Wise words indeed, Carter. I often find myself trying to fit my experience to the common wisdom, but it all too often doesn't apply. It's so helpful to read someone's words that line up with my reality--which is why I come to 3FC again and again.
A lot of 3FCers have found this book helpful, including me: Brain over Binge by Kathryn Hansen.
In response to the first post.
I would say not to include sugary fruit in your list of foods to avoid. We do crave something sweet but i have never found eating fruit has caused me to want to go and eat ice-cream or lollies or cakes. Its only refine sugars that at the problem and i don't mean ALL SUGARS. For me white bread is not a problem but i don't eat it all the time anyway. I prefer wholegrain bread. I know that white bread is not as satisfying as wholegrain bread. white bread has a high GI so its satiety benefit doesn't usually last long - unless you pick a white bread that sues hard flour which is the case with some if not most european breads. Sourdoughs are good. Its only the really lightweight white breads that tend to have no nutrition and cause problems.
Veggies also contain sugar as do dairy but i have never found any of these foods to cause me to want to eat ice-cream lollies and so on.
its better to exercise moderately and eat a sustainable calorie load than to rely on a lot of exercise to lose weight. The reason i say that is because i find i can't sustain regular exercise but if you can then, making your maintaining diet reliant on it is fine too.
So with my maintaining diet, i know i can't eat sugar moderately and i will have to have safeguards in place.
See my thread in the maintainers section for my tips. And there you can see what a couple of other people do to maintain as well. Its appears we are different. Some people can cope with sugar and some of us can't.
I would recommend reading up on the breakdown of carbohydrates and trying to get a more nuanced understanding of sugar in the diet as well. For instance a lot of people fret over sugar in milk and yoghurt. I would only fret about it when its actually added but not that which occurs naturally. So i avoid sweetened yoghurt.
For me there are two issues with sugars. 1) refined sugars in processed foods, along with the fats, salt, and other additives, trigger cravings and those cravings reliably lead to binge-eating if I have the first bite, especially since dieting.
2) some carb-rich foods just make me very hungry after I eat them, though I can deal with this by eating more (as opposed to binging). I attribute this to insulin spike and feel better by avoiding them: grains of any type including anything with flour, bananas, the list goes on. I feel much more satisfied with beans, apples, berries, & quinoa instead of those foods. Not sure about dairy.
I've personally found the going alot easier since I gave up trying to eat my trigger foods moderately. The whole concept of "moderation in all things" just doesn't work for me. But I wanted it to work very, very badly -- and because it DOES work for lots of people, I wanted very, very badly to BE one of those people. Unfortunately, I'm not.
Don't be afraid to tailor your eating style to YOU. After 45 years of trying to be other people, I am starting to accept who *I* am and what *MY* limitations are and learning to live (happily) in that framework.
I don't really care what a food's macro make up is. If it is a trigger for me, I don't eat it. If it isn't a trigger, I do eat it (if I like it, of course).
So, I have a question. If some people believe sugar is addictive, and that non-sweet carb laden foods such as bread, pasta, rice, and potatoes are basically sugar because they break down to be essentially the same thing in the body, then why are some people extremely fond of bread, pasta, etc but can completely control themselves around candy and desserts? If it was an addiction, I'd think the form of the sugar wouldn't matter so much and that ice cream or even cake (since it has flour in it) would be just as irresistible as cornbread or steamed rice.
Can anyone explain?
For the same reason that some people become addicted to shopping - cleaning - collecting and hoarding - sex - gambling - pain - body modifications such as tattoos, piercings, scarification or cosmetic surgery - self-injury such as cutting - drugs such as caffeine, nicoteine, marijuana, and even cocaine..... and others who indulge do not.
Substances and even behaviors can be physically addictive, psychologically addictive, or both. How addictive not only varies objectively, but also subjectively as well.
Force anyone to take a few doses of heroine or meth, and they'll likely become physically and psychologically addicted very quickly, in as little as one dose.
Marijuana is not heroine. Most people who use marijuana can do so occasionally, without becoming hooked.
Most people can use alcohol, even binge drinking occasionally, without becoming an alcoholic or problem drinker.
Anything that gives some type of pleasure or pain reduction can become a compulsive coping mechanism, but the pull can vary tremendously, and for countless reasons.
You (OP) raise the analogy to alcoholism. But it is not a given that the only way to deal with alcoholism is complete abstinence. That is the approach advocated by AA and it is a popular approach, but it is not by any means the only one. There are people who consider themselves alcoholics and yet manage to drink occasionally and in moderation.
Yeah, there's an approach called MM (Moderation Management) that seems to work for some problem drinkers. I wrote an article on the topic about 15 years ago.
7 packets of sugar in a 12 ounce soda on average. And the diet stuff...egads, plenty of problems with those as well. I think slide 5 or 6 has a link to a good article on dangers of soda.
Dragging up this old thread because I can't help myself - haha.
I consider myself a sugar addict, and abstain from it entirely. I have tried to eat in moderation, but it's the slipperiest of slopes and before I know it I'm back to eating tons of sugary treats several times a day. Earlier this year, I noticed some pre-diabetes symptoms and got scared, so that was that. I don't have it at all and never will. Many people balk at my choice, and I recognise it's rather severe, but it works for me. I feel free from my addictive behaviours and really don't want to go back to the way I was before. So I won't eat it.
I think people with a severe sugar addiction like mine probably are few and far between, but the real issue is the fact that almost every single processed food on our supermarket shelves has added sugar. It's insane. It's in mayo, mustard, added to fresh meat for plump chicken breasts, it's in tinned soup, it's in bread, it's everywhere.
Our bodies are getting overloaded with sugar nonstop, even if we don't taste it and don't indulge in desserts. That's a huge problem. Sugar overload is driving metabolic disease, regardless of a person's weight.
So personally, I stay away from sugar because I'm addicted to it. For my family, we keep sugar intake as low as possible (kids shouldn't have more than 15g added sugar per day - that's ONE BOWL of cheerios, folks!) which is awfully difficult. I am going to have a conversation with my daughter's school about this in a couple of days due to all the birthday treats that get handed out indiscriminately. Sugar should be an occasional treat, but it's a multiple-times-a-day thing these days.
