The sugar lobby says welcome to 30 years ago.
I’ve said for years, the one thing I envy of people quitting alcohol or other drugs, is the simplicity of the rules.
In their case the rule is just “No”. At every time, place, or circumstance, no matter what, it’s just “No”.
It would be so nice if food was that simple.
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Be kind to yourself. A weakness for baked goods is a significant upgrade from those other vices. If the baked goods have helped you at all from abstaining from them, it’s a small price
I made a kind of deal with myself that if I wanted baked goods and sweets I had to make them myself. Since then I’ve learned to make brownies, cookies, ice cream, sorbet, chocolate ganache tarts, pancakes, and more. It’s fun, allows you to be creative, and the extra work of having to make if yourself keeps you in check.
I did the same thing with my meth addiction.
Making it yourself also lets you make it healthier. It’s super easy to choose recipes with less sugar and put fruit, veg, healthy fats, etc into baked goods. It’s not going to make it a health food, but it’s better than Little Debbie.
@Steve @shish_mish There is one rule I follow: no packaged snacks. Any snacks I want, I make at home. I got into it for environmental reasons, but after I went vegan, it was the main principle stopping me from going for all of those vegan junk food options. Instead, I make bliss balls and, occasionally, cookies or other treats. Those combined with fruit make great snacks while not destroying my health.
Oh, I also pretty much always go for WFPB recipes, even for snacks.
WFPB?
@gowan Whole Foods Plant Based. So basically, not using any refined foods (think dates instead of sugar for sweetening something, for example).
The nice thing about just saying no to food is that you don’t have to do it for as long as those guys with a drug addiction. So that’s a good point.
Careful there. Breatharians might like a word with you.
It sort of is that simple. There are no addictive ingredients in whole foods. Fruit, vegetables, whole grains, non-processed proteins. People just have to make better decisions at the grocery store.
You’re still eating food right?
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I don’t stop eating when I am full. I stop eating when I hate myself. And then some.
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I switched to sparkling water. Satisfies the “cold fizzy thing” itch without extra sugar. Though, apparently finding plain seltzer is hard in some parts.
Would a sodastream type solution satisfy your needs? Things like that have gotten super cheap. My dad also just uses unsweetened drink flavoring in his like bubly. Can also use natural flavours instead of buying artificial ones. Concentrated lemon juice is easy enough to find, I’m sure other concentrated flavours are possible to find or make too. But yeah, by default it just makes carbonated water, adding flavour or sweetening it is an optional second step.
Devices that carbonate water have been around for decades, the upside of the new ones is just that they hit a critical mass in enough markets now that the co2 cartridge replacements are everywhere and cheap now. I live in a small town of 2000 people up in Canada, and we have a sodastream canister exchange program in our local hardware store, lol. And a canister is 20$cad and lasts me about 100 drinks, the water I use is filtered tap water, so the price there is pretty negligible per drink. Totals up to about 25 cents per drink. The price of the machine itself was 80$cad, so if I only add that to the first batch, those first hundred liters were more like a dollar each. Pretty easy to swallow. Though it’s carbonated, so best to sip anyway.
Flavored seltzer has come a long way
I’m pretty fond of Hal’s. They even have a fruit punch flavor that transports me to my childhood, ha.
I used to drink a shitload of soda.
Then after college I was living at home with my folks, two hours away from my fiancee. I had nothing better to do so I decided to focus on my health. Took 6 months, did a lot of p90x, went almost entirely cold turkey on processed foods, added sugars, and alcohol.
I ended up losing over 60lbs, almost all of which I have gained back for various reasons. But one thing that stuck is I cannot handle non-diet soda anymore. It makes me feel physically sick to drink more than a couple ounces. I will occasionally drink a diet soda, but even those are few and far between.
It’s like I rewired something inside of me and I just can’t deal with those sugar bombs anymore. I’m sure part of it may also just be me getting older.
Anyway the point of the story is, there is hope! It takes some willpower, but if I could do it, you can too!
You can do it!
Getting soda by the can really helps me- It’s hard not to finish whatever I open and at least the can is an ok size for the day. A bit more expensive per volume and a bit worse for the environment, but at least it’s one part of my diet under control
Yeah, it’s a serious problem for me. I’m largely channeling those feelings of hatred into reminding myself not to do that. Perhaps not the healthiest approach, but it’s been working so far.
I’ve got syrup in my veins for blood
The way I behave around Takis is not a reflection of who I am as a person.
I’m the same way with Dot’s Original pretzels
I tried to go cold turkey but only lasted a few weeks before the doctors put me on a forced feeding tube.
Was it at least on a sandwich?
Too big to fit in the tube. Only mashed potatoes for him.
from personal experience, I don’t think it’s something I can be weened off of.
I bet you’re hooked on water also, degenerate.
I’ve heard the withdrawal for that is lethal
Didn’t read the article did you?
Don’t worry mate I’m just making a joke.
Next article: water is wet
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Yeah, just about everyone is addicted to caffeine, but no one bats an eye. It’s only the drugs that were made illegal that people usually have issues with people being addicted to. All addiction is bad and we should try to have better resources and understanding to help anyone with any addiction.
strongest addiction
That sounds like a big stretch…
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A person with a crippling addiction to sugar is going to look like a morbidly obese person. A person with a crippling addiction to heroin is going to look like that homeless person you’re picturing. But the obese person can have sugar delivered to their door on a daily basis, and the drug addict has to do some sketch shit to maintain their addiction.
Most people are far further down the scale than either of those two obvious examples, and may be indistinguishable from someone who isn’t actively addicted to something. Though, the 40% obesity rate night have something to do with that.
Not only have we had proof of this for a very long time, the entire US industrial food industry is built around making processed foods as addictive as possible.
The last part is what the article is about
I gave up alcohol a year ago but my soda habit is off the charts. 😔
What helped me drink a lot less soda was to begin looking at the sugar content on everything. A can has 75% of your daily recommended max intake, a bottle has 125%. Combined with the amount of sugar in a lot of other things, I’m pretty sure many Americans consume like double the amount of sugar they should pretty often. Plus, the 50 grams they recommend is still a lot of sugar and you shouldn’t be even consuming that much
For me, getting soda on cans made a huge difference - the parent didn’t estimate the sugar content if a 2l bottle. Anyhow having cans both let’s me off the hook for having one, keeps me from rationalizing that I don’t want to waste it by letting it get flat, and I find it easier to limit myself to only one per day
(Plus it’s diet. I’m not sure that’s entirely better so still worth limiting, but it’s not sugar, or empty calories)
Artificial sweetener is actually worse for you than sugar. Just drink normal soda. If you’re drinking soda daily, try to reduce that to 3 or less a week
Interesting. I didn’t have a hard time giving up food, I quit about three years ago, but I drink constantly
Wait… what do you mean by “giving up food” exactly? You got me worried dawg!
They’re saying food is addictive. I’m here to tell you otherwise. I went cold turkey years ago. Big Food wants you to believe you “need” food. Just like Big Tobacco wants you to “need” cigarettes. Phooey, I say
That’s okay bud, I’m proud of you! :)
Getting a seltzer maker satisfied a lot of the desire for soda for me. Mostly I want cold, wet fizz.
I’m a sugar addict. I went keto 2 years ago and lost 150lbs. I still need to lose around 30. 90% of our “food” isn’t real food. You need meat and veggies. Nothing else. It’s hard to stop though. I still gotta have a doughnut at least once a month.
You do not need meat. You do need protein.
You don’t need meat.
maybe you don’t but I do. I was a vegan and I was unhealthy and sick. Switched to mostly ketovore and I’m better in my 40s than I was in my 20s. I was able to stop every medication that I had been taking for 10+ years.
@letsgo2themall @Bipta I don’t know you and I won’t claim to know your exact experience and circumstance. All I will say is that it’s easier than ever to be an unhealthy vegan because there is so much processed unhealthy vegan crap in stores nowadays.
I’m WFPB vegan (whole foods plant based) and have never been better. FWIW, I was vegetarian before going vegan and never ate animal flesh as part of my diet. Dairy *was* part of my diet before I went vegan.
@letsgo2themall @Bipta I eat tons of legumes, fruits, veggies, nuts, seeds, and some grain. I don’t set limits on carbs or fat, but aim to get certain amounts of protein, calcium, and iron every day. I eat copious amounts of leafy greens and eat them every day. I opt for as much variety as possible in veggies and legumes, rotating through several options and trying not to use just one or two all the time.
@letsgo2themall @Bipta It’s honestly not particularly hard to be a healthy vegan if you stick to WFPB and don’t have any allergies. Allergies can make it harder, but they make *any* diet more complicated (think celiacs, for example). There is a *huge* variety of plants available to meet our nutritional requirements. Where there are gaps, it is because of modern sanitation practices (e.g. lack of B12) or other lifestyle factors (most people are deficient in D, for example).
@letsgo2themall @Bipta So no, it’s not at all *required* for the average human to eat meat. Veggies, on the other hand, are absolutely crucial due to tons of micronutrients and vitamins that are hard to get elsewhere.
Edit: Oh Lemmy why can’t you get & right
true, I find I can only go so long before I’m jonesing for food again
I thought we had generally agreed that anything can be addictive?
And this link is broken for me. Anyone else?
Yes, but there are different types of addiction. I made this comment on another post, but I’ll put it here too:
There’s a big difference between something being psychologically addictive, and something being chemically addictive.
Like, yea, you can technically get addicted to anything. But there’s a massive difference between getting addicted to, say, working out, and getting addicted to nicotine.
So food being chemically addictive is not something that’s been known for decades, in fact it’s been a common topic of debate.
okay ‘chemically’ vs psychologically is the distinction I was looking for, thanks.
Although if we give science enough time maybe they will arrive at the conclusion that its the same mechanism, ‘psychologically’ addictive just means a dopamine addiction as far as I know. Its still a chemical.
Isn’t type 2 diabetes functional evidence of a sugar addiction?
I see what you mean, but it’s still functionally different. Being chemically addicted to nicotine or alcohol isn’t the same process as a diabetic needing sugar.
Been trying Keto for about a week now and I never really noticed my addiction to bread. Not the ordinary sandwich type bread, but the good stuff like naan and pita bread. Crackers and hummus, most soups, BBQ, anything sweet that isn’t sucralose-y. I’m making due with the low carb tortillas but it isn’t the same.
The only fast food that I can get reliably that fits in the diet is the grilled chicken nuggets at Chick-fil-A.
Another reliable fast food option is Jimmy John’s. Their “un-which” is your sub of choice wrapped in lettuce leaves. The gargantuan un-which is my go-to.
