how hard a time we mature, responsible adults have it - a child. VERY hard. :(

Oh yea, Sebas! I have had ice pick headaches for years, and I always blamed it on "diet" pop. Nope, it wasn't the diet pop that was causing them, it was the candy bar I ate along with the diet pop.

Funny though, the people I know who suffer from miagraines will not even concider giving up sugar as a "cure". They rather pop pill after pill for relief...I mean, WOW sugar is that powerful. A person is more willing to take drugs with 100's of known side effects than to just give up sugar for a month as a trial.

Giving up sugar is hard! But I know it is terrible for me so I am trying... so far having reasonable success. Not quite cold turkey, but definitely seeing the grams per day going down. Another goal: buying and eating products without HFCS. Products that aren't even sweet have it in there! It's crazy.

That's just the thing - it would be waaaay easier if you DID give it up cold turkey. I believe you make it harder than need be by *allowing* a little of it in. By keeping that little bit in, it keeps your wants, desires and cravings for it ALIVE. And you need to KILL your wants, desires and cravings for it. And the only way to do that is to TOTALLY ELIMINATE it. Yes, you'll have a rough couple of weeks, but after that you will be AMAZED at how it won't call out to you any more. I urge you to push yourself, challenge yourself - say for 30 days - and stand back and be prepared to be amazed at the changes. I am CERTAIN you won't regret it. Go for it!!!

I made a decision a month ago that I was going to stop eating sugar, and since then I have already eliminated the items I was eating on a daily basis with the most sugar. I was shocked to learn that I was eating my entire "daily" allotment of sugar just in my breakfast (protein bar & shake), and that the yogurt I had in my fridge was not much of an improvement. Since then, I have been working toward keeping my sugar intake UNDER the 42g Livestrong allotted me. I've been reading labels, avoiding sugar, HFCS, artificial sweetners, etc. Drinking water or unsweet iced tea instead of sweet tea, soda, etc.

That, and reducing the grains I was eating has already made a significant difference in my weight loss efforts. I also realized that those two things were causing me to eat MORE... not only were they just extra calories, they made me crave more of the same. I did not really realize the extent of it until I cut them out. Now I am eating less food, and am full longer. I know, that's always something that you read, but it's hard to really understand it unless you see the results first-hand.

I know I can't completely avoid sugar as it is naturally in fruits and vegetables, but I am cutting out all processed/refine sugar that I can pinpoint. Nobody is perfect and I'm sure I am probably missing some things... but I do feel better already. I know there is still work to do.

My mom did the same thing -- cutting out refined sugars -- and she too attests that she no longer craves it. That is encouraging to me because we're cut from the same cloth, a lot of the things she confided that she struggled with are the same things that I struggle with, and she's lost over 80lbs. I know I can do this, but I have to battle my temptations and learn to not give in, which I know doesn't happen overnight.

Don't worry about the sugars in fruits and veggies, that's not the same issue. Yes, you DO have to battle those temptations - temporarily. But every time you give in, you have to start the cycle all over again and it is a vicious cycle at that. As hard as it may be for a few weeks (probably less) it really is wisest to NOT give in. You can do it!!!

As far as the headaches, I used to have them all the time, popped ibuprofen like crazy. Well since day one of my *new lifestyle* I stopped having headaches. Like totally and completely stopped having headaches. It's been close to 4 years now and I've had a headache one time - can anyone guess when that occurred???? After an evening of eating banana pancakes. Other than that - zero, zippo, nada, zilch.

No more sugar - no more headaches, no more lethargy, no more sugar stupor, carb coma, sleepiness at 3:00 in the afternoon.

Ditto. I used to get "tension headaches" nearly every night, and would need to take ibuprofen and have my husband to give me a very hard neckrub just so that the headache would subside and I could get to sleep.

I don't think I've had a single significant headache since quitting sugar cold turkey. Which is a little unfortunate since I can no longer claim that I *need* to get neckrubs from my husband :/ ;)

Too weird...
 

Not on topic at all but re: migraines and sugar. One thing that helps my migraines is dark dark chocolate. Seriously. It's a combination thing...Ibuprofen, a cup of coffee and dark chocolate and a dark room if I can't get to my migraine medication. I don't have migraines often but when I do the chocolate helps. I don't eat chocolate at other times, never crave it. But it does seem to help with the headache. It an interesting thing to wonder if my migraines would go away completely if I gave up sugar all together? Hmmmmm...?

Back to our regularly scheduled thread.

You don't have to wonder. You can experiment and find out whether they'd go away. Why not throw sugar away for just 30 days and see how you feel? If you want to go back to it, you always can. But you won't know what eliminating it would do for you until you try it.

I used to wake up EVERY DAY with a headache, and about twice a week I'd get a migraine. A real bad one with auras and visual disturbances and all that. My mother suffered from migraines all ehr life, had cat scans and everything and never found the issue. When I stopped eating sugar cold turkey 3 months ago, I NEVER HAD ANOTHER HEADACHE, except for a very mild one related to PMS. NO migraines, nothing! Also I was having heart palpitations on an almost daily basis and my dr thought is was caffeine, but even with no caffeine I was having them. Stopped sugar, NO more palpitations, EVEN WHEN I added unsweetened coffee back into my diet.

Reading all of these stories - well, why don't more people know about this? Why aren't more folks aware of the horrible damage that sugar is doing to us? I wonder how many people look and look for answers to solve their headaches, their grogginess, their fuzziness, their out of it-ness (all things that I experienced) - are doctors telling them to cut out sugar? Gets me so angry. We've got seat belt laws, we've got no smoking laws, we've got no drinking laws.....

For years and years, decades in fact, I thought I couldn't live without sugar - that it would be too hard, too unpleasant - and it was the other way around the whole time. It was too hard, too unpleasant living WITH sugar in my life.