e(On an average, each of us consumes about 130 lbs. of sugar per year!)
Most of us don't realize it, but we are drug addicts. Our drug comes in a pure, white crystal or powder form. We use it even when we don't know we're doing it. It's in salad dressing, peanut butter, soup, pickles, bread, jam, yogurt, canned fruits and vegetables... We crave it after every
meal. On an average, each of us consumes about 130 lbs. per year. What is this controversial drug, you ask. It goes by many names, but the most common is sugar.
The Nagging Sweet Tooth
If you've got a sweet tooth, you know that it doesn't let you ignore it for very long. At least once every day or two, the boss lets you know who's in charge. You rummage around the kitchen for sweets, check the back of the refrigerator and dart out to the store if necessary.
A sense of sugar/chocolate deprivation sets in, and demands that you do something about it. In a perfect world, a sweet tooth would be satisfied for weeks at a time by an especially large dessert or other massive binge. Wouldn't that be convenient!
Why does this happen? How does a person who regularly indulges their sweet tooth end up feeling more deprived than those insufferably serene types who don't eat sweets?
It has to do with a process called homeostasis. When you eat a lot of sugar, your body notes that your blood glucose level is higher than normal. As a result, the pancreas secretes insulin, which packs this sugar away into cells that process it, in order to bring your blood sugar back to normal. When a lot of sugar is ingested, a lot of insulin comes out and packs it all away, which overcompensates and swings your blood sugar too low for a while.
This accounts for the afternoon brain fog (transient hypoglycemia) often experienced after a high-carbohydrate lunch. And this is when the sweet tooth (really, just a euphemism for a sugar habit plus a fluctuating blood glucose) wakes up and reminds you who's really the boss.
Candida's Fuel of Choice: Sugar
Yeasts, such as candida, feed on sugar. Women with recurrent vaginal yeast infections may begin to feel as if candida is a permanent fixture of their bodies, and indeed it can carry with us all our lives. That does not mean, however, that candida has to be in control of your life. John Parks Trowbridge, MD and Morton Walker, authors of The Yeast Syndrome, are medical mavericks in their diagnosis and treatment of yeast complications. These are the same complications that their conventional medical colleagues insisted could not exist because they had never been taught about them in medical school.
Yet, time has shown that Trowbridge, Walker and other health professionals who have worked with candida patients have accurately identified a relentless and ubiquitous pathogen in the common Candida albicans, along with the many havoc-wreaking antibodies that it generates.
Trowbridge and Walker found that patients for the most part showed complete improvement in about 10 days. But very tenacious cases may require up to three years before displaying a complete recovery of symptoms. Naturopathic physicians at the Southwest Naturopathic Medical Center in Scottsdale, Ariz., have developed an eating plan that deprives candida of its fuel of choice: sugar. Melons, mushrooms and other foods are also limited for a time.
The duration of this diet corresponds to the severity of the symptoms, varies somewhat according to individual needs and is generally followed for as long as the patient continues to have symptoms.
Resisting the Sugar Urges
The hard part of this diet for someone with a heavy candida load is eliminating sugar, since the candida in the body is screaming for sugar.
Since eliminating sugar is a huge step in your life, it merits advance planning and preparation. The first step should be modulating your blood sugar by switching some sweets to complex carbohydrates, including whole vegetables. Supplements such as glutamine (an amino acid), fenugreek, chromium and other nutrients are used by naturopathic physicians to help their patients eliminate sugar cravings.
It is best to use these while in the care of a naturopathic physician, in order to choose the most appropriate of the available forms, correct dosing and combinations.
Not all of these need be used. It is important remember when quitting sugar that your body is fighting as hard to overcome these cravings as a heroin addict feels during withdrawal or a smoker trying to quit. (Nicotine is the most addictive of the three.) This also means that the worst part will be the first 48 hours of abstinence. After that, it definitely gets better.
The first two weeks will be a little less comfortable than afterward, but the reward for persisting is that after two weeks you will feel healthier in every way than you have ever felt.
Here is your twelve step program to beating sugar addiction. It won't be easy, but it will be worth it:
1. Stick to foods that are closest to their original form. Instead of eating corn from a can, eat corn on the cob. Banish white bread and embrace wheat bread. Forget fruit juices; go for the actual fruit. The closer a food is to it's original form, then less processed sugar it will contain.
2. Eat protein with breakfast. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, but do you know why? Breakfast is the meal that will make or break you for the rest of the day. Your first meal must create blood sugar stability that will carry you to the next meal without sugar cravings.
3. Eat protein with every meal. As soon as your blood sugar is thrown out of whack, you will be off the wagon again. Eating protein with each meal prepares your body for the increase of seratonin production and keeps your blood sugar stable throughout the day.
4. Read Labels! It's incredible how many things we put into our mouths without the slightest idea what is in them. The longer the list of ingredients, the more likely sugar is going to be included on that list.
5. Don't starve yourself in order to reward your restraint with a donut or a Twix. Not only is this bad for your body, but you won't lose weight. Your body will just go into starvation mode, storing all your calories as fat. So that slice of chocolate cake you eat after a seven hour fast is going straight to fat.
6. Keep a journal of what you eat. You will be surprised, and probably shocked, by the amount of sugar-filled snacks and extras involved in your diet. Write down everything, down to those five M&Ms or that tablespoon of teriyaki sauce.
7. Brown is beautiful: brown rice, wheat bread, brown cereals, etc... Brown foods give your body the positive effects of carbohydrates without unbalancing your blood sugar and creating cravings.
8. Be active and keep busy. Most of us snack the most when we are bored and inactive. Go for a walk. Go shopping. Organize your entire house. Anything to keep your hands busy and away from the cookie jar.
9. Eat a potato before bed. Before your head explodes from the thought of eating a starchy, carbohydrate-filled potato right before bed, consider this: when taken with the right vitamins, that spud will increase your production of seratonin, balancing your blood sugar levels. Besides, it's better than eating ice cream before bed.
10. Try a detox program. Detoxing isn't just for yoga yogis and Enya junkies anymore. There are dozens of detox programs designed for health enthusiasts of all levels. Some last two days, some last two months. But they all have one thing in common: after the initial overwhelming sugar cravings, your body adjusts and you won't even want the sugar anymore.
11. Drink water constantly. The more water you drink, the more your body will be fooled into thinking it is not hungry. Plus, you can rest assured that there is not a grain of sugar in water.
12. Don't get down on yourself if you slip and eat a desert every once in a while. It's okay to reward yourself, just don't start the addiction all over again. There are always healthier options for deserts. Eat berries with some low-calorie whipped topping. Snack on a couple of graham crackers. Maybe you would be healthier if you cut out sugar altogether forever, but people who do things in moderation get the best of both worlds. Enjoy your life, but don't overdo it.
Last but nor least try to get the healthy natural sugar alternative called "Xylitol" :
- Xylitol is a naturally occurring carbohydrate. It is found in fibrous vegetables and fruit. It also occurs naturally in our bodies – in fact, an average size adult manufactures up to 15 grams of xylitol daily during normal metabolism. Pure xylitol is a white crystalline substance that looks and tastes like sugar.
- In addition, the body does not require insulin to metabolize xylitol, which has made it a widely used sweetener for the diabetic diet in some countries. In the U.S., xylitol is approved as a food additive in unlimited quantity for foods with special dietary purposes.
The Nagging Sweet Tooth
If you've got a sweet tooth, you know that it doesn't let you ignore it for very long. At least once every day or two, the boss lets you know who's in charge. You rummage around the kitchen for sweets, check the back of the refrigerator and dart out to the store if necessary.
A sense of sugar/chocolate deprivation sets in, and demands that you do something about it. In a perfect world, a sweet tooth would be satisfied for weeks at a time by an especially large dessert or other massive binge. Wouldn't that be convenient!
Why does this happen? How does a person who regularly indulges their sweet tooth end up feeling more deprived than those insufferably serene types who don't eat sweets?
It has to do with a process called homeostasis. When you eat a lot of sugar, your body notes that your blood glucose level is higher than normal. As a result, the pancreas secretes insulin, which packs this sugar away into cells that process it, in order to bring your blood sugar back to normal. When a lot of sugar is ingested, a lot of insulin comes out and packs it all away, which overcompensates and swings your blood sugar too low for a while.
This accounts for the afternoon brain fog (transient hypoglycemia) often experienced after a high-carbohydrate lunch. And this is when the sweet tooth (really, just a euphemism for a sugar habit plus a fluctuating blood glucose) wakes up and reminds you who's really the boss.
Candida's Fuel of Choice: Sugar
Yeasts, such as candida, feed on sugar. Women with recurrent vaginal yeast infections may begin to feel as if candida is a permanent fixture of their bodies, and indeed it can carry with us all our lives. That does not mean, however, that candida has to be in control of your life. John Parks Trowbridge, MD and Morton Walker, authors of The Yeast Syndrome, are medical mavericks in their diagnosis and treatment of yeast complications. These are the same complications that their conventional medical colleagues insisted could not exist because they had never been taught about them in medical school.
Yet, time has shown that Trowbridge, Walker and other health professionals who have worked with candida patients have accurately identified a relentless and ubiquitous pathogen in the common Candida albicans, along with the many havoc-wreaking antibodies that it generates.
Trowbridge and Walker found that patients for the most part showed complete improvement in about 10 days. But very tenacious cases may require up to three years before displaying a complete recovery of symptoms. Naturopathic physicians at the Southwest Naturopathic Medical Center in Scottsdale, Ariz., have developed an eating plan that deprives candida of its fuel of choice: sugar. Melons, mushrooms and other foods are also limited for a time.
The duration of this diet corresponds to the severity of the symptoms, varies somewhat according to individual needs and is generally followed for as long as the patient continues to have symptoms.
Resisting the Sugar Urges
The hard part of this diet for someone with a heavy candida load is eliminating sugar, since the candida in the body is screaming for sugar.
Since eliminating sugar is a huge step in your life, it merits advance planning and preparation. The first step should be modulating your blood sugar by switching some sweets to complex carbohydrates, including whole vegetables. Supplements such as glutamine (an amino acid), fenugreek, chromium and other nutrients are used by naturopathic physicians to help their patients eliminate sugar cravings.
It is best to use these while in the care of a naturopathic physician, in order to choose the most appropriate of the available forms, correct dosing and combinations.
Not all of these need be used. It is important remember when quitting sugar that your body is fighting as hard to overcome these cravings as a heroin addict feels during withdrawal or a smoker trying to quit. (Nicotine is the most addictive of the three.) This also means that the worst part will be the first 48 hours of abstinence. After that, it definitely gets better.
The first two weeks will be a little less comfortable than afterward, but the reward for persisting is that after two weeks you will feel healthier in every way than you have ever felt.
Here is your twelve step program to beating sugar addiction. It won't be easy, but it will be worth it:
1. Stick to foods that are closest to their original form. Instead of eating corn from a can, eat corn on the cob. Banish white bread and embrace wheat bread. Forget fruit juices; go for the actual fruit. The closer a food is to it's original form, then less processed sugar it will contain.
2. Eat protein with breakfast. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, but do you know why? Breakfast is the meal that will make or break you for the rest of the day. Your first meal must create blood sugar stability that will carry you to the next meal without sugar cravings.
3. Eat protein with every meal. As soon as your blood sugar is thrown out of whack, you will be off the wagon again. Eating protein with each meal prepares your body for the increase of seratonin production and keeps your blood sugar stable throughout the day.
4. Read Labels! It's incredible how many things we put into our mouths without the slightest idea what is in them. The longer the list of ingredients, the more likely sugar is going to be included on that list.
5. Don't starve yourself in order to reward your restraint with a donut or a Twix. Not only is this bad for your body, but you won't lose weight. Your body will just go into starvation mode, storing all your calories as fat. So that slice of chocolate cake you eat after a seven hour fast is going straight to fat.
6. Keep a journal of what you eat. You will be surprised, and probably shocked, by the amount of sugar-filled snacks and extras involved in your diet. Write down everything, down to those five M&Ms or that tablespoon of teriyaki sauce.
7. Brown is beautiful: brown rice, wheat bread, brown cereals, etc... Brown foods give your body the positive effects of carbohydrates without unbalancing your blood sugar and creating cravings.
8. Be active and keep busy. Most of us snack the most when we are bored and inactive. Go for a walk. Go shopping. Organize your entire house. Anything to keep your hands busy and away from the cookie jar.
9. Eat a potato before bed. Before your head explodes from the thought of eating a starchy, carbohydrate-filled potato right before bed, consider this: when taken with the right vitamins, that spud will increase your production of seratonin, balancing your blood sugar levels. Besides, it's better than eating ice cream before bed.
10. Try a detox program. Detoxing isn't just for yoga yogis and Enya junkies anymore. There are dozens of detox programs designed for health enthusiasts of all levels. Some last two days, some last two months. But they all have one thing in common: after the initial overwhelming sugar cravings, your body adjusts and you won't even want the sugar anymore.
11. Drink water constantly. The more water you drink, the more your body will be fooled into thinking it is not hungry. Plus, you can rest assured that there is not a grain of sugar in water.
12. Don't get down on yourself if you slip and eat a desert every once in a while. It's okay to reward yourself, just don't start the addiction all over again. There are always healthier options for deserts. Eat berries with some low-calorie whipped topping. Snack on a couple of graham crackers. Maybe you would be healthier if you cut out sugar altogether forever, but people who do things in moderation get the best of both worlds. Enjoy your life, but don't overdo it.
Last but nor least try to get the healthy natural sugar alternative called "Xylitol" :
- Xylitol is a naturally occurring carbohydrate. It is found in fibrous vegetables and fruit. It also occurs naturally in our bodies – in fact, an average size adult manufactures up to 15 grams of xylitol daily during normal metabolism. Pure xylitol is a white crystalline substance that looks and tastes like sugar.
- In addition, the body does not require insulin to metabolize xylitol, which has made it a widely used sweetener for the diabetic diet in some countries. In the U.S., xylitol is approved as a food additive in unlimited quantity for foods with special dietary purposes.
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