Eating Less Sugar

Good for you! You are going to find that soon you will have reduced cravings. For a sweet/salty what about melting a square of dark chocolate and drizzling it over some pretzels. Dark chocolate has a much lower sugar content-its my desert every day.

Don't cut out sugar and replace it with Splenda or any other chemical! It's so hazardous! You can try some high quality stevia. You should also eliminate white flour (especially "enriched" flour which has virtually no nutrients) and white rice, white potatoes - they turn to sugar in your body. Go for complex carbs (brown rice, sweet potatoes, etc.). Try cocoa - I put plain cocoa (10 calories a tablespoon) in yogurt and it tastes like candy or ice cream. Yes, yogurt has sugar in it but it also has a lot of calcium (especially Greek) and protein, so there's some offsetting value. And all fruit has sugar in it but it's natural fructose. At least when you eat real fruit, you get the fiber. That's why it's better that you eat the whole orange than plain orange juice, and the apple vs. apple juice.

You can look for whole grain breads with no sugar, try grains like quinoa and wild rice, and just go for real foods vs. processed foods. Essentially, if it has an ingredient list, it's processed. One guideline is that, if labels have enriched flour, sugar, salt or partially hydrogenated fats/oils in the top 5 ingredients, it's a problem.

But sugar is not the only culprit in creating a muffin top. So while it's wise to cut back on it, there are other factors in body changes. If you deprive yourself totally, you'll be more likely to slip back to old habits.

Artificial sweeteners a a bad choice so please just consider cutting back on the sweets. Like when you make tea. Put in 2/3 cup to a gallon of tea instead of a cup. Then a few weeks later you go down to half a cup. That's just not much when it comes right down to it.

We all need our guilty pleasures and can get caught up in binging on those items if we cut them out cold turkey. It's so much harder on some of us to do that. I tend to eat much less sugar if I don't eat sweets stuff in the morning. Then if I do eat something sweet I go brush my teeth. It gets the sweet taste out and I don't want more and more.

Good luck. Sometimes we can just increase our daily exercise by walking around Walmart one extra time when we're shopping. Some things like that.

Take a good probiotic. A lot of times sugar cravings stem from an over-abundance of candida, a yeast that breaks down sugar in your body. Candida thrives on sugar, so you will actually crave it. Many people have a candida overgrowth and don't even know it!

Eating fewer sweets and taking a good probiotic can help keep your candida in balance.

I eat Dark Chocolate. It's sweet and healthy...in moderation.

Buy plain yogurt and add your own fruit.

Do not use Splenda, Sweet n Low, diet sodas or any of those toxic mixes. They are probably sweet, but, they are hazardous and will make you crave sugar more. Try stevia.

Every so often, I buy a can of fresh whipped topping ! I put enough of it on a spoon to make a "lollipop." It is very low in calories.

When you are HUNGRY, pour yourself a glass of water. Instead of snacking, I will sometimes have a glass bottle of lemon PERRIER in the frig. I put it in a fancy wine glass and I add an extra squeeze of fresh lemon. Many times I would grab a snack...I was not really hungry.

Ten minutes on the lips is not worth the pounds on the hips...I think Jack Lalanne quoted that...

A yonanas fruit machine is the BEST ! We make fruit ice cream. You do not add any table sugar and it is WONDERFUL. I love the banana/blueberry treat. You use your own fruit. Bed Bath and Beyond had them a few months ago. It was a great investment for our health.

I eat a little bit of organic drk chocolate every day.

The muffin top can come with age. Excercise and a healthy diet w/ fresh produce is great ! Every yr that passes muscle is replaced with fat. So. I try to excercise every other day and lift light weights.

Yesterday, I put on 5 of my favorite dance tunes and danced (fast-paced) for 30 minutes. It was fun !

I could never give up sweets entirely. I just watch what I eat and excercise whenever I can ! When you watch tv, spread out a mat and do 50 crunches every other day ! Think of them as fun.

Stay ahead of the muffin top. Mine creeped up and I hated it !!! I had to start excercising 7 days a week for a while.

Read "The Real Truth About Sugar." It's a short book and it's cheap on Amazon.

After I read it (and my husband) we cut out all sugar, except for what's in bread or pasta sauce, and natural fruit. The book explains how sugar kills you through different diseases (and not to mention the weight gain). It's a very convincing, eye-opening book. When it explains EXACTLY what your body does to metabolize sugar, you will stop eating it.
You can have dark chocolate if it's 80% dark (but not a lot). That's our only treat now. Yogurt? Well, no BUT plain Greek yogurt tastes fine and with fruit is yummy, with no added sugar or artificial stuff. Even orange juice is not ideal. You want the whole fruit. Read the book and it will change your life!!!

When I first stopped I would have a bowl of strawberries with home made whipped cream (cream and Splenda). This was sufficiently sweet enough for me. FYI... In the absence of sugar I found I could increase my fat intake while still loosing weight and never feeling hungry.

What is a red vine?

I am a sugar hallic too.
I've cut back , but the biggest thing that I've done is switching to diet soda and cutting back on them. The rest of it I 've been eating a lot of sugar lately. But the diet soda has made the biggest difference. Drinking more water and less soda.
I wouldn't go completely off sugar and candy. I'd start with one thing, Soda and see what happens.
Oh and remembering to eat breakfast is essential for loosing weight. Eating a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast will jumpstart your metabolism in the morning. Without enough calories a day , your body will go into starvation mode and your metabolism will slow down. Up your protein and complex carbs.

I don't like to eat sugar because of the way it makes my teeth feel. Maybe when you are craving sugar go and brush your teeth instead. That helped me quit smoking.

You might consider using agave nectar as a sweetener for your teas/coffees.

Sweet and salty--okay, I don't know if this is up your alley, but a lot of the little Asian groceries have a dried plum candy; it's salted, sweet and usually has a mild licorice flavor. (these are actually dried plums, too... just in case that's not clear).I'm also sure the plums have a little food color on them, so if you are avoiding colors, this may not be for you. I'm not a huge fan of sweets, but I could get pretty addicted to these. Because they are so salty, just two or three is plenty.

it's so hard! i really really love sugar.
going hardcore cold turkey is probably the only way to get off it altogether. but so unrealistic. and unfortunately moderation doesn't work too well for me either.
so i run, and try to keep the occasional binges very occasional, and put real sugar in my coffee and tea because nothing else will do.
:/ khairete
S.

yogurt is AWFUL! my dietician actually told a story once of how she stood at the grocery cooler for over an hour looking for a decent one. she did find them (i want to say activia - a certain kind- was the brand but can't swear by it). but it was ridiculous. yogurt is not the miracle food the commercials claim...and she is HUGE on no-sugar.

my only advice is when you REALLY get the cravings, spend 3x as much on a tiny bag of sugar free russell stovers or something. it will help the craving - and the price will cure you of wanting to do it again any time soon!

(sugar is IN EVERYTHING - and LOTS of it. start checking your labels! it is EVERYWHERE!) in fact, you could probably get down and dirty with your regular food and cut out enough that you could allow yourself small amounts of red vines. seriously!

I had this whole beautiful answer written and my internet disconnected!! :( Guess that's my sign to keep it short.. :)

Check out "The 100 Days of Real Food" site. She gives great ideas for enjoying treats while keeping them as healthy as possible.

I have a HUGE sweet tooth and have found that dates (make sure they don't have additional sugar added) are a natural way to get my sweet fix without refined sugars.

I love that so many moms agreed that Splenda/sugar-free/artificial stuff is SO bad for you. It is so overly processed and will do you more harm than good in the long run, no matter how many calories it saves you now. Better to gradually cut back on regular stuff than substitute it with something your body doesn't know how to break down.

Good luck; it's a tough road but luckily we're all here with similar experiences!