5 Foods To Help Wean Yourself Off Sugar

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On my weight loss healing journey, my starting place for radically transforming my health was to eat real foods, especially vegetables. 

My patient Lynette was almost in tears. “Every diet I’ve ever been on has failed!” she told me in frustration. “And it’s always for the same reason — my awful sweet tooth. I just don’t have any willpower.”

“Lynette,” I said, “This is not a matter of willpower. It's not a matter of discipline. It boils down to one thing: your microbiome.”

 

Why You Crave Sugar

If your microbiome is out of balance, your sugar cravings can feel like an alien force that has taken over your body. That’s not surprising: your cravings are the product of unfriendly bacteria that have high jacked your microbiome: the community of trillions of bacteria living within your body.

Both friendly and unfriendly bacteria inhabit your microbiome in an ongoing battle for dominance. The friendly bacteria are a crucial aspect of your health, helping to govern your digestion, appetite, metabolism, immune system, mood, mental sharpness, heart health, and bone development.

By contrast, the unfriendly bacteria find numerous ways to undermine your health. If you crave sugar, the unfriendly bacteria are frequently the culprits. Many of the unfriendly bacteria feed on simple sugars — the easily digested carbohydrates that are found in sweet and starchy foods.

Basically, they crave sugar. And when your unfriendly bacteria crave sugar, so do you.

 

The Solution: Balance Your Microbiome

Luckily, as I told Lynette, there is a simple solution. Shift the balance within your microbiome from unfriendly to friendly, and your sugar cravings will disappear. Eating microbiome-friendly foods is a great place to start.

Below are five foods that can help balance your microbiome and free you from your sugar cravings.

 

1. Kimchee

This spicy fermented cabbage is a traditional Korean dish that has grown in popularity over the last few years. You can find it in many health-food stores or order it online. Although the traditional dish is very hot and spicy, many companies now make medium and even mild versions.

As a fermented food, kimchee is loaded with live bacteria, which I admit doesn’t sound very appetizing. However, when you picture those friendly bacteria supporting your weight-loss efforts, lifting your mood, and vanquishing your sugar cravings, you will be delighted to welcome them into your micro biome.

 

2. Kefir

A fermented milk drink popular in the Balkans and the Middle East, kefir tastes something like liquid yogurt. It’s delicious as a beverage or poured over a dish of fresh berries. You can even find kefir made from goat’s-milk. Kefir is also rich in live bacteria, which makes it a wonderful microbiome-friendly weight-loss food and a terrific way to end your sugar cravings. I often suggest to my patients that they use kefir in their protein shakes and smoothies, for an extra microbiome boost in the morning.

 

3. Jerusalem Artichokes

Kimchee and kefir are natural probiotics — sources of live bacteria. Jerusalem artichokes are your go-to prebiotic—a food that nourishes your friendly bacteria and helps them to dominate. Prebiotics in, sugar cravings out. Not to be confused with regular artichokes, Jerusalem artichokes are small, knobby, starchy root vegetables also known as “sunchokes.” They are rich in inulin, which is one of your friendly bacteria’s favorite foods. Soon they'll be one of your favorite foods, too! Scrub them clean as you would a potato and steam them, bake them, or enjoy them raw, sliced thin, with lemon and olive oil.

 

4. Leeks

This elegant green vegetable is another delicious prebiotic, an inulin-rich food that alleviates sugar cravings by nourishing your healthy bacteria. Slice them into a soup, omelet or steam them lightly and dress with vinaigrette. Your microbiome will thank you, and so will your taste buds.

 

5. Grapefruit

Drinking fruit juice — even grapefruit juice — can actually promote sugar cravings because the juice is full of simple sugars. But eating grapefruit in sections or cut in half is a terrific way to break a sugar craving. The fiber in grapefruit is a natural prebiotic that nourishes your healthy bacteria, while the grapefruit itself helps to balance your insulin levels and stabilize your blood sugar.

 

Free at Last

Sugar cravings can be a powerful force, one that even the most iron-willed among us finds hard to resist. But if you nourish your microbiome you can put your sugar cravings to rest.

That’s what Lynette found. After only a few days on my Microbiome Diet, she felt a sense of ease with food that she hadn’t experienced for a long time. And after just two weeks, her sugar cravings had vanished.

“Honestly, I feel liberated,” she told me at our last meeting. “My appetite is my own again, and the ‘alien force’ is gone!” 

Source: Mind Body Green

Sugar and Weight

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Deciding to cut out sweet things in order to drop a few (or many) pounds is a very wise choice. Sugar is, after all, a source of empty calories. Cutting back on sugar to control weight seems like a no brainer, but there is even more to it than meets the eye.

Sugar contains the molecules glucose and fructose. Although glucose is essential for survival and is used by our whole metabolism, fructose is a different story. Fructose has very little use in the body, apart from in the liver where it is turned into fat. When we eat sugar we are, in effect and in a possibly overly simplified way, just adding to our fat reserves unless we burn the sugar off immediately.

The fructose part of sugar can also lead to leptin resistance. Leptin is a hormone which is released by our fat cells to tell the brain that we have enough reserves and can survive for a while without eating. Leptin tells the brain that we do not need to eat. When the brain is not getting these hormonal signals, it thinks we still need to eat to avoid the risk of starvation. It also makes us burn less calories so that we can store more fat. No matter how great our willpower is, it is very hard to overrule this metabolic survival circuit in our bodies. That is why simply cutting back on calories (while still consuming sugar) and moving more normally does not work.

The fructose part of sugar is also largely responsible for insulin resistance. When we are insulin resistant the levels of insulin in our bodies are raised. This causes more fat to be stored in our fat cells (in the long term it can lead to type II diabetes, among other things).

As an aside, while consuming foods which contain glucose (think complex carbohydrates) make us feel satisfied, consuming foods which are high in fructose are more than likely to leave us still feel hungry, or feeling hungry again very quickly.

So, if you are wanting to shed a few pounds, or increase your general health and well-being, you would do very well to reduce the amount of sugar you eat and avoid foods which list high fructose syrup or other forms of refined sugar as ingredients.

Please note that I have always referred to 'the fructose part of sugar' here. The fructose which occurs naturally in fruits does not react as radically on our bodies and fruits contain a lot of vitamins, fibers and other good things for your body - so you can still enjoy them in moderation.

This is a simplified version of a complex subject. If you would like more details on how sugar reacts in our bodies with relation to weight, there are a number of very good articles and studies available on the internet and in medical journals.

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Quitting Sugar

What?!?!?!?! Am I crazy? Why would I want to give up one of life's tastiest sweet pleasures? When I told my friends and family what I was doing they assumed I was insane and said they could never do it unless they were forced, by gun. I'm sure you're thinking that exact thing right now. Believe me, I didn't want to give it up but really felt that I had to. I had read a lot of success stories about people that had amazing results but I was secretly thinking they couldn't possibly be true and I was absolutely certain I wouldn't see any positive benefits. At least any that really made a difference, but I was willing to give it a shot because you never know and I've been proven wrong before. 

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After many hours of listening to lectures and researching on the web about the many detrimental health effects of sugar I decided it was time. OK, I didn't do it right away, it's true it actually took me nearly six months to work up my courage. There was never really a perfect time to make the commitment because plans, vacations and holidays got in the way and they were really just excuses. The real reason was that I was scared; scared of how I would feel, scared that I didn't have the will power and that I would starve. Please understand, I love sugar; sweet treats, candy, cookies, cakes, brownies, ice cream, you name it I love it and can eat large quantities. I'm talking a 2 lb. bag of mixed red and black licorice and sitting down to eat the whole thing, alone... by myself... no one else. My husband learned that he had to ask me to save him any treats that he brought home from work, if he didn't I would eat them all, I couldn't help myself. The thought of giving up sugar was terrifying.

I'm not overweight and never have been, I understand how lucky I am. I intentionally do not keep the cupboards stocked with sweet treats because I know myself, I'm a glutton when it comes to them. I have to make it all go away so I eat it until it's gone. If I kept them in the house I think I would be as big as a house. If I do buy any sugary treats I buy them with the knowledge that I will eat it all. I won't just have a few and then put it away for later days, no way. So I buy a quantity that I know I can eat without making myself feel sick, hopefully. And I don't buy it regularly, it's a constant battle for me. In the grocery store I literally avert my eyes so that I can't see the candy on the shelves or the bulk candy in the bins. I purposely avoid the cookie and snack aisles. It's just too much if I have to smell it and look at it too.

I finally decided I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. I woke up every morning feeling like I was getting the flu or a cold: my body was stiff and achy, my head hurt, my brain was fuzzy and foggy and I had low energy. I think the best description for how I felt is to say it was like a slight hangover. When I would describe this to my doctors they would just blow me off by saying "Well, you are getting older, this is normal." That made me angry, I'm 52 not 82! I refused to accept that and decided I had to take control, I wasn't going to put up with feeling this way any longer.

So I did it, I just completed an eight week sugar detox, this meant no sugar at all including from fruits and some vegetables. Being such a sweets fiend I knew that I had to take this drastic step to get my cravings, body and mind under control. I'm not going to sugar coat it (pun intended), it was one of the hardest things I've ever done. At times it was downright painful; physically and emotionally. The list of foods that you cannot eat reads like a list of everything you eat. My first thought was what on earth am I going to eat for eight weeks? As I read over the list of foods that are allowed I realized they were just foods I wasn't used to consuming regularly or, in some cases, at all. I have tried a lot of new foods since embarking on this journey and found many foods I really enjoy.

The Ultimate Candida Diet book by Lisa Richards tells it like it is and doesn't fool you into thinking you will start feeling great right away. I was so very, very hungry in the first week because the restrictions are the most stringent at the beginning. My body went into some kind of mode that made me feel worse than before I started the detox. I had a stomach ache, headache, joint stiffness, swollen glands, scratchy throat, muscle weakness, fatigue and serious brain fog. I considered giving up because I really didn't think I could make it through the week. But I stuck with it because I had been prepared to feel really crappy and was looking forward to getting past those initial feelings. I did start to feel better once I passed the first week and could add more foods into my diet.

There are two sweeteners that are allowed, Xylitol and Stevia, because they don't spike your blood sugar levels. The downside to them is that they make you gassy and bloated, this reaction may not be the same for everyone. It was not a good idea to ever walk behind me because you never knew what you might get hit with. I put up with this because I really needed that little bit of sweet taste in my tea, I was used to having raw organic honey but it wasn't allowed. These are a poor substitute as far as taste but really helped curb the cravings when I felt I needed to have something sweet.

I decided to quit sugar with a very long list of ailments and complaints I wanted eliminated. I thought I would notice right away once something improved but that wasn't the case. They happened as a realization without the ability to pinpoint exactly when the changes had occurred. After nearly four weeks I noticed that my neck seemed less stiff, I had more energy and my brain was clearer. These noticeable changes really gave me that extra push to continue to the end, seeing results made a huge difference in my attitude. My will power became stronger and I positively knew I could make it through the entire eight weeks even though my dreams were trying to sabotage my efforts. It didn't happen right away but half way through the program my dreams began plaguing me with visions of eating bread, pasta with white sauce and ice cream. Candy featured very prominently. I was sitting at my kitchen table or in restaurants with heaps of food around me and I was eating it all. I could actually taste it. Some took place in candy stores where I was filling huge bags to gorge on. When I woke from those dreams the cravings would be intense. But at this point the only sugar I was having was in my dreams.

Five weeks in my skin started looking clearer, the texture and quality had improved and I was having fewer breakouts. I had been suffering for the last four years with a very sore right elbow, almost everything made it hurt. When it wasn't screaming in pain it was yelling quietly, it was constant to some degree or another. I didn't notice that the pain had disappeared until I spent three hours helping to clear a felled oak tree from my parent's yard. I kept thinking that I was really going to be suffering and waited for the pain to kick in. It never did, not once, not the next day, not at all. I expected to feel very stiff and achy throughout my entire body but there was nothing. The next day I had only some muscle stiffness in my legs due to the hill I trekked up and down for the duration. I was amazed!

I followed the detox perfectly for the entire eight weeks, this is a LIE! I was very good for 99% of the eight weeks but decided on my daughter's 20th birthday that I would have a piece of birthday cake and one alcoholic drink as well. After eating the cake I swear I felt like I could have eaten the whole thing by myself, it tasted so good and immediately started the cravings for sugar. The next day I did feel headachy, stiff and slightly hungover, which I attributed to the sugar not the alcohol. The biggest challenge for me was the candy store at the beach. The huge spinning rack of salt water taffy, the floor to ceiling shelves on every wall filled with every kind of candy you could think of, the glass cases packed with chocolate and the entire wall devoted to black licorice was absolute torture for me. This was my dream becoming reality. I wouldn't have gone in at all but my daughter wanted to buy some taffy, I should have stayed outside. It was like I was a drug addict suffering from withdrawals, I felt dizzy and lightheaded, my stomach was cramping and my mouth was watering. If I hadn't shut my mouth I would have drooled. I had an internal argument "Just a couple pieces of taffy, it'll be OK" and then "NO! You know yourself, you won't be able to stop." "Oh come on you can do it you're strong, just three pieces." "NO! you have willpower, just think of all the good things that are happening." The good won, I did not give in, I felt so proud of myself.

After the initial eight weeks I was allowed to add some fruits and sweet vegetables gradually. The key word here is gradual. I did fine for the first week by adding small quantities of green apple to start. It was so good and it didn't bring back any pain or stiffness, I still felt energetic and clear headed. It was the same with blueberries. One week later Easter arrived, I was confronted with a table full of desserts; pineapple upside down cake, chocolate chocolate chip bundt cake with cream cheese frosting, jelly beans, candy and platters of fruit and muffins. I am ashamed to say I was incredibly stupid; I had a small piece of muffin at first and thought I could handle it. But like a drug addict; just that one taste made me want more, as long as it was in front of me I couldn't refuse. I waited for my husband to go outside so he wouldn't see my shame then cut myself one piece of each cake, that's right two pieces of cake. I ate them standing in the kitchen then proceeded to go outside like nothing had happened. After about an hour it was too much, I had to have more cake, it was just sitting there, calling to me. I had two more pieces and this time added a handful of jelly beans all while my husband was sitting outside oblivious.

I suffered for nearly three days for those decisions, I felt very ill with an excruciating headache, joint stiffness and pain, fuzzy, foggy brain, ringing ears, depression and zero motivation. I was a slug and so disappointed in myself. By day three I started to feel a bit better and came to the realization that it will take me longer than eight weeks to truly kill the cravings. For now I will need to rely on my desire to feel really good in my body, mind and soul. At this point it is truly about willpower for me. The positive changes I have discovered far outweigh my cravings. Three days of physical pain are simply not worth the five minutes of pleasure I might have from eating a food loaded with sugar. I will continue on this path of sugar and sweet foods restriction because it really works for me. I know it will be hard and that I will face many challenges but like the gradual realizations of pain elimination, I hope to one day realize that I'm not salivating over the candy in the grocery store.

I can now say I'm convinced that significantly reducing or eliminating sugar completely will benefit anyone. I can't imagine one single person who wouldn't discover some impressive improvements in their health. I have much more energy, my brain is clearer and hitting on all cylinders, my skin is better both in texture and clarity, my joint pain is gone, my neck stiffness has disappeared and as a bonus, the fibrous cysts in my breasts are completely gone. I wasn't expecting this one, it wasn't even on my list. I no longer wake feeling slightly hung over or sick, I feel so much better all around. 

Taking this step for your health is absolutely worth it. It can be done!

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