Quitting sugar

[Someone here]

 anyone here managed to fully quit all refined sugar from their diet?

When I go even for 24 hours without sugar I feel lethargic and my mood goes down hill and I crave something sweet. 

I'm considering only relying on fruits and honey.. But how do I stop craving ice cream and chocolate bars etc? 

[Osaid]

3 hours ago, Someone here said:

 anyone here managed to fully quit all refined sugar from their diet?

Yes.

In terms of taste and sugar substitutes, refined sugar is pretty easy to replace. You can use honey or sugar alcohols and it will taste better than or the same as refined sugar in basically every aspect. They even have sodas called Zevia which use stevia as a sweetener and they taste the exact same as normal sodas with sugar.

3 hours ago, Someone here said:

When I go even for 24 hours without sugar I feel lethargic and my mood goes down hill and I crave something sweet. 

Your body is constantly adapting to its environment and what you ingest. If you've been eating refined carbohydrates your entire life, it will have a heavy bias towards using those refined carbohydrates as fuel. So, the severity of your sugar withdrawals will vary depending on how rigorously you remove sugars. If you suddenly move to a 0 sugar diet, the withdrawal symptoms will be more severe compared to initially just removing 50% of the refined sugar from your diet first. The payoff is that you will adapt quicker with the more rigorous diet, though. It's like the difference between jumping into a cold shower vs jumping into a warm shower and slowly lowering the temperature.

IIRC, when I was just starting out, the withdrawal symptoms were most strong on the first four days, and it peaked at the fourth day. Then, from there on, the body would adapt and the symptoms would very slowly become less severe. It would never get as bad again, unless you relapsed heavily or something of course.

If you decided to cut 50% of your current carb consumption, you would go through withdrawals for a bit as your body signals to you that it is missing the usual amount of carbohydrates. Then, ultimately, it will reach a point where it fully adapts to that and there will be no more withdrawals. That's basically how it goes, your body is just constantly adapting.

The method I recommend for achieving this is intermittent fasting. IMO, it's the simplest way of going about things, and it's the best way to reset your affinity towards refined sugar and fix your metabolism. It also makes things really simple, all you do is stop eating for a certain period of time, and then during a certain period of time you can start eating again. 

If you can follow a proper fasting schedule, you will be "healthier" than someone who eats the exact same food as you but doesn't fast. You can look into its benefits yourself. I could eat a chocolate cake to break my fast and my metabolism would work better than someone who eats chocolate cake and doesn't fast. When you restrict your eating schedule, your body adapts to that schedule, and so it adapts to not having to eat for a certain period of time, which includes eating refined carbohydrates. What this means is that, after you've adapted to a schedule like this, you won't experience any sort of dips in energy levels even if you don't eat anything for hours at a time, because your body has adapted to it. It might crave food again, but only at the time when it's time to break the fast, since your body adapts to the schedule.

The way I did it was I eased myself into it. I started with an 18:6 fasting window, which means you don't eat in a 18 hour window and that you eat in a 6 hour window. Keep in mind, a lot of the time you're not eating is gonna be spent sleeping. You already naturally fast when you don't sleep. So basically, you can minus about 9 hours from the 18 hour window, as that is how long it is actually going to feel like experientially since you're gonna sleep through it. So about 9 hours. I also drank coffee in the morning with some sort of fat in it. Right now I just drink coffee with whipping cream and sugar alcohol. People add MCT oil to their coffee when they first start intermittent fasting, since it immediately converts itself to ketones, which is the fuel that is created when your body converts fat into energy. Coffee is really good at curbing the appetite IME, plus I've never really felt like eating in the mornings anyways, but that might just be my own quirk. Once you start intermittent fasting, your body will gain the ability to easily dip in and out of ketosis, so it will gain the ability to easily use fat as fuel instead of just using carbohydrates as fuel. It will generally be in ketosis during the period that you fast.

An 18:6 schedule could look like any of these:

- Only eating from 12pm - 6pm

- Only eating from 2pm - 8pm

- Only eating from 4pm - 10pm

Etc.

I recommend you try not to snack either. Try eating big calorie dense meals in one sitting. You'll probably fit 1 - 2 meals within the eating window. Eat all your snacks close to your meal. And, in general, try to eat everything close to each other. When you just snack, you give yourself small insulin spikes and it makes you crave things more. You have to send a stark signal to your body clearly showing what is eating time and what isn't eating time.

You can start off with just eating what you normally eat, but eat it in a timed matter through intermittent fasting. Maybe adjust it a bit so that there's more fat and protein so that it's more filling and so that your body can use that fat and protein when it tries to enter ketosis. Then, over time, you can slowly lower the carbs when you feel ready and replace it with more fat and protein. And, you can slowly increase the amount of time fasted. Be intuitive with it. Listen to how your body feels and ask why it feels that way. It's pretty simple overall.


 

Edited February 13, 2023 by Osaid

[Someone here]

1 hour ago, Osaid said:

Yes.

In terms of taste and sugar substitutes, refined sugar is pretty easy to replace. You can use honey or sugar alcohols and it will taste better than or the same as refined sugar in basically every aspect. They even have sodas called Zevia which use stevia as a sweetener and they taste the exact same as normal sodas with sugar.

Your body is constantly adapting to it's environment and what you ingest. If you've been eating refined carbohydrates your entire life, it will have a heavy bias towards using those refined carbohydrates as fuel. So, the severity of your sugar withdrawals will vary depending on how rigorously you remove sugars. If you suddenly move to a 0 sugar diet, the withdrawal symptoms will be more severe compared to initially just removing 50% of the refined sugar from your diet first. The payoff is that you will adapt quicker with the more rigorous diet, though. It's like the difference between jumping into a cold shower vs jumping into a warm shower and slowly lowering the temperature.

IIRC, when I was just starting out, the withdrawal symptoms were most strong on the first four days, and it peaked at the fourth day. Then, from there on, the body would adapt and the symptoms would very slowly become less severe from there on. It would never get as bad again, unless you relapsed heavily or something of course.

If you decided to cut 50% of your current carb consumption, you would go through withdrawals for a bit as your body signals to you that it is missing the usual amount of carbohydrates. Then, ultimately, it will reach a point where it fully adapts to that and there will be no more withdrawals. That's basically how it goes, your body is just constantly adapting.

The method I recommend for achieving this is intermittent fasting. IMO, it's the simplest way of going about things, and it's the best way to reset your affinity towards refined sugar and fix your metabolism. It also makes things really simple, all you do is stop eating for a certain period of time, and then during a certain period of time you can start eating again. 

If you can follow a proper fasting schedule, you will be "healthier" than someone who eats the exact same food as you but doesn't fast. You can look into its benefits yourself. I could eat a chocolate cake to break my fast and my metabolism would work better than someone who eats chocolate cake and doesn't fast. When you restrict your eating schedule, your body adapts to that schedule, and so it adapts to not having to eat for a certain period of time, which includes eating refined carbohydrates. What this means is that, after you've adapted to a schedule like this, you won't experience any sort of dips in energy levels even if you don't eat anything for hours at a time, because your body has adapted to it. It might crave food again, but only at the time when it's time to break the fast, since your body adapts to the schedule.

The way I did it was I eased myself into it. I started with an 18:6 fasting window, which means you don't eat in a 18 hour window and that you eat in a 6 hour window. Keep in mind, a lot of the time you're not eating is gonna be spent sleeping. You already naturally fast when you don't sleep. So basically, you can minus about 9 hours from the 18 hour window, as that is how long it is actually going to feel like experientially since you're gonna sleep through it. So about 9 hours. I also drank coffee in the morning with some sort of fat in it. Right now I just drink coffee with whipping cream and sugar alcohol. People add MCT oil to their coffee when they first start intermittent fasting, since it immediately converts itself to ketones, which is the fuel that is created when your body converts fat into energy. Coffee is really good at curbing the appetite IME, plus I've never really felt like eating in the mornings anyways, but that might just be my own quirk. Once you start intermittent fasting, your body will gain the ability to easily dip in and out of ketosis, so it will gain the ability to easily use fat as fuel instead of just using carbohydrates as fuel. It will generally be in ketosis during the period that you fast.

An 18:6 schedule could look like any of these:

- Only eating from 12pm - 6pm

- Only eating from 2pm - 8pm

- Only eating from 4pm - 10pm

Etc.

I recommend you try not to snack either. Try eating big calorie dense meals in one sitting. You'll probably fit 1 - 2 meals within the eating window. Eat all your snacks close to your meal. And, in general, try to eat everything close to each other. When you just snack, you give yourself small insulin spikes and it makes you crave things more. You have to send a stark signal to your body clearly showing what is eating time and what isn't eating time.

You can start off with just eating what you normally eat, but eat it in a timed matter through intermittent fasting. Maybe adjust it a bit so that there's more fat and protein so that it's more filling and so that your body can use that fat and protein when it tries to enter ketosis. Then, over time, you can slowly lower the carbs when you feel ready and replace it with more fat and protein. And, you can slowly increase the amount of time fasted. Be intuitive with it. Listen to how your body feels and ask why it feels that way. It's pretty simple overall.


 

@Osaid thanks. Very extensive and informative. 

[Michael569]

huge beneficial to drop sources of refined grains, flour products, sugar-sweetened beverages and junk like candy and milk chocolate. 

That being said, make sure you replace the calories lost by including more complex sources of carbohydrates otherwise you will destroy your mood and energy levels in a week. 

[Someone here]

51 minutes ago, Michael569 said:

huge beneficial to drop sources of refined grains, flour products, sugar-sweetened beverages and junk like candy and milk chocolate. 

That being said, make sure you replace the calories lost by including more complex sources of carbohydrates otherwise you will destroy your mood and energy levels in a week. 

Sometimes I have a huge sweet tooth. I crave  chocolate, baked goods, etc. And I eat a lot like there is no tomorrow. Especially when I exercise regularly, I feel a strong urge to binge on those.

Unfortunately, I am also insulin-resistant, and feel like this aspect of my diet contributes directly to my depression and anxiety.

So, I really do need to cut out sugar (excluding natural sugar, like fruits). However, I realized it is so ingrained in my dietary choices that I cannot think of what to replace my snacks with.

What non-sugary snacks / meals do you recommend? 

[Michael569]

1 hour ago, Someone here said:

Unfortunately, I am also insulin-resistant,

Diagnosed by endocrinologist or diabetologist? What is your A1C? 

 

Edited February 13, 2023 by Michael569

[Someone here]

33 minutes ago, Michael569 said:

Diagnosed by endocrinologist or diabetologist? What is your A1C? 

 

diabetologist. That was like a month ago. He told me that my cells became too resistant to insulin,  and he told me it leads to elevated blood glucose levels  which, over time, leads to prediabetes and Type 2. Is that correct? And does that mean I should cut out ALL sugar? Even fructose? 

 A1C is 5.3% to 6.5%

[Michael569]

@Someone here what is your current BMI? Are you overweight? 

[Someone here]

36 minutes ago, Michael569 said:

@Someone here what is your current BMI? Are you overweight? 

What's BMI? 

No im not overweight or obese. I'm pretty slim and fit. 

[Michael569]

1 hour ago, Someone here said:

What's BMI? 

body mass index, you can try to calculate yours here https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/healthy-weight/bmi-calculator/

With insulin resistance, very often the issue is that the person diagnosed has crossed their adipose tolerance, meaning the body is carrying more fat than it can handle. In some people (maybe you are one of those) this can be tiny amount of fat that the person would still appear lean on the outside. 

I had a client once (female) who was extremely thin and yet became diabetic during pregnancy because her adipose tissue tolerance was really low and gaining like 2 kilos pushed her over to become pre-diabetic. 

You might consider adding in an exercise routine that will lead to gaining more muscle, that can be one way to start taking the control back. 

Reducing sugar might help too, in favour of more complex sources of carbs (wholegrains, legumes, root veggies, wholewheat pasta, potatoes, sweet potatoes etc - that sort of stuff) 

 

Edited February 13, 2023 by Michael569

[Osaid]

On 2/13/2023 at 8:10 AM, Someone here said:

What non-sugary snacks / meals do you recommend? 

Nuts are really nutritious and filling and they taste really good. Almonds, pistachios, hazelnuts, etc. I find hazelnuts to be the most filling of them all. Pistachios have a really high amount of potassium, even more than the other nuts, so you know you're getting your electrolytes in when you're eating those.

On 2/13/2023 at 8:10 AM, Someone here said:

Sometimes I have a huge sweet tooth. I crave  chocolate, baked goods, etc. And I eat a lot like there is no tomorrow. Especially when I exercise regularly, I feel a strong urge to binge on those.

There are snacks nowadays that have 0 sugar but taste like they have sugar. Lots of stores have their "healthy" or "natural" sections now, if you really miss that feeling of snacking on junk food. Something that comes to mind are Quest cookies, for example. The ingredients are relatively clean too. But make sure to eat it in a controlled manner, don't turn 0 sugar snacks into an addiction too.

As for meals, for now you can have some sort of fat/protein, like chicken, and then combine it with a more complex carb like potatoes or lentils or beans or something. The complex carbs will ease you in, since you are insulin-resistant and you are just starting out. If you feel like it's too taxing on your body, you can find more simpler carbs in something like berries (blueberries, goldenberries) or you can put honey inside of your tea or something. I prefer berries over other fruit cause they have a good amount of fiber relative to the sugar and they have lots of different antioxidants.

On 2/13/2023 at 3:50 AM, Someone here said:

@Osaid thanks. Very extensive and informative. 

No problem.

Once your body adapts far enough you can be more lax with things. At that point, your body will recover extremely quickly even if you relapse on something.

Edited February 15, 2023 by Osaid

[flowboy]

@Someone here  You need to go longer than 24 hours.

Like any dependency.

It gets worse before it gets better and the cravings go away.

For sugar it's about a week, if it's your first time.

Caffeine 2-3 weeks.

In your case, I would strongly recommend just focusing on quitting smoking, and not wasting your will power on other things.

[mmKay]

@Someone here 

On 13/2/2023 at 9:08 AM, Someone here said:

 anyone here managed to fully quit all refined sugar from their diet? 

i did it few years ago

that's going the restrictive route. Once I've fixed my gut health sugar doesn't affect me nearly as much, not to say not at all. 

Note: back then my nutrition knowledge was more shallow, i may or may not have shared wrong ideas

Edited February 16, 2023 by mmKay