Quitting Sugar

This video was very informative:

OP try quinoa. Tasty and high in protein.

White rice and pasta are fine.

[quote] "OP try quinoa. Tasty and high in protein."

Absolutely, R2. Quinoa is also versatile. It can be eaten in warm, cold, or room temperature salads, and casseroles, soups, stews, and many other things. Lentils, Bulger Wheat, Farro, & riced or chopped vegetables are also great alternatives. They have their own natural flavors, but can be flavored with other things, to varying levels.

Just do a quick search OP, and you'll find tons of recipes & resources. Youtube is also great for this, if you happen to be a visual learner.

Thank you R2 & R4! At night I crave something salty. I will usually eat some pretzels, chips, or Cheez-Its. What could I replace these with?

R5 salted air popped popcorn

Bravo, OP! I cut out sweets 18 months ago and have lost 25 pounds - my cholesterol and A1C both improved and I feel terrific. Now I can have a very occasional treat, like a small ice cream cone or a French pastry, but not more than once a month .

Roasted chickpeas are an excellent snack, and it is easy. A little olive oil, spices, salt. Delicious protein and fiber.

Air popped popcorn with nutritional yeast.

Try Keto for a while. It will help you to break sugar cravings.

Real coke will quell any hunger pangs OP. You'll get a flat tummy AND an A-list actor boyfriend!

[quote]Quitting Sugar

Whatever for??!

So you are going to replace sugar with rice and pasta?

You need salads, cheese, nuts and protein plus sulfate containing vegetables if your ancestry is N European. Not rice and pasta which is used similar to sugar in the body.

[quote] "At night I crave something salty. I will usually eat some pretzels, chips, or Cheez-Its. What could I replace these with?"

There are lots of great options listed here. More often than not, I reach for cheese crisps (one can buy them, but it's cheaper to make them by baking shredded cheese on a parchment lined baking sheet), keto cheese straws (w/almond flour, not coconut...I love coconut, but the flavor ruins that recipe for me) or different kinds of nuts.

I prefer Blue Diamond raw almonds. I get them online in 40oz bags, two at a time (thank goodness I don't have Diverticulitis!). But there are all kinds of flavored varieties out there now. If you want something more than just roasted & salted, you definitely have options. And Pork rinds and cracklings might work for you too. They are a staple in the keto world, but you have to be a pork fan.

For the record: I love Cheez-Its. The "Extra Toasty" are THE BEST! But I only ever get them in little snack bags, because I refuse keep them in the house.

OP has already been struck with hypoglycemic encephalopathy due to extremely low blood glucose. Her speech appears incoherent. Sad, last days.

I didnt eat sugar for three months, then one day i made some toast and noticed a jar of raspberry preserves....it was the frickin best jam i had ever ate.

I’ll never quit Truvia.

R12 if you reread what I first posted I said I’m going to throw white rice & pasta away.

Thank you R13. Many good ideas!

R3 White rice and pasta may be good for you but for me I too often overindulge. I made some marinara sauce this week with some thin spaghetti, garlic bread and went to town! I didn’t feel so good afterwards. I was in a bad cab coma!

White rice and pasta are not fine. They are quickly converted to sugar.

OP check out the South Beach Diet cookbooks.

Who has time to do all this baking of snacks? Need ready to eat options from the store.

You’ll need a snack purse to carry nuts and fruit. Don’t count on finding acceptable treats in the wild.

Okayyyyy fine....then go to the diabetic area of the store. They have alot of "sugar free" stuff.

Overpriced and gross.

The sugar free shit is mostly toxic chemicals, and you never wean your body and taste buds off sugar if you eat that crap.

White rice and pasta are fine. The Japanese are a very long lived population, so rice can't be all bad. However, you have to be rigid about portion sizes. Make it an occasional treat.

Some chemicals are worse than others. Maltodextrin (often in "sugar free" products) actually has a higher glycemic index than sugar - even higher than high fructose corn syrup, which is also higher than sugar.

Look for stevia or the aspartame or saccharine stuff.

I have prediabetes and pretty bad neuropathy so I'm working at it -- I find "Atkins" shakes and candy and cookies are better than most. Maybe not healthy but not bad on blood sugar (I've tried several meters you wear on your arm, out of pocket because I'm prediabetic and don't qualify, so I've tried to verify.)

Slimfast Keto is ok but not as good as Atkins shakes. Just read the label - carbs minus fiber - something like that. "Maltitol" is not as bad as maltodextrin but not as good as stevia (or aspartame).

Costs a fortune but it's so easy to pop the top on a shake - and I like the taste. The snack stuff is so-so, but I try to combine with nuts and it's ok.

Oh and I made up a cheesecake recipe I love: crush almonds (or walnuts) and mix with melted butter to make the crust -- the filling is cream cheese mixed with eggs and stevia - then bake. You can use blueberries or peaches (raspberries even better) and cook them into a topping, with stevia. The topping is optional. It's fabulous!! if a bit of trouble. A big piece is a meal and it doesn't raise the blood sugar.

I also make lo-carb vegetable soup with meat and tomato base -- and lots of chef salads; I use ranch dressing but try to not use too much -- check the label on carbs. If you can hack it, olive oil and vinegar is a perfect dressing, blood-sugar wise -- I can tolerate it and may switch if I have problems w/the ranch. I think blue cheese dressing is ok too.

I've read that "parboiled" rice is ok, if you're gonna eat rice. Barley is ok if you don't let it sit around - al dente is best - and supposedly vermicelli is the best pasta but I've never understood why (just reading other people's Glycemic charts and this guy named David Mendoza who had this cool G.I. list online that he tested out on himself - but he died in 2017 of cancer and I can't seem to find his website any more, but I copied a lot of his data)

This one's for you OP!!

I use Lundberg Wild Rice Blend. Its so good. You can order it online from walmart.com

[quote]I made some marinara sauce this week with some thin spaghetti, garlic bread

Why would you have pasta AND bread?

That's two carbs.

I'm also curious about the amount of pasta you had at that meal.

R30 this was before I decided to cut out sugar. I had probably twice the amount I should have. Maybe 4-6 ounces cooked.

[quote] "I made some marinara sauce this week with some thin spaghetti, garlic bread"

Don't forget about zucchini noodles as an alternative, OP. I typically make my own (because I eat them that often) to save money, but they should be available in your grocer's freezer.

I will caution you though: because they're not as filling as pasta, you'll probably be inclined to eat twice as much. Go for it. At least at first, if you aren't so much worried about portion control, as you are about making the change from pasta.

Certainly too much of anything is too much. But you'll find that even if you have to double your portions, you won't get the bloating that comes with pastas. Oh, and I've definitely put pizza toppings on a bowl of chicken & broccoli, or cauliflower.

I make a lot of my food from scratch, but even I don't always have the time and/or patience to make fathead dough. It obviously isn't the same as eating a piece of pizza, but it helps with those cravings, when I'm not eating it. Of course, I don't deny myself entirely (and I LOVE a good pizza), but I try to avoid that sort of thing a lot of the time.

Oh, and that Lundberg Wild Rice Blend is excellent, R29.

I scrape the toppings/cheese off the pizza crust to get my low-carb pizza fix. Taco salad (or just dumping the contents of beef tacos out on a bowl and giving the shells to my dog) when I feel like Mexican. I may be tempting fate, but I eat Chinese food without the rice - beef and broccoli, moo goo gai pan, etc. I do worry about what they put in the gravy-like sauce.

Eating crustless pizza = an abomination

I’m making blackened swordfish, asparagus, and brown rice as we speak.

Sure you are, OP. Sure you are.

R15 aw man, I felt that, I just did a similar thing, and feel horrid. Half a pot with sourdough bread. Plus the muscles in my feet and legs are painfully twitching. Wondering if I may have some kind of diabetic condition tbh.

R27 have you ever done a fasting glucose test at home? I really think I need one, but my doctor refuses to do it (NHS, and I can't pay for private care).

Many dieters enjoy my boiled celery bisque, just plain, no seasonings, that’s my philosophy.

Kasha. Barley. Cracked Wheat. Complex carbohydrates. Not simple. Complex, like our lives. Don’t overcook.. Al dente.

OP here. I was doing pretty well for about three weeks and then it slowly went downhill. I’m back to eating a dessert at night but not as much as before. I haven’t had a Coke or any soda since I quit. I stopped putting sugar in my coffee. I’m also liking brown rice instead of white. Just made some tonight to go with my chicken kebab. So at least there’s three good things that happened. I’m gonna give it a try again soon.

Thank you R28! At this point I would love to have some maple syrup poured on me!

R26 I attribute that to lots and LOTS of pickled vegetables, very little red meat... or really much at all, other than fish.

So apparently I need to lose two or three inches off my waist (I’m at 32”) to be back in the safe zone for cardiac health.

As it is I don’t eat egregious amounts of sugar or carbs, but still some. I live with and act as a carer for an elderly person with a limited traditional diet who won’t eat if she’s alone or having anything different from me (yes, it’s fucked, she’s super old and controlling and properly pre-dementia, and I’m stuck in the situation for now). So I can’t cut carbs altogether, or at least not at dinner time. I try to cook most of our meals fresh and from scratch, and I’m not a bad cook. Where possible, I try to limit salt and sugar used in our dishes.

For my own individual breakfast/brunch I try to stick to yoghurts, omelettes, avocados etc., and I don’t often eat lunch. Coffee intake is limited because I have had severe GERD in the past. I don’t touch sodas or alcohol, or smoke (but maybe I should pick up smoking). Most days I walk a couple of hilly miles with my dog, and I do housework most days too, but other than that I’m not that active (beyond helping my dependent). My metabolism isn’t the best, I gain fat easily and I have to be careful what I eat. Have tried keto for a string of months in the past, but it left me drained, irritable, and confused and it was too hard to stick rigidly to.

What trips me up most is snacking, especially as I have insomnia and often crave food at midnight. If I have a bad day, a stressful encounter, or I can’t sleep, I try first to have an herbal tea and relax with some music or movies, but often I give in and get a sandwich or a few cookies or a banana. I also find that on or after my period (yes, fish, hissing, I get it) the cravings I get intensify and I binge. Perhaps I’m not getting enough food, but I don’t have a huge apetite or the time/energy/money to constantly be making it (if I did, I wouldn’t be a carer).

Am just at a loss as to how to take my health back in hand. Doesn’t help that since the spring, I’ve had increasingly bad insomnia that has left me sleeping and waking fitfully, less, and later in the day than is probably sociable or normal or healthy. Maybe I’m depressed. Sorry for the rambling, just trying to make sense of it all.

r43, I'm not sure of your age but you might check out what Lara Briden has to say about perimenopause and menopause. Basically a lot fitness and weight loss methods are built for young men but it doesn't work for women of a certain age. You would actually need more food, not less food, and moderate exercise that won't spike your cortisol. Excessive dieting and high impact exercise would actually cause you to gain weight. It's also work checking into bioidentical hormones from the brand Emerita for insomnia and depression. The symptoms you describe sound a lot like estrogen dominance so maybe their pro-gest cream would help.

R44 thanks so much for the thoughtful comprehensive answer! That's more than I was expecting *hugs* If it helps to know, I turned 30 a few months ago.

Dieting to an extreme has rarely ever worked for me, except intermittent fasting which seems to work ok. Moderate exercise definitely sounds more appealing than high impact, too! My straight gym bunny sister is always trying to get me to lift (weights), but it's always felt like a struggle for me. Reading your insightful comment I suspect she's right (as you are) that I need to eat more, though. Choking down food has never been my favourite activity, but I obviously need to feed my body more nutrients in terms of meals and supplements. I take a multivit and inject B12 weekly (for a parietal issue), but perhaps that isn't enough?

What you mention about peri-menopause is interesting, I hadn't considered that. Seems a little soon, given I was a late bloomer in terms of pubescent onset (got my period at 15 going on 16, when over half my peers got them at 11/12/13), but I suppose Nature takes her course in her own time. I will try to get or buy a hormone panel from somewhere (the health service where I live won't do them for free without serious & apparent medical need), and read up on Lara Briden's take and see if it's a fit.

I'm quitting sugar, dude! Hitting the gym, dude!

Whenever I’m craving sugar, I brown some butter and put it on chicken or fish. And occasionally on popcorn. It’s not sweet, but it’s close in a hard-to-describe way. And it’s delicious.

Sugary drinks are unhealthy for you and unnecessary. We become creatures of bad habits.

Buy a pack of Stevia natural sweetener to try. Put it in coffee, tea, and other products you would normally add sugar to. I recommend unsweetened ice-tea or iced-coffee with one or two Stevia packets.

As for white rice, almost zero nutrition and high carbs. Try wild rice or brown rice instead. If you want pasta, look for lentil pasta instead It is tasty and won't spike your blood sugar as much as standard pasta does.

R47 I too enjoy butter as a substitute, though I like it in hot black coffee or on a slice of toast (in my fat whore era).

I use Splenda’s Monk Fruit sweetener

OP - I suggest you go to the library or the bookstore or online, and buy a basic NUTRITION SCIENCE textbook. You will kneed to understand the basics. starting with carbohydrates - 4 calories g, protein 4 calories g, and fat 9 calories per g, alcohol 7 calories g. Then you will learn about the different kinds of carbohydrates and fats, and you will learn how to recognize the true breakdown of what you are eating.

If you do NOT know the basics, you will only be thrashing around with fat diets, food myths, fetish eating habits, and so on.

You have to know the basics before you "take control".

It is NOT difficult at all.

"Post Grape Nuts; they remind me of wild hickory nuts."

I think Monkfruit and all the Stevia products are somewhat healthier than all the other non-sugar sweeteners.

Maltodextrin has a higher glycemic index than glucose! It shoots your blood sugar up very quickly (I think it's in athletes' drinks to give them the quickest boost).

I went to buy some popsicles because I love the damned things -- and the box proudly proclaimed 'SUGAR FREE' -- well, I read the label and the main ingredient was fucking Maltodextrin ! It would have been healthier for me to get the sugary ones. So it's yet another thing I can't have dammit. I guess I could make my own but they'd be hard like ice cubes and not that semi-hard texture you need for a popsicle.

First world, non-war-ravaged problems...

Almost "all or nothing" diets fail.

Don't waste your time and drive to change setting up failure. Make moderate changes and stick to them. Punishment-style regimens quickly feel like punishments and no one sticks with them, no matter how stridently your are warned to throw all rice, pasta or desserts in the trash! Make incremental changes, stick with them, and if you have pizza once a month, who cares?

My sugar walls….

Just 2 quickies - 1) when you are home and that maddening sugar itch hits - have a dill pickle - or two. I don’t remember the Science behind it, but it does work - in a pickle! Ha! ha!

2) go to Amazon and order a cheap used copy of the ORIGINAL Dr. Atkins book - from 1972? The FIRST book - he is very chatty and relatable and it is full of tips and tricks (some are outdated or debunked) but it is really a good basic rundown of getting sugar out of your diet. ….. Befote V you guys blast me - I suggest like I would suggest making sure you have a copy of Julia Child’s French Cooking or a basic Betty Crocker Cookbook.

Cheap, used?

Full of outdated and debunked information?

I’ll pass…

Makes sense R54!

R56 why do you recommend those cookbooks?

Chickpeas and rice are just as bad as starchy carbs.

I thought about what I've eaten today, a typical day, and realize that there's so much sugar added to everything--from bread to yogurt to my coffee, etc.

Sugar in bread? WTF! Is that normal in the USA?

Are you kidding, R62? Sugar is in just about every processed food in the USA. They cram sugar into everything here.

I'm not defending sugar - it's horrible and has no nutritive value - but the same is true for flour. Even whole wheat bread has a higher glycemic index than sugar.

Give up the sugar - and the bread. (if you must, sourdough is about the best you can do)

Anyone have a bread substitute that is as comforting and filling and affordable (preferably non corn and soy-based)? That's why I eat it, I think.

I think a lot of Asians would say rice - except it's just as bad as bread (glycemically speaking - though parboiled is the best of the rice choices)

I don't think there is a good substitute if you grew up on bread or rice.

Maybe legumes, barley, steel cut oats? - and they make keto bread and crackers, if you can find a brand you don't hate.

I've tried quitting sugar for Whole30. I did it, but by week 2, I'm literally dreaming about donuts, gummy bears, and cinnamon rolls. Week 3, I would catch myself staring and drooling at ice cream during a grocery trip. By week 4, I can smell vanilla birthday cake off someone's breath. If I could, I would literally eat candy and sugar for every meal. Like Will Ferrell in the Elf movie. When I imagine heaven, it looks like the fictional Candyland board game world. It's so hard because I love a kale salad with no dressing. I love chicken and broccoli. I go to biking for 30 min - 1 hr, 3 times a week. But I can never offset the damage that I do at Halloween, Christmas, Valentines Day, and Easter. Literally haven't lost a single pound in a year because I'm addicted to chocolate, addicted to cookies, and addicted to Dr. Pepper. My soap and my perfume literally smells like candy as well. I'm not morbidly obese, but I could lose 20. It's just so hard. I heard some people have gut bacteria that makes them addicted to sugar, and I suspect that I have that. God I really need a fucking marshmallow after writing this.

I had an insane sugar addiction - all you can really do is go cold turkey. It's horrible at first but after a month it gets a lot easier. Eventually you don't miss it.

IMO, the worst we can do is put our bodies on a roller coaster ride by overindulging and extreme fasting or dieting and then go back to overindulging.

All the things that are supposed to be bad for us are not in fact bad when taken in moderation. Just stop being a glutton and use restraint and moderation as your new way of life philosophy. The reason barely anyone is doing that, is because snake oil salesmen make more money by pushing your buttons and stress you out with new diet programs or temptations to overindulge.

[quote] My soap and my perfume literally smells like candy as well.

Gurl!

R69 that's true. I find when I indulge my cravings a little bit, say have a spoon or jam or honey or a few squares of chocolate, I'm fine and don't want any more, and can go on with my healthy day's activity and diet thereafter. Whereas if I resist and resist, get stressed and shame myself, then the cravings get worse and I am in danger of bingeing followed by flagellation and a huge crash in mood/energy/motivation.