Sugar Addiction: Candy is Like Crack Coaine and I Kicked the Jones
Written: May 10 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Candy is an affordable, legal and satisfying addiction for the masses.
Cons: Candy can put you on a glucose roller coaster of mood swings and weight gain.
The Bottom Line: If you can "handle" candy, especially chocolate, go for it! Revel in it! Melt it and spread it on your lover and have a party, you lucky jerk!
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| MsHooterville's Full Review: candies |
I have an addictive personality, and yet I rarely drink alcohol, I've never even tried smoking in my whole life, I've only seen cocaine on television and in the movies, and I can take or leave coffee.
So with no flagrantly bad habits, how the hell would a goodie-goodie like me KNOW she has an addictive personality? In a word: CHOCOLATE.
Breakfast of Champions
As much as I would love to blame this on my mother (epinions handle MoppySL), I really can't. She bought cereal, milk, bread for toast and butter like other mothers did so my sisters and I could have breakfast without too much trouble on her part.
But when I was really little, Mom's favorite breakfast seemed to be a cold bottle of Coca-Cola and Salems. She quit smoking more than two years ago, and she switched to Diet Coke as soon as it was available, but she's still got to have the caffeine version.
I've never been a big breakfast eater, and I usually got out of bed before Mom did. An icy bottle of Coke and DRY Captain Crunch or Cocoa Puffs was my ideal breakfast (unless we had Oreo cookies in the house).
Sometimes when I had some money, I'd stop at the corner grocery on the way to school and buy a Hershey for a nickle, a double Reeses Peanut Butter Cup pack for a dime, and a small bottle of Coke for another dime. For only a quarter, a kid could get a satisfying sugar hit in those days.
"Your teeth will rot before you're 10!"
So many adults lectured me with that line that I can't even attribute it to any single person. And I ignored it and I proved them wrong! The only cavities I ever got in my life were during the three years I wore braces, and that's because I couldn't brush very well.
I never had a single pimple as a teenager, so I still had no incentive to kick my candy habit. But I did fight my weight through all of those years. Until I was about 35, I could lose weight simply by cutting calories and eating only 1,200 calories a day entirely made up of sugar in the chocolate form.
I Knew All of the Rules and I Broke Them With Abandon
During the past 25 years, I can't even count how many articles I have written on health and nutrition and weight loss. I have had the best experts available to provide me with information.
Yes, I knew that people like me had a bad sugar jones with diets virtually free of protein, Vitamins A-E, and almost every beneficial nutrient human beings need each day. Instead, people like me read only the good news about sugar, chocolate in particular.
Chocolate is a valuable anti-oxidant, and that's good! Chocolate also promotes a feeling of well-being through release of pleasurable endorphins! So we ignore the facts about saturated fats and the famous glucose roller coaster of mood swings and fatigue, even though we experience them each and every day.
My Body Finally Fought Back
Up until last May, I still subsisted on a diet of mainly sugar and carbohydrates. I usually didn't eat more than 1,200 to 1,500 calories a day, but I could not lose an ounce. That's when I decided to try the Atkins Low Carbohydrate diet.
Now I'd like to tell you that I made a deliberate effort to give up sugar and carbohydrates as I began the stringent two-week induction phase of the diet where you are allowed only 20 grams of carbohydrates per day.
Look at any chocolate candy bar, and most will have twice that many carbohydrates. I think I must have been eating about 400 grams of carbohydrates a day, even when my calorie count was relatively low.
No, I didn't really plan to give up sugar for an entire year. That wasn't the agenda at all. I wasn't even sure I'd last on the Atkins Diet for the whole two weeks. And yet here I am, a year later, staying the course.
The First Few Days Were Hell
Okay, the first few days of almost any diet are hell, but I was experiencing sugar withdrawal at the same time. I must have eaten 3,000 calories worth of meat, chicken, cheese, ranch dressing, bacon and other lean and fatty meats at first!
After about a week, I discovered I could buy low carbohydrate bars that would provide me with a sweet taste and a lot of nutrition. That realization alone helped me discover other low-carbohydrate products like shakes and sweeteners that don't include sugar.
Just having a sweet taste without sugar helps, even though I still have not found a low carbohydrate nutrition bar that tastes like a Reeses Peanut Butter Cup.
Hey! I Really Do Feel Better!
While the first week or so of kicking sugar was rough, I realized that I actually had more energy, fewer headaches, and that I could think more clearly. And I was losing weight, too!
Just feeling energetic and watching the pounds inch off (my weight loss was steady, but not rapid) kept me away from the candy bar counter. The craving for sugar also diminished considerably and became easier to manage.
Thank God for Nutritional Technology!
Because of new sweetening products like Splenda, which has zero calories and none of the potentially harmful effects as Nutra-Sweet, I've been able to buy a satisfying variety of nutritional products and soft drinks that have no sugar and very few carbohydrates.
The latest delicious find is a chocolate shake in a bottle made by Carb Solutions. If you have recently had a chocolate malt from Dairy Queen, this beverage, which has only 4 grams of carbohydrates per serving, might not taste so great to you. But if you haven't had a real chocolate shake for more than a year, it's heaven.
Kicking the Jones Can Be Expensive
My low-carbohydrate, sugar free sweet treats have been a blessing to me and let me enjoy life like a normal person. But as anyone who buys nutritional product knows, these products are expensive.
All of my favorite low-carb "candy" bars cost at least $2.00, and the Carb Solutions shakes are $2.50 each when not on sale.
So price alone has forced me to be moderate in my enjoyment. But if you think you won't be successful in your own mission to cut down on sugar, you're probably mistaken.
Because if someone who ate Peanut Butter Cups and diet Coke for breakfast for more than 30 years can do it, surely you have a shot, too!
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
MsHooterville
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Member: Ms Hooterville
Location: Hooterville Green Acres USA
Reviews written: 596
Trusted by: 420 members
About Me:
News and feature writer, graphic designer and artist, wife and mother, small business owner.
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