I have a hugeeee problem with sugar, and quite frankly, I eat wayyy too much of it. I've tried to stop, but I always fail miserably. I try to eat less sugar, and I've tried to just cut it out cold turkey, but that only makes me want it more. I eat baked goods, candy, cereals, yogurts, and other foods with sugar in it (like General Tso's chicken), etc.

I know cutting down on refined carbs helps, but I'm trying to keep a moderate to high carb diet because a low carb diet won't work well with my antidepressant.

I would love to hear from people who have issues with sugar addiction/ or people who have issues with sugar in general. More specifically, I'd love to hear how you all got over it, or how you keep it at bay.

Thanks so much!

Great topic!
I have big issues with sugar. I think I had the most success by keeping it out of my diet 6 days a week, and allowing it on 1 day only. On that one day, I could have anything at all. So I never felt deprived and eventually I lost the craving, though I knew it was lurking. What gets me every year is winter--low mood, holidays, stress.

Bottom line is the less I eat it the less I want it. Most of the time. How long have you gone cold turkey? I think it might be the best solution but it takes a while to lose the craving, and it's also hard if you are using fake sugar, and/or dieting. Huger always makes me want something sweet.

Hey! Thanks for the quick reply!

I think I'm going to try the eating sugar only one day a week thing.

The longest I was able to go cold turkey for was about 3 days. Lol! I haven't had much success, but I'm going to try again! I'll make one of my days a Saturday or a Friday!

Thanks so much again!

You're very welcome. Keep us posted! I think it takes a good week or 2 before the cravings begin to subside. BTW Have you read The End of Overeating by David Kessler? He goes into how food companies & restaurants engineer food to make us crave them. Sugar fat & salt are the 3 main ingredients to foods we crave, well, a lot of us anyway. Also Robert Lustig has done a lot of research re how sugar affects our brain. You are not alone in this, not at all.

What helped me was deciding to eat and drink more foods that I could prep myself so I could control the amount of sugar that goes in them. I didn't realize how much sugar I used to eat until I eased off. Besides water it used to be that I would only drink sweet drinks like cola, sweet tea, lemonade, fruit juice, super sweet coffee with lots of cream along with sweet snacks. I cut certain things cold turkey and weened myself off the rest. For example if there's a sweet thing that you like but don't have it often then it should be easy to cut that thing out all together and maybe swap it for a lesser evil. I decided to give up soda cold turkey and switched to mainly sweet tea and lemonade, then started measuring the sugar I put in it, then with time kept adding less and less until I got used to plain green tea and lemon water. For foods I stopped buying pre-made desserts for the most part and started making things from scratch so that I could cut down on the sugar and use better ingredients. After a while the taste buds adapt to having things less sweet, so when I have something sugary it tastes like overkill and I don't want it as much. The same thing goes for salty foods. I still like sugar, but it takes much less of it to satisfy my sweet tooth.

You could also try to get your sugar fix from whole fruit as often as you can. That way if you must have something sugary at least there's more nutritional value in it than baked goods and candy.

I really, really struggle with soda in particular. I know it's not good for me, but I keep going back to it. It's very frustrating. Following along to pick up some tips and encouragement!

Do you drink a lot of diet soda or just ingest a lot of artificial sugars throughout the day? That was a real problem for me. Once I cut out the nutrasweet, I could cut out the sugar. At first, when I craved sugar - even a bready sugar like a muffin - I'd have a handful of potato chips and a glass of water. It took 3 days for me to give up actual sugar - by my third day the cravings were pretty much gone, or at least very, very manageable. The nutrasweet's another story - that took 2 full months, but once those cravings were gone, giving up sugar was a piece of cake in comparison.

ETA: I had a real nutrasweet problem. I was drinking 2 liters of Diet Coke a day (or more).

I gave up sugar by eating more salt LOL! Like Treasa, I'd grab a handful of potato chips when I wanted that cookie!! Or, at the very end of the day I'd have ONE cookie, and then quickly close the cabinet, turn out the lights and go to bed!! And tell myself, "There will be cookies/soda/cake later".

Currently struggling with sugar cravings. I would love to go cold turkey but know that would result in a binge later on. CookieS and donuts are my weaknesses! I'm thinking of cutting the donut out completely and just having 2 cookies (oreos) a day and slowly reduce it maybe, replacing it with more fruit. I don't really drink sugary things often so I'm fine having it once a week when I go to the movies. Hopefully this works out and you are able to break this craving.

No artificial sweeteners here, just sugar.