“Part of the ingenuity of any addictive drug is to make you believe that life without it will be triumphant.‘Don’t be so pleasant” ~Alan Carr
“I’m fine, thank you.”
Did you see that? I just turned down the toni chocolate bar on our family advent calendar.
I didn’t care that it was a white raspberry popping candy flavor I’d never tried before.
I don’t care. I remember as a kid, opening chocolate coins from socks.
I don’t care!
Because this year, I’m about to enter a sugar-free holiday. I’m tentatively talking about it!
I’m forty-five and have gone through a lot of binge eating, sneaking, regret, and shame to get here.
It’s such a shame when kids accuse each other of stealing their Easter eggs. (I put my head down and turned on the dishwasher.)
When I found an entire box of green and black chocolate bars in my husband’s office, I felt bad because I wasn’t going to leave any for him if he bought the snacks.
It was such a shame that on my birthday last year, while everyone else was enjoying a BBQ in the garden, I had my head in the fridge and spooned a teaspoon of Eton into my mouth.
It’s shameful that at forty-five years old I still feel stupid about my kids’ snacks, which feels ridiculous. Trivial.
But I bet I’m not alone.
I bet I’m not the only middle-aged woman who has Googled “addictive personality,” “food,” and “binge eating.”
I bet I’m not the only one working from home who’s kidding herself that she “needs” a few bars of 85% chocolate “to refuel.”
I guess I’m not the only perimenopausal girl turning into a cookie monster due to disrupted sleep.
I know I’m not the only one who quit drinking just to eat candy.
So, if you’re struggling with sugar addiction right now, I feel your pain. I’m obsessed too.
But now, it’s like a switch has flipped in my head, and a sugar-free vacation seems possible. What has changed? I gave myself some new beliefs.
Let me share some little self-talk phrases that I started using in case you too struggle with sugar.
Maybe you’re not ready for a sugar-free holiday. I admit this is a bit radical, I’m not saying others “should” do this. But maybe you’ll consider giving it up next year. Or you wonder if you can let go of some of your attachment to it.
If so, here are twelve brand-new phrases to say to yourself.
1. “The holidays are just days in my life.”
I’ve been trying to keep sugar out of my life because I want to eat it normally. But “normal” never stayed that way for long.
Whenever there’s a holiday – Valentine’s Day, Easter, summer, Halloween, Christmas – I start eating tons of little “snacks” that add up to a lot of junk and festering. Habit.
From my first sip of honey-filled cocoa in the morning to my last secret (what’s in the kids’ snack drawer? Broken Oreos!) self-reward for cleaning the kitchen after dinner, sugar invades my days like an ant invasion .
Ultimately, I accepted that my position was weak. I try to have my cake and not eat it.
It was a relief to finally make the decision decisively and create clear rules of conduct for myself regarding sugar based on what I actually expected myself to be able to handle. A way to behave every day. Including holidays.
2. “I’m now deciding how I feel about this.”
The government provides subsidies to the sugar industry. It engages in international trade transactions. We receive ads, so we receive the message:
“Buy more candy.”
But their health messages say exactly the opposite:
“Individuals should make better decisions.”
I realized that it would take a lot of free will on my part to resist it, given its “everywhere” presence. I do myself an injustice when I call myself a weak-willed person. Resistance is unlikely.
It’s time to stop trying to please society and listen to my own message.
3. “This is just a commercial product.”
When I look at the shiny snacks on the supermarket shelves, I realize how clever the marketing is.
Shiny wrapping paper. Expensive box. It reminds me of how cigarette boxes suggested luxury – how misleading that seems now!
Seasonal flavors make us want “new” experiences: “Look, Mom, this Ferrero Rocher looks like a giant Christmas tree bauble. Can we get one?”
My whole life I have believed that these foods mean hospitality, fun, celebration, “I love you”, “let’s relax and share something” and “life is good”.
But if you look past the wrapping paper, it’s just stuff. Chocolate is just the brown stuff, like wax. Candy is just colored chewy stuff, like putty. This doesn’t make any sense.
4. “‘Fun’ looks like freedom.”
I imagined the chocolate brazilian being wrapped in newspaper rather than shiny purple foil.
I pictured all the stores for miles around filled with candy, and I could see that they weren’t rare or special, but just an endless supply.
I stopped telling myself they were “fun.” Sugar addiction is as fun as a cold with a constantly runny nose. It follows you wherever you go, ruining your concentration and making you feel a little physically sick.
Of course, it is less life-threatening than other addictions. But it causes pain, and it’s serious.
5. “Having more will only make you want more.”
I delved into research into whether sugar is actually addictive. Short answer: yes.
You go into withdrawal, the receptors in your brain become sensitized…all the markers are there. That’s why my urge to eat the second meal is always stronger than the urge to eat the first!
I have tried many times to normalize sugar. I keep snacks in the house so they don’t feel like they’re off limits. But they never lost their charm.
Now I understand why eating more didn’t make me more jaded as I had hoped.
6. “I will stop when I decide to stop.”
I also looked into whether our bodies can actually send a “satisfaction” signal around sugar.
Surprise, surprise: they can’t.
(Quick science lesson: Our bodies break sugar down into glucose and fructose in about a 50/50 ratio. There is an enzyme in the glucose digestion process, PFK-1, that prevents us from overconsuming it. But there’s no signal to stop on the fructose part. )
I began to wonder if eating sugar intuitively was possible.
I decided to continue listening to my hunger and satiety cues for other foods but not expect them to help me much in terms of snacking.
7. “I only eat edible foods.”
I like the idea that all food is morally neutral. So I don’t think sugar is “bad” or tell my kids they shouldn’t eat sugar. I just quietly changed my opinion and no longer considered sugar an edible substance.
Just because it won’t kill you doesn’t mean it’s edible.
I ate toothpaste as a kid: and survived. Not edible.
I once drank aftershave in an attempt to get drunk at a party when I was a teenager. Not even sick. But it’s still not on my human drink menu.
Sugar is a thing, not a food. That’s what I’m thinking now.
8. “I’m not a dog, I don’t need a treat.”
A lot of my overeating was emotional: the harder I worked, the more I relied on food to give me a feeling of reward.
When it comes to sugary snacks, I treat myself like a pet, giving myself cookies for good behavior. Glossing over my overworked habits.
Then, during the holidays, when I don’t get my usual dopamine hit from accomplishments at work, I don’t know how to properly relax and get that sense of reward from sugar more easily.
I learned to start high-fiving internally. I now anticipate that the first few days of any vacation will also feel a little empty. This is normal as I adjust.
9. “Let me see how fast this goes by.”
This is very interesting.
I feel like I once had an idea like “leftover banana bread!” I couldn’t settle down or focus on my work until I fixed this problem.
I’m very experienced with surfing urges – I mentioned I quit drinking a few years ago, right? This is good practice.
But due to my obsession with sugar, my “tolerance muscles” do feel very weak.
To my surprise, when I went sugar-free for the first two or three days, the cravings went away incredibly quickly.
I realized that my brain was firing off sweet thoughts like a puppy accustomed to begging. But puppies can indeed be trained. Once you stop feeding them under the table, they will adapt quickly.
10. “I am the authority on my own food.”
No one told me to do this.
I’m not doing this to lose weight.
I didn’t do it because I thought I “should.”
I’m not doing this because I’m worried about my health or my teeth.
I didn’t announce it to my family (or even dare to announce it).
I didn’t participate in online challenges that held me accountable to the community.
I do this to reduce the noise of food in my brain. This reason is enough.
11. “Haha, brain, nice try!”
I tried to give up sugar last January. February 1st, boom! I was confused by the gibberish of my brain.
“I wonder what dark chocolate tastes like. I can’t remember.
“You’ve done a great job; just a little won’t hurt.
“Maybe you can eat normally now – just a little every now and then.”
Then, before I knew it, I started eating a little more. While the kettle boiled, I threw a handful of chocolate chips in my face. The “dessert” after every meal.
This time, I was ready for a persuasion attempt. I get it, brain. You remember the taste. But, dear, no.
12. “I’m already through the door.”
Last February, I seemed to have reached the mental finish line, so I thought I could relax.
Relaxation, relapse, breakdown.
So this time, I decided not to imagine the end.
I imagined walking through a door and my sugar life was behind me and I was moving forward one day at a time.
So far, so good.
It’s actually refreshing to tell yourself the truth about it all.
I don’t know if this is forever. I haven’t sworn yet, and I don’t have any tattoos.
If I change my strategy in the future, don’t label me a “sugar-free” person and then call me a hypocrite.
Because I’m not saying I’ve found a way and you should do what I do. I firmly believe that the way we eat should not be based on someone else’s magic solution or expert advice.
For me, it’s a matter of trial and error, evaluating, refining my system, and finding habits and lifestyle choices that I can maintain.
So, here’s what I’m going to do this holiday season. It was an experiment and I found it interesting.
This year, I’m actually looking forward to connecting with people more than connecting with food.
