Addicted to sugar and refined carbs

R

renewal

New member
I am an addict. Not to drugs or alcohol; but to sugar, refined carbs, and maybe even to dieting. In fact, I think I must have an addictive personality: I finally managed to quit smoking nearly a year ago after a 25+ year, 2-pack-a-day habit and trying every quit-smoking withdrawal aid out there. During one of my last failed attempts to quit smoking, I ended up wearing nicotine patches AND smoking. Dangerous and stupid, yes. The only way I finally managed to quit was cold-turkey, after a health scare that was so bad I resolved "NTAP" - never take another puff. I could not have done it without the support of frequent visits to a scary but very helpful stop-smoking web site (whyquit.com). I still crave cigarettes, and have finally accepted that I am just a non-smoking smoker. I can live with that.

But this isn't about smoking. The addiction feels every bit as bad, though. Maybe worse. Unlike cigarettes, you can't quit food cold-turkey. And I cannot stop eating things I KNOW are bad for me, even though I have watched the numbers on the scales creep higher; even though I have finally had to stop wearing jeans and now wear my husband's sweats because my last pair of "fat jeans" literally split in the fabric itself when I wedged my fat a-- into them. I have RA and have lost an inch of height in just 2 years, probably partly due to the excess weight load on my joints. Great. So while I'm getting fatter, I'm also getting shorter. At this rate I'll be a little round ball in 10 years.

Ironically, I am a champion dieter. I know exactly how to measure portions, eat several small meals a day, how much exercise will burn off how many calories, etc. Just last May, I started my umpteenth sensible diet and intensive walking program, and lost 32.5 lbs in just under 4 months. Which was no small feat considering I completely wrecked my metabolism (BMR is now about 1300) by constant dieting for decades, and ended up hypothyroid by going overboard on broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, and soy while dieting in earlier years. Yes, people, you can do that to your thyroid. I'm living proof and must take Synthroid now.

Anyway, 10 lbs short of my goal -- as always -- I became overconfident and rationalized that I was surely back in control of my eating habits forever, and could have "just one small sliver" of my daughter's birthday cake. That was all she wrote, folks. To make matters worse, my Synthroid dosage had to be increased twice last Fall, and each dosage increase has the nasty side effect of making me constantly ravenous for weeks until my body adjusts to it. I have been completely "off the wagon" for 4 1/2 months now. I have gained back all the weight I lost. EVERY single day since September, I have awakened with fresh resolve to start anew, and EVERY single night I go to bed kicking myself and resolving to do better the next day.

This cycle has got to stop! So I have decided it's time to finally admit the obvious: I really do have an addiction. Perhaps other people can easily get back on track if they eat a small amount of sugar or some other refined carb. But to me, it's no different than handing an alcoholic a drink, or a meth addict a hit.

So here I am... Not starting a new diet. Rather, starting a new life, right now, cold turkey. This is my renewal. Going to take it one day at a time.
 
:D
I feel ya. Yo-yo dieting sucks, but your particular exasperation is that you basically have to eat, and you are addicted to doing it, neh?

I love overeating, it's my addiction. Especially foods with hidden fats and sugars; food that CAN be good for us (look, it's a salad, it's healthy!), but that we can ruin and make bad for us (Dude... a taco salad with a pound of taco meat? That is NOT a healthy salad!).

You're not alone, there's a lot of us that are the same way out here. If I figure out how to fix it, I'll let you know. :p
 
You sound like me! I went through the same thing, only problem was I was almost anorexic, fasting two days every week and exercising off everything I ate. I lost 20 stubborn pounds in almost a month and a half.
So October rolled around, and, at the time I stayed with my grandma. Well, if you know grandmas, you know they buy lots of sweet treats any chance they have.
For Halloween she bought maybe 4 bags of fun size candies. And, I'm big on snacking, so those kind of alternatively became my snacks.
BAD MOVE.
To make a long story short, it got colder so I couldn't jog anymore, and I snacked on candy for the month of October, leading to me being where I am now, 150 pounds and devastated. I talked with my boyfriend about it, and one day I just got so upset I told him every single thing that has ever caused me pain/stress. And I realized that around the month of October I applied for a job I had always wanted at a store I felt at home in, and was very confident in my skills to get the job. They didn't hire me. And little did I know, after that point, my self-confidence hit the floor and it came out through my eating.
ANYWAY, after typing a novel here, my suggestion is maybe there's an underlying situation or stress-causer that's preventing you from reaching your goals? The way you talk about yourself is quite similar to how I describe me, too.
Good luck!
 
LOL! Exactly, Qjay! Or a whole huge bag of salad greens with 1/4 bottle of dressing. Then some cheese (for calcium, right?) and a bunch of deli meat (protein!). Eating itself is an addiction for people like us. But triggers like sugar and fat make it SO much worse.

Kaileikehe, I was probably anorexic or close to it in my mid-teens. I lost a bunch of weight, sensibly at first, but the thinner I got, the harder it was to take off those last few lbs, so I kicked it down to like 400-500 calories a day. Didn't realize it then (and I was so dumb I probably would not have cared anyway), but that was the beginning of killing my metabolism. I never got "classically underweight" by more than about 10 lbs: My parents intervened and forced me to eat a single Oreo cookie. The sugar trigger was the end of the diet for me and the beginning of years of yo-yo'ing.

I think falling off the diet wagon last Fall was a combination of factors:
  1. I really am an addictive personality. I go overboard on everything. A few bags of Halloween candy? I bought 2 CASES of huge King-size Hershey bars and Mounds bars. We had 1.9 cases left after Halloween. Guess who ate most of the rest?! ... in two weeks flat. Then came Thanksgiving, another birthday cake, then Christmas.
  2. Meds making me so hungry all the time made it almost impossible to stay level.
  3. And yes there was a major source of stress and/or frustration. I was completely demoralized by not having anything nice to wear once I did lose weight last Fall, I was still stuck wearing ugly "Mom jeans", baggy t-shirts, and sweats; and even those are at least 15-25 years old. I couldn't afford new clothes for myself because I had just spent a fortune buying all the best of everything (I mean, we are talking killer wardrobes here) for my two teen daughters as they began the new school year. I rationalized that small piece of cake by wondering, "What's the use? I have nothing to wear anyway, so a few pounds right now won't really matter."

This time, I will keep the weight off even if it means going NAKED... well, maybe not quite naked. But I realize I sabotaged myself, for what? I'm right back where I started, and that is definitely no better. I'd rather be thin and badly dressed, than fat and badly-dressed!
 
Grrr.. I wish I could blame medication for my aggressively hungry times, but it's just me. If you are sure it's the medication, ask for something else, and see if it goes away; it's TOUGH to just "power through" those moments.
 
It can't take all the blame, but it remains a huge factor. The monstrous appetite is finally starting to abate somewhat, as it always does a couple of months after a dosage increase. Problem was, I had two increases back-to-back: as soon as I started getting used to the higher dose, the dosage was raised again. I am now on double the dosage I was on just a few months ago. One side effect of synthroid is supposed to be weight stabilization, or even a bit of loss. What they don't tell you is that you will eat everything in sight for weeks or even months. The net result is that many people end up gaining weight on thyroid meds, in a seeming paradox. It's no mystery, though: eat more, weigh more.

But like I said, meds can't take all the blame. The rest is me. I saw a commercial for a weight-loss pill last night. "Lipozine" or something like that. I thought, "Yeah, right. Another so-called miracle weight loss drug. I don't need more s--t like that. What I need is more Lip-o-ZIP!!!" :rolleyes:

ALMOST grabbed a candy bar when the pipes froze this evening. Running around with portable heaters and blow-dryers meant no time for getting a real dinner together. But I somehow managed to survive the sugar-jones with a couple of chunks of cheddar instead. Not what anyone would call low-fat or healthy, but hey, it's a start.

Do you know any tricks for stopping a massive case of munchies, or do you just muddle through?
 
Crap, I have been on Levothroid for a couple of months now, and it didn't really do anything like that to me. Guess I'm lucky?
Well heck, for beating the munchies, I go outside and sit on the porch for a bit, or else I get someplace really quiet and play some distracting online games. I'm into these weird, stupid text-based games, and I can sit there just trading goods on them for hours, which really helps me out sometimes.
Still, all I have to do is hear a TV, and I get them pretty badly. Munchies suck, but instead of a couple of chunks of cheddar, I would actually recommend basially shredding it onto some crackers or a tortilla and melting it in the microwave/stove/whatever. The time involved really helps, so does the task, and the fact that you KNOW you are doing something about being hungry. Just don't "graze" too much as you are preparing the snack, or else it kinda defeats the purpose.
I can't tell you how many times I have spent a few hours preparing dinner, then been full by the time it was ready. Do you think it stopped me from eating the finished product?

I am a BIG fan of pre-portioned foods, they are helping me to get my food urges under control, and I am REALLY loving these tiny plates I cook the stuff on :D It is stupid, but it really seems to help.
 
Guess you are either very lucky with the meds, or maybe you really WERE affected but didn't recognize the cause? Did you find yourself wanting to eat more often, and having more difficulty appeasing your appetite? Either way, the appetite side effect thing only seems to last about 7 or 8 weeks. So maybe you're just now coming out of it... and maybe that's why it's getting easier to think "diet" now, than it would have been a month ago.

Pre-portioned foods are great as long as I don't eat 5 portions at a time. I will have to try smaller plates too. I'm already using a salad plate. What do you use, a saucer???

Problem for me seems to be not having the right foods ready to eat when I'm hungry, so I start grazing, "a tiny bit of this, a little of that", then I go back for a bit more.... If sugars or starches are involved, I rebound and end up completely out of control. So no chips or crackers for me!

This morning I pre-portioned all my meals for the day so they are ready to go. Now I just have to stick to an eating schedule and not wait so long between meals that I end up starving and eating everything in sight.
 
Actually, I'm really starting to suffer from problems with appetite control right now. It's like the levothroid was acting as an appetite suppressant for awhile, but now it isn't. It really sucks, because I just had my normal breakfast (preportioned sandwich) that I have been eating daily for a month, and this time I was so dang hungry afterwards (rare) that I went and made a couple of sausages (good, healthy ones) at 150 calories each, with a TON of sauerkraut (I love that stuff).

The "plates" I generally use for every meal except dinner are the lid to a one quart pyrex cooking/mixing bowl, they are about 4 or 5 inches across, my fingers hang off if I put my palm on the plate. Dinner still involves a "real" meal, I aim for 800-1200 calories and somewhere around half of my daily intake, on a real dinner plate. I dunno how well it's all working, but I have to be doing something right, right? At least I am avoiding my big "bellybuster fast food gorges". I still miss whoppers, and the way they used to taste; now the simple smell of them makes me gag, sometimes.
 
Consider the possible beginnings of a protein deficiency? Usually when I crave protein like that, it's because I've gone too long with too little (protein, that is ;) ). Maybe add/substitute a protein shake once or twice a day with a meal or as a snack. I use Provida's whey protein powders (this is not a plug; imo they just don't taste as disgusting as the others, and they have something like 21 g protein in one 90-calorie scoop). Add half a tray of ice cubes, half a banana, one Equal, and some water, and blend the hell out of it. Voila: a 2-cup, 120-calorie, high-protein shake that is fairly filling and actually tastes ok. And way cheaper, calorie-wise, than a much smaller portion anything else for the amount of protein you get.

I love sauerkraut too. People just don't love being around me after I've eaten it LOL!

Be careful, though... cabbage is one of those cruciferous things that can interfere with your thyroid function if you eat much of it, especially if you already are hypothyroid.
 
I am dead-sure it isn't a protein deficiency, I eat meat with most of my meals in a day, and I pretty much hate the shake-type supplements. The only time I have a use for them is if I need something nutricious when I am in a hurry, and even then, they are still pretty nasty. The only use I have for my blender is Margaritas ;)

I'm not a champion dieter (thank god) but I have tried a ton of different diets over the years, and the only thing that ever does me any good is changing the way I eat. The only problem with it is that I can't ever stick with it more than a few months, or else I get "invulnerable" in my head. "Yeah, I can have some fast food this time! Look at how good I am doing!" or else "Yeah, it may be seconds, or even thirds, but who cares?! I've already lost so much weight, and it IS healthy food; I'm going to have some more."

My cravings are pretty much specifically for starchy and fatty foods, preferably French Fries done crispy with a side of Fry Sauce (mix ketchup and mayo, about 50/50, with a fraction of garlic salt and a dash of relish), or Onion Rings, or some other Deep Fried Delicacy.

How are you doing on your snacky urges today?
 
Qjay said:
The only problem with it is that I can't ever stick with it more than a few months, or else I get "invulnerable" in my head. "Yeah, I can have some fast food this time! Look at how good I am doing!" or else "Yeah, it may be seconds, or even thirds, but who cares?! I've already lost so much weight, and it IS healthy food; I'm going to have some more."
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OMG that is EXACTLY my downfall, every single bleepin' time. We are NOT going to let it happen this time, right?

I was doing ok (mostly) with the snacky urges -- until you mentioned French fries, fry sauce (AAAAUUUGGHH!!! must be a western thing), and onion rings!! ~whimper~

I'm going to go make some strong Earl Grey. Can't drink coffee or eat espresso beans any more, but hot beverages sometimes help kill my cravings a little. Maybe it's just the burned tastebuds......

I am supposed to be catching up on work though or I will never be able to come up for air tonight. With luck, I can dig in with my {mmmummbblegrump}..teacup and forget about food for awhile.
 
renewal said:
I'm going to go make some strong Earl Grey. Can't drink coffee or eat espresso beans any more, but hot beverages sometimes help kill my cravings a little. Maybe it's just the burned tastebuds......

I am supposed to be catching up on work though or I will never be able to come up for air tonight. With luck, I can dig in with my {mmmummbblegrump}..teacup and forget about food for awhile.
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I'm going to respond to this one in your Diary, it makes things a lot easier to keep up on. :p
 
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