I am a sugar addict – and proud of it. I am not your usual sugar addict though . I can walk down the dessert aisle with zero desire, as if an invisible wall has sprung up between me and the (previously all-consumingly addictive) junk. Since July 2012 I have eaten chocolate twice and cake never. All of my mood swings, hellish PMT, brain fog, skin problems and fatigue – gone. Weight down, and ability to reclaim my life a reality.
How did this happen? I owned my addiction.
Owning your sugar addiction is a necessary step to unshackling yourself from it. An abused woman can never change her situation by fooling herself that the abuser loves her really and is always sorry and look he has never hit the kids. Downgrading your constant cravings and intense guilt around your sugar fix to a ‘bad habit’ is denial that disempowers you.
So you need to own your sugar addiction.
The trick that will move you through this problem is to own the addiction without being a victim. Victim equals passive, helpless. The perfect breeding ground for staying stuck.
This is not straightforward because the very fact of saying “I am an addict” can feel overwhelming. Maybe you need some time to feel that wave drown you, to give yourself over to this very painful truth.
But at some point you need to get up and say “I am an addict. The wave came, overwhelmed me but I didn’t drown. I say no to victimhood and yes to change”.
And yes, I do still get cravings. But I have a toolbox of strategies to deal with them.
This is the brave addict. They own their addiction without being their addiction. They know dismantling its hold on them is going to take work, but that work is preferable to letting more waves pull them under, to staying enslaved to an inanimate substance for the rest of their lives.
Are you are ready to do the work? Or do you stay a victim?
The Three-Pronged Strategy
Freeing yourself from sugar requires 3 strategies:
CRAVINGS BUSTERS – These are practical strategies you can use to walk away from any addictive food – however compulsive you feel. Feeling skeptical? I challenge you to ask yourself the $64,000 question which is in the free No More Cravings Toolkit. In it, I also describe my own personal story of the feet with a mind of their own – the day they turned and walked away from the dessert aisle, seemingly of their own accord.
REPLACEMENTS – Your sugar addiction is hijacking a deeply ingrained, hardwired nutritional need that we have all inherited from our cavedwelling ancestors. Using processed sugar to satisfy that need is akin to giving a gambling addict a free night at the casino to help him pay his debts. The pricetag is just too much: not only obesity and diabetes but mood swings, fatigue, brain fog,and for many women raging, unnecessary PMT.
The solution is to satisfy that need with replacements (clue: none of these relies on ‘have a piece of fruit’) that satisfy that nutritional need but not only have no pricetag, but they actually level out mood swings, increase focus, reduce fatigue and can drastically reduce PMT. This is the equivalent of giving the gambler a budget and coach who checks in on him every day to keep him on track.
REFRAMES – Underlying both the use of replacements and the cravings busters are powerful reframes. A reframe is a new way to look at any problem in your life, and turn it into a tool for change. We are very good at reframing our past: it is easy to see – in hindsight – the value of that crappy first job, or selfish boyfriend or cheating girlfriend 10 years later – and the various blessings in disguise they offered. What we all need to do a lot more of is reframing the present, to pivot from passive victim of the evil sugar to imperfect adventurer of our own lives. This is challenging and liberating work that goes beyond your food issues and frees you to reclaim your whole life.
Want to dive into some more ideas to help you deal with your cravings? Get your free video toolkit right now by clicking on the image:
About Harriet Morris
For 30 years I was a sugar addict. The price I paid for those 10 minute-long chocolate highs was weight gain, mood swings, brain fog, irritability, PMT to rival Attila The Hun, a mouthful of fillings and a deep sense of shame and inadequacy. Even mild stress would
send me straight to the nearest supermarket, into the arms of a family sized dessert I would devour in a matter of minutes.
The price was my quality of life.
A price I wasn’t prepared to pay, but like a gambler in debt to a loan shark, I had no idea how to stop paying.
Diets, detoxes, willpower. All failed. Supplements. Failed. Self-help books. The law of attraction. Hypnotherapy. Fail, fail, fail.
So what changed for me? In short, things got so bad that I just HAD to make a change. By trial and error, I found crafty and creative ways to overcome the resistance inside me.
Within 8 weeks I knew I had won.
How so?
Because I turned my sugar addiction on its head and used giving up as a tool to reclaim my life. I trained in eating psychology, and now I help others liberate themselves from their eating hell.