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For me at least, it is possible to eliminate/drastically reduce my sugar cravings.
Typically I feel cravings for something sweet whenever I’m hungry, bored, have just finished a meal, am feeling sad, or am feeling happy. In short, I eat a lot of sweets and also spend a lot of time and effort trying to resist them.
LAST TIME
A few years ago I managed to cold-turkey sweets while I was following a Keto diet. I noticed that in week 3 of keto, my cravings had vanished. No longer did the desire to finish a meal with a bowl of ice cream plague me. For about 6 weeks total, if memory serves, I managed to eat no desserts or sweets at all. Everything was going great. Then I went to a birthday party, and my hubris let me astray. “I’m doing so well! I don’t need it, but I can just have a slice of chocolate cake, and it’s no big deal!”
Alas, the very next day, my cravings were back, I fell off the wagon, and the experiment was over.
I tried several times over the years to quit cold turkey again, but I never managed to keep at it for long, and I more or less gave up and decided to just make peace with the yearly expansion of my waistline.
THIS TIME
Near the end of June, I managed to have a few really busy days in a row, and for whatever reason, I realized suddenly, I hadn’t had any sweets for the last 3 days. Noticing that I had a little bit of a “head start” on getting through the 3 week sugar withdrawal, I decided to give it another go.
I’m not sure where I got the idea, but I decided to modify my strategy. It was in the prime of the summer fruit season in the Bay Area, and nectarines, plums, pluots, peaches, and mangos were all at their ripest and sweetest. Instead of going cold turkey, I would try to eat a piece of fruit anytime I had a craving for sugar. I don’t think this would have worked if the fruit hadn’t been extremely good and satisfying. Another thing that I did was I didn’t try to limit or moderate how much fruit I consumed. If I had one after lunch, and then another after dinner, and I still wanted more, I was allowed to eat more.
(The idea being that eating fruit was at least better than eating milkshakes.)
Just as with last time, midway through my third week of no sweets (other than fruit) I realized that my cravings had disappeared.
NOW
It's been 8 weeks since the start of what I think of as "The Stone Fruit Experiment." After the first 3 weeks, I've been following an stricter low-carb Keto diet. The fear of god and falling off the wagon has also been a very motivating factor, and I haven't indulged in sweets even once since June. Happy to answer questions about this or my keto diet if anyone is curious. Ultimately however, I'm just happy to report that for the time being, my cravings are finally under control.
Congrats!
Is the sweets the primary thing here, or was it just the hardest part of an overall keto diet?
I've had several friends try keto, and on the 2-3rd day say "woah this feels so amazing I'm so energetic life is great!" and then a week or two later go "oh god this sucks everything is terrible."
I haven't made an attempt to control my diet so far. For the past few years I've been incrementally doing more exercise, but if that's had any effect it's been (har har?) outweighed by the effect of, dunno, getting older or metabolism slowing down or something.
Re: Primary Thing -- kinda lo dayenu? If I'd only quit being quite so sweets-obsessed, and hadn't started the diet, that would still have been a huge win.
The Keto Diet: I'm not an expert and everyone is different, but there is a thing called "Keto Flu" which I am fortunate enough to not get. I believe that for some people when they switch into ketosis, they may spend as much as a week experiencing fatigue, headaches, and other symptoms until their body adjusts.
I think of exercise and diet as two fairly separate pillars of health. Like, as separate from each other as getting good sleep is from dental hygiene.
Some studies, such as this one, have been focusing more and more around the influence of gut bacteria control over eating behavior including the microbial influence on reward and satiety pathways and most importantly microbial influence on generating cravings for foods that they specialize on or foods that suppress their competitors.
This implies a few ways to change cravings:
Glad that you found something that worked for you! I used to struggle with trying to control my sweet tooth, but found that going "no sweets" was surprisingly effective as I never had to decide. The decision is where I've had problems in the past because if I'm excited/stressed/etc., I decide to have too many sweets.
I've experimented with different versions of "no sweets" over the last three years, including no sweets except one cheat day a year, no sweets except one cheat day a month, no sweets except one-three bites of something after every meal, and no sweets except one-three bites of something if someone asks me to try something (my current experiment). I like my latest experiment best, because it lets me share in the social aspect of sharing dessert w/ others without having to deal with the annoying conversations of "I don't eat sweets," while still not needing a decision from me. I also eat 3 - 4 servings of fruit a day (a serving with every meal usually) so have plenty of natural sugars.
Thats fabulous! I have been taking very tentative nibbles of people's desserts, and I'm glad to hear your 1-3 bites strategy is working for you because that's the strategy that I'd most like to use as well! (Social food is so important!)
11 months later, I'm still living a sugar-free life
See original post: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/fKCtbmYfanZ79Kh3F/tilia-s-shortform?commentId=vrhPHZoMbvSJDn74R
Hey folks. Last August I wrote about how I quit sugar using ripe fruit. I'm excited to share that I've managed to keep it up for nearly a year now.
Cooking: It helps that I'm proficient in the kitchen and can foods that satisfy my desire for variety, while keeping the carb count low. For someone who is less experienced, I could see them ending up eating the same thing and then getting frustrated. Foods I've made include a noodle-free lasagna, chicken shawarma, tuscan kale soup, chili (without beans), roasted asparagus, homemade ranch dressing, cauliflower soup, Szechuan eggplant tofu, spicy pork curry, and a different crustless quiche every week since March.
Cravings: As I mentioned in my original post, my cravings used to be quite bad. There were times when I ate sweets in a mental state of "It's harmless and I deserve it" but worse were the times when I ate sweets despite internally screaming, "Don't eat it! Bad! No! Stop!" Since eliminating sugar from my diet, I have not ever felt an out of control craving for sweets. There are times when I get a desire for them, but it feels more mental, and it's easier to resist.
Cheat days: I mostly don't have cheat days. I've had a handful (maybe 3) which are more like cheat meals, and I still try not to over indulge, eat a huge piece of dessert, or a big pile of noodles. I've let myself have nearly insubstantial quantities of my partner's desserts, if we're out at a restaurant together (RIP to restaurants).
Results: I'm super proud of myself for changing my diet to a more healthy one. If that were the only outcome, I would be very happy. However, I am proud to share that in addition to the (I assume) health benefits of having a diet with very minimal refined sugar in it, I am also continuing to make progress on my weight loss goals as well. I'm now back to a weight I haven't been at since 2017.
Questions: Let me know if you'd like to talk about recipes, low-carb diets, or quitting sugar. I'm not the type of person who has done a ton of personal research, and I can't cite studies, but I'm happy to talk more about my experiences, and help you murphy-jutsu if you're thinking of trying something similar.
Congrats! That's a great achievement.
How do you feel after removing sugar? What did the timeline of cravings and their strength look like since you started quitting?
I feel fine! I wouldn't say that I've felt noticeably different for having quit sugar.
The cravings were pretty bad for the first 2.5 weeks after I quit. I ate fresh fruit hand over fist during that time to try to mitigate it. Surprisingly, it worked!