# Sugar



## confusedcyclist (19 Jun 2020)

Has anyone got any personal experiences and killer tips on quitting sugar?

I managed to quit once before, it coincided with 4 months or so on a low carb diet, where I ate zero packaged meals or processed snacks, sugar was off limits, I lived alone, I binned it all, there was no temptation. I put on a bit of muscle, and lost excess fat, honestly, I never felt better. But then I got in a relationship and the weight has crept back, very slowly over 5 or 6 years, and I'm back to my pre-diet weight, although this time round I do have more muscle on account of the cycling. Doing the low carb diet again isn't practical, as I do most of the cooking at home and I start to get complaints about the lack of starch! I'm convinced it's not the carbs _per se_, but snacking on sugary food.

Since lockdown, I've managed to get a lot more healthy lunch, proper home cooked meals, salads etc, rather than buying crap from the shops at lunch time, which has stabilized my weight, but not sent it backwards.

DW won't quit with me, I think she has more self-control than I do, so doesn't see why she should, fair enough... but she has a supply of sweets and chocolate in a particular cupboard which always tempts me, I might be able to stay away a day, two or maybe a week, but if I have a weak moment, I'm right back in there 

HELP!


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## fossyant (19 Jun 2020)

Don't go in the cupboard !


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## ColinJ (19 Jun 2020)

Sorry, but my killer tip would be D*I*V*O*R*C*E! 

I love cake, biscuits, chocolate etc, but have no problem walking straight past them in the shops. It's a very different matter if guests leave tempting stashes of them here in my house...


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## confusedcyclist (19 Jun 2020)

Yes, I was afraid divorce would come up. 

I'm very good at shopping, I go in with a list, and come out with no sweets, even if they were on the list, often to my wife's dismay!

But that cupboard...


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## screenman (19 Jun 2020)

I found a very simple way to pack up sugar, I superglued my mouth shut and superglued my hands to my thighs, OK maybe I did not but I sometimes feel that is what I would have to do to pack it up again.

I also packed up sugar for nearly a years about 5 years back, felt great lost a few stone, fewer aches and pains, faster uphill and slept great, so why the hell did I have to start eating this highly addictive stuff again.


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## ColinJ (19 Jun 2020)

screenman said:


> I also packed up sugar for nearly a years about 5 years back, felt great lost a few stone, fewer aches and pains, faster uphill and slept great, so why the hell did I have to start eating this highly addictive stuff again.


For the same reasons that I might one day be on the forum asking why I ever started drinking alcohol again - _VERY _tempting and _VERY _addictive! It is 8 years since I touched a drop of booze, but I still fancy a pint from time to time... (The trouble is that I could never stick to that. I'd soon be back up to 5 pints a night, most nights.)


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## numbnuts (19 Jun 2020)

I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes a while back, so cut down on sweet things was easy, but cutting sugar out of tea and coffee took more of a challenge, but after a month or two I managed it.
I now don't have diabetes at all now and lost 5 KG at the same time.


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## ColinJ (19 Jun 2020)

I found cutting sugar from tea very easy and did that decades ago. I still like just a hint of sugar in coffee though - about half a teaspoon in a large mug.


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## PK99 (19 Jun 2020)

I gave up sugar in tea and coffee 45 years ago on the day I started @Uni - simply flicked a switch and never missed it


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## wafter (19 Jun 2020)

Tbh I find with all carbs sooner or later it becomes all or nothing. The first time I binned them all I was so utterly disgusted with my weight that alone was motivation enough to start; the subsequent weight losses being enough to maintain some momentum for four months until I fell of the wagon at Christmas (having lost about 10kg). 

Now I find it hard to do super low carb, but have cut carbs out of my main meals (which are now usually meat with veg or salad and greek yoghurt) and as a rule don't eat milk chocolate, sweets or anything else that contains large amounts of sugar. 

Sugar is clearly the worst of all the carbs though and find that this can only really go once the others have (as is apparently not an option in your case). Also, you've obviously lost one effective means of control if others in the house mean you have to have this street-legal crack on your property!

I suppose a couple of tips I can add; high-cocoa content dark chocolate is a good alternative to more mainstream chocolate as it contains a lot less sugar and more fat. A second more acceptable placator for the sweet tooth is Oppo ice cream; which is very low carb (sugar) compared to normal stuff. 

Good luck!


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## Phaeton (19 Jun 2020)

I stopped sugar & milk back in the 80's the wife went on a diet so I was told I was. Funny thing is I've never gone back unfortunately she has, but it was cold turkey a dead stop


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## Ming the Merciless (19 Jun 2020)

Are you saying you have a sweet tooth and are raiding this cupboard for snacks in between meals?


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## Mike_P (19 Jun 2020)

Having a gluten allergy trying to avoid sugar is a continuous side issue as specific gluten free stuff is typically rammed with it, so I spend as much time looking at the ingredients for anything in bold that I cannot eat and the nutrition information to see what the sugar content is.


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## gavroche (19 Jun 2020)

Nobody mentions junk food which is full of chemicals and surely bad for your health.


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## Drago (19 Jun 2020)

Just don't buy the sugary stuff, then you cant eat it. I've not got a huge sweet tooth, but even eliminating sugar in my tea and coffee took a fair bit of willpower. Still, now I'm used to it I dont find it a problem, and actually enjoy it.

my weakness is savoury snacks. Damn to Hades the man that invented cheese and Marmite!


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## screenman (19 Jun 2020)

YukonBoy said:


> Are you saying you have a sweet tooth and are raiding this cupboard for snacks in between meals?



Have you hacked into to my security camera's.


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## Salty seadog (19 Jun 2020)

screenman said:


> Have you hacked into to my security camera's.



Put some clothes on for the sake of humanity.


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## Ming the Merciless (19 Jun 2020)

screenman said:


> Have you hacked into to my security camera's.



Put the donut 🍩 away and step back from the cupboard.


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## MarkF (19 Jun 2020)

Sugar is insidiously accepted in out modern diet, nearly 200 calories of it in your can of tomato soup! It's hard to get away from it. I had a bad accident at 21and have had to watch my weight since, above a certain weight and I have problems, so I've 35 years experience of looking at labels, the information is there for you, it always puts me off.

Sugar is a total killer.


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## classic33 (19 Jun 2020)

Drago said:


> Just don't buy the sugary stuff, then you cant eat it. I've not got a huge sweet tooth, but even eliminating sugar in my tea and coffee took a fair bit of willpower. Still, now I'm used to it I dont find it a problem, and actually enjoy it.
> 
> my weakness is savoury snacks. *Damn to Hades the man that
> invented *cheese and *Marmite!*


Justus von Liebig, also involved in the development of Oxo. 
But best remembered for his condenser.


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## Drago (20 Jun 2020)

MarkF said:


> I had a bad accident at 21and have had to watch my weight since...


During a tour of the Fray Bentos factory he fell into a vat of pie filling and had to eat his way out.


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