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Sugar Addiction. Food Addiction. The Highly Addictive Nature that Is Sugar

Sugar is more addictive than cocaine

Sugar Addiction. Food Addiction. The Highly Addictive Nature that Is Sugar

Sugar is more addictive than cocaine

We often talk about Carnivore being a healing diet in terms of physical health. But a meat-based diet has a huge healing component for food addiction. I focus on holistic health with Carnivore because a large piece of working with my clients is focused on healing their relationships with foods, among other lifestyle changes. Once we heal our physical ailments and are no longer physically addicted to sugar, we need to begin working on the harder part—the part where we turn to sugar for emotional needs.

Oftentimes we lean on sugar and carb-rich foods for comfort, for celebrations and for everything in between. Oftentimes when we are young, we are taught to seek comfort with carbs. We go to the dentist and are comforted at the end of the session for being brave with a piece of candy. When we are sad, we are taught to comfort with ice cream. We celebrate birthdays with heaps of sugar. At work, admins desks often have candy jars to take a break from stress and get our fill of sugar. The examples are endless.


A part of my book and a big part of my carnivore program will focus on healing our relationships with foods and then finding better ways to cope. What are the tools we need to stop turning to food as our support and comfort? There is no one-size answer because we are all wired differently and our joys, our triggers and everything else is very bioindividual. We must understand how we function to truly get rid of any damaging addictions. We must learn to make stronger wirings and CHOOSE to ignore the hardwiring to turn to sugar.

If you’ve ever been to drug addiction or alcohol addiction support group, they don’t talk hours about alcohol or the coveted addiction. They teach you coping skills and tools to lean on something else other than the addictive substance. In school, we aren’t taught to handle and deal with our emotions properly. Males are often shunned for crying and are taught to pretty much bottle their emotions. Females are comforted to the point that they overthink situations and let the focus of life be on every small event to be a big deal. There is a grey area that can be the sweet spot for dealing with emotions and moving on. Too little can make us turn to something else for comfort and release. Too much can make us turn to something else for comfort and release.

Both are not ideal. We end up turning to a something else that can quickly become an addiction. Our bodies and our serotonin and dopamine receptors want more and want more quickly. The initial dosage is not enough and we do whatever it takes to get to the feelings we initially had when first turning to the addiction for solace. We keep going and then realize we are out of control. We want the escape, the comfort, the joy… but it’s now taken a turn, a downward spiral and taken away our freedom and joy in life.

You can insert food, sex, drugs, alcohol, shopping, even busy-ness before addiction. We are living too busy of lives and we are dealing by turning to unhealthy addictions. Why? Because not in school nor from our parents do we ever learn how to “handle hard” in life. Our parents were busy trying to get by. They didn’t have the proper coping skills of life. Oftentimes, our vices are the vices we mimic from our parents. I wonder if some of the tendencies for eating disorders to run in families, isn’t that they are truly genetic but that (usually) daughter mimics mom’s behavior.

There really is so much ground to cover in terms of food addiction. Whether you are on a Standard American diet, Keto diet or no diet, we all know that sugar and fast food isn’t healthy. Then why do we keep going back? There needs to be more focus than on nutrients and the best foods for nutrient density. We are starting to understand that liver is one of the most nutrient dense natural powerhouses. Yet you don’t see everyone running to the markets buying liver.

I am SO passionate about healing our relationships with foods because in the nutrition space, it is not talked about enough. Yes. We get it. Meat is healthy. But how do we STICK to it long term? I hope that the Carnivore Cure will provide lasting solutions. This is my ultimate goal, especially coming from a psychology background. It’s not just learning about nutrient density. We need to find what sticks.

This week, I shared 2 video clips on my YouTube. I HIGHLY recommend watching them if you have any adverse relationship with food. I plan to make more as I’ve really just scratched the surface. So much psychology and childhood trauma come into play with our relationships with food. We can heal. It’s HARD work but we can. But you MUST put in the effort.

One video is the physical dangers of excess sugars in the body (think Type II diabetics) and how just very little sugar can impact our glucose numbers. The other video is a clip on how addictive sugar is on the brain. I’ll also link to studies as some of us are Questioners and need the data to believe. Don’t worry, I got you covered.

We need to cut sugar from our lives. Complex carbs, refined carbs. They’ve all got to go. And sweeteners? I don’t care about glucose in isolation. I care about insulin. And almost all sweeteners have an impact on insulin. They keep your cravings going for sweets AND they mess with your gut microbiome.

Let it go.

If you want to break free from the damaging relationships of food addiction, you have to remove any and all forms of sugar. Try it. 30 days. ZERO sugars or sweeteners. While you may initially think it’s so restrictive, come 30 days, you will NEVER taste more freedom than being sugar-free.

 

What Sugar Does in Your Body

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UCro_kkwGQ

 

The Addictive Dangers of Sugar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VdDPtZQzas&t=8s

Addictiveness of Sugar

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1931610/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24602027

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23719144

 

Robert Lustig: The Bitter Truth

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM

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Comments:

  • Bionaze
    June 18, 2020 at 1:43 am

    Sugar and carb-rich foods are my comfort foods especially chocolate. Without even realizing, I eat chocolate almost every day. I admit that I’m addicted to chocolates. Thank you for this article for telling me about healing our relationships with foods.

    • Nutrition with Judy
      September 4, 2020 at 1:28 am

      First step is awareness. We are all addicted to sugar in some way. One meal, One day at a time. ♥️

      • Bionaze
        August 8, 2023 at 12:21 am

        Thank you for reminding me. I appreciate your advice.

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