I (tried To) quit sugar: confessions of a sweet-toothed nutritionist
“I NEED sugar.”
I hear this in my clinic from mums all the time. They rely on sweet foods to get them through the day.
I am entirely sympathetic. Sleep-deprivation; anxiety; stress; overwhelm; lack of time – the body’s cries for energy are seemingly fed quickest by a bar of chocolate, or a packet of biscuits.
I’ve quit sugar at least four times in the last few years. Properly quit. No fructose, even, so I’ve (temporarily) given fresh fruit the heave-ho. No honey, no dried fruit, no sweetness of any kind. The first few days are AWFUL. I always get a migraine and swear it’s not worth it. Then somewhere around day 4 it’s like someone has swept out my brain with a fairy godmother flourish to leave behind a sparkling new me. I feel fantastic. Fizzing with energy. A-MAZING.
So, what goes wrong? I achieve a lovely equilibrium. Reintroduce fruit, but that’s about it. I hum with health… and then. Well. A birthday. Christmas. Easter. A holiday. Usually one of these will lead to a ‘small piece’ of something, and then my taste-buds start doing summersaults of joy and I’m in sugar’s thrall once more.
It may sound contradictory, but it is for this same reason that my house is NOT a sugar-free zone for my kids. What I’ve learnt from my repeated attempts to banish sugar from my own diet is that it’s not realistic. And I’m not going to self-flagellate by saying that it’s because I don’t have enough willpower or I’m too weak. Our relationship with food is far more complex than that.
Food is about more than nourishment of the body. It’s about nourishment of the soul. I’m half-Greek, half Greek-Cypriot and my childhood is filled with wonderful memories of my grandmothers’ cooking and baking. Food was love. Is love. I’ve tried to teach my sons that sugar doesn’t do us any favours – it affects our mood, our behaviour and it has zero nutritional value. But it’s OK to like it – the key is balance. Not too much, and only what we’re mostly eating is colourful, unprocessed, wholefoods.
It’s an approach I’m trying to apply to my own love/love/hate/no LOVE relationship with sugar. There’s no question I feel so much better without any in my diet, but likewise, it’s far more sustainable to apply the rule of balance.
That’s how I work with my clients. Denial or restriction is hard to keep up, and honestly, sometimes happiness is a piece of cake with a cuppa on a rainy afternoon, or the thrill of opening a box of chocolates. And it is possible to only enjoy a little sugar, rather than rely on it to get through the day.
When a client tells me that she can’t control her cravings, or she is a ‘sugar addict’, the first thing to look at is what’s she’s eating each day. What’s her macronutrient intake? (That’s protein, carbs and fats.) What does her breakfast look like? Is she snacking because she’s hungry? Or is she eating because she’s bored, or stressed or anxious? Does she need some nutrient support to manage those cravings in the short term?
What helps is having a little nutrition know-how. Understanding that balancing your macronutrients is more likely to mean you won’t have those energy crashes that mean your body is screaming, “GET ME A MARS BAR AND MAKE IT SNAPPY!”
So many mums graze all day and then wonder why they feel sluggish, or their energy is poor, or that they’re steadily gaining weight. Just a week of a better breakfast can make a huge difference to how they eat for the rest of the day and will likely mean less need to snack for energy. It’s the first meal we work on. Time and time again, mums tell me in their next session that their energy is already better; their headaches are improved; they’ve snacked less. It’s always a positive, empowering realisation. No. They don’t NEED it.
Is sugar addictive? More so than cocaine, as some sources will have you believe. Or, is it the feel-good impact that’s addictive? Sweetness triggers a hit of the happy-neurotransmitter dopamine from our brain, so it stands to reason that we reach for it. So much of our eating behaviour is entrenched from childhood. Comfort and sugar are often inextricably linked in our memory. I try very hard not to reward my kids with sugar. Instead of it being a ‘treat’, it’s something to enjoy, but in moderation. Not superhero or super villain. It’s unhelpful to label foods ‘good’ or ‘bad’. It allows feelings of guilt around food which leads to a miserable narrative in our minds. No ‘shoulds’ or ‘shouldn’t’s.
Just balance.
If you’d like to chat with me about finding a better balance with how you eat, get in touch. Book in a 20-minute Discovery call or just email me thalia@thaliapellegrini.com.