Breaking My Sugar Addiction

You may recall my previous posts about sugar here and here. Well, it's been 2 years and I haven't done anything about my sugar addiction. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if it's gotten worse. I finally started to reconsider doing a sugar detox when I saw an episode of Dr. Oz the other day, talking about how sugar is now connected to high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and liver damage. Really? Liver damage? Why am I doing this to myself?

Ugh. I'm not looking forward to this, but I know that if I don't get rid of my sugar addiction, bad things will happen. So, I started Googling. There are some common themes I keep finding on the topic of breaking a sugar addiction.

• Eat more protein. This helps regulate your blood sugar and greatly diminishes sugar cravings
• Start the day off with a good breakfast, and don't go too long without eating. Snack on healthy foods like nuts, hard boiled eggs, and edamame (YUM!).
• Take it slow. Don't try to go cold turkey, cause it won't work. Instead work on consciously reducing your intake a little every day.
• Get rid of the hidden sugars in your diet. I've started looking at labels a lot more when I shop, and I was shocked to find how many foods have sugar in them. Even the store brand of 100% whole wheat bread had high fructose corn syrup in it! Come on!!! Look out for these forms of sugar on your food labels:
• Fructose
• Maltose
• Sorbitol
• Evaporated cane juice
• Syrups
• Xylotol
• Sugars ending in "ol" or "ose"

So...here we go. This is NOT a New Year's resolution, it's just something I want to do so I can be healthy! I know it's going to be hard, I'm probably going to mess up, but I gotta try. I'll keep you updated. In the mean time, feel free to ask me how it's going:-)