Conquering Food Addictions

Update on Conquering my Sugar Addiction

If you would like to continue to follow my work......

My recipes and I can now be found @

http://www.plantbasednutritionista.com

I hope to see you there!   

 

I am happy to report 1.5 pound weight loss this week!

I am very excited about my journey to overcome sugar addition.  I have found that as I avoid sweets I do not have the desire to binge on food seeking that 'sugar high' constantly.  I have noticed that with sugar or any other addictive substance it starts out fairly innocuous....but as time goes on your body wants more and more and more to get the same 'high'. 

It leads to horrible cravings, binge eating and other destructive behaviors.  Conquering an addiction is NOT easy.  As I watched my weight continue to climb due to binge eating on sweets you'd think it would have made me want to stop.....but alas it did not.  You have to come to a place in your life where you are so broken, so desperate that you are willing to do something very difficult and painful in order to overcome.  I wish we were not that way....but that is just how people operate.  We continue in self destructive patterns even though we know it is hurting us....and we do it for that 5 seconds of pleasure, at least in the case of food addictions.

Confession

Hubby and I had a date night on Saturday night and we went to one of my favorite very vegan friendly restaurants:  Ginger's Cafe.   They have an amazing menu including raw foods, vegetarian, vegan....we love this place and they also have yummy vegan cookies.  Try as I might I couldn't resist having a couple of bites of hubby's cookies. 

These cookies are NOT your traditional overly oily/sugary cookie.  They are lightly sweet, yes they have turbinado sugar so something I should avoid but I enjoyed a couple of bites.  I had a little guilt over it but I have continued to do extremely well in conquering my addiction.

Cooking Day with My Mom

Yesterday my mom came over to make her favorite granola and some cookies.  We made some delicious sugar free chocolate chunk cookies that were amazing!  My mom loved them!  It was a great day and I was able to handle the temptation of snacking continuously on the food we were making.....

It was interesting that after eating the sugar free cookies I did not have the desire to binge on them, in fact I only ate half a cookie and then I was fine.  I wanted to take a picture of the cookies but unfortunately, I did not get one......my mom, me, my sister, my two kids and their friends ate them all FAST!

Don't worry though, I will be making them for my hubby when he gets back from his business trip...I will get pictures of them then.

Ramblings on overcoming addiction

There are some people who can just decide to change or do something, put their mind to it and never look back.  However, this is not the norm.  Most of us cannot just use our 'will power' to overcome addiction.  You have to have a plan that will work for you!  If the thought of giving up on desserts completely causes you to feel anxiety and stress it can lead to a short period of abstinence followed by a binge.  You have to create a plan that you can be happy with, and that plan doesn't have to look like anyone else's...it is individual for YOU!

The internet is chock full of advise...one expert says do X, the next one says do Y, the next one says do Z.....and on and on the internet advise goes.  So what do you do?  

The reality is, not all plans for overcoming addictions will work for everyone...take the good advice that feels doable to you and leave the rest.

• Create a plan that feels very doable to you
• Choose ahead of time what you are going to do instead of turning to food [take a walk, read, shopping, drink some tea, knitting etc...]
• Find healthy substitutions for foods you just are not willing to give up
• Make a plan for dining out, parties and other situations that may lead to eating issues

I decided that completely giving up dessert was NOT going to work for me at this point in my life...I have tried it and the results were disastrous.  Some people do recommend doing this and it worked for them, but it did not work for me.  So instead of feeling guilty or continue to try and force myself to follow someone else's path, I forged my own.

I found MANY substitutions for sweeteners that have little to no impact on blood sugar levels and do not feed candida.  Realize that we NEED blood sugar and therefore healthy whole foods are great...but as far as concentrated sweeteners go it is just too much sugar all at once.

I am the type of person that if I want something and no one else is doing it....I'll figure out my own way!  I've done it many times and I'm still doing it.  I want dessert but I also want to be healthy...so I am finding a way to do it!  That is the attitude you need to get through and achieve the results you want!