This mirrors my experience remarkably. Quitting smoking and becoming a runner in my 20s was transformative for many reasons, perhaps most of all by replacing regular feelings of shame with pride.
I'd love to kick sugar for good. It's inflammatory, destabilizes my concentration, make my moods less steady, and interferes with deep sleep. I've tried many times and many ways. But it's such a strong addiction (it's a big part of what the dopamine system was built to make sure we get!) and short of going keto, you can't take the kind of absolute approach that worked for this author and me with nicotine, alcohol, etc. because all carbs hit that reinforcement system. If anyone with addictive tendencies has figured this out, I'd love to hear how.
I think the trick here is to avoid having sugar nearby and to fill your pantry with healthy alternatives. Avoid purchasing sugar laden foods from the supermarket and opt for healthy choices, so the only foods to snack on within your home are fruit and nuts. Unfortunately if you have roommates or a family this requires everyone in the household to opt in, but it makes it easy to avoid sugar. You only need to exercise restraint when buying food at the supermarket once or twice a week, instead of every day.
If you follow this advice, then your only option to get sugar is to leave your house to get it, which discourages its use because of the extra burden to procure it. Also, this trip will give your forebrain extra time to kick in and abort the quest to fulfill your cravings.
Unfortunately if you go into the office and they have a bunch of sugary stuff around (m&ms, candy bars, etc) then your only choice is to avoid wherever that stuff is stored. You could try moving where you sit to another floor or farther away from the office pantry.
Yeah, the difference between willpower while shopping and willpower all the time is huge. No one would try to quit smoking with cigarettes around the house. I was almost a year off sugar when I went to work at one of those shops with the pastry chefs and piles of snacks... It wasn't long before the stress and easy availability knocked me off the wagon.
> Quitting smoking and becoming a runner in my 20s was transformative for many reasons, perhaps most of all by replacing regular feelings of shame with pride.
I have a loved one, a life-long smoker in their 60s, who is moving into a non-smoking residential complex. I feel some concern.
> I'd love to kick sugar for good.
And now we're onto my addiction. It ramped up after a new schedule shorted my sleep by 1-2 hours a night.
In my experience, quitting sugar and carbs reduced my overall appetite, so the cravings were gone fairly quickly. I did have a mild headache for two days.
Stepping down gradually was what worked for me and I was way up there. I mean taking the nozzle off the fountain machine spout to pour pure Mountain Dew syrup before filling it up normally.
There are a few keys I think for overcoming addiction (former smoker, I vibe quite a lot with the running to quit smoking).
1. Feedback loops. Addictions tend to be positive feedback loops - 100% pleasure. EG: Sit on ass, smoke, feel great, continue to sit on ass, smoke more, continue to feel great. But, add running into the mix and that turns into: sit on ass, smoke, run, feel like shit. "feel like shit" was never part of that first feedback loop. At least "feel like shit" won't be until the lungs are damaged enough where they begin to have serious trouble repairing themselves. Even then, that feeling is masked by smoking (when a person smokes, pain suppressing hormones are released in and around the lungs). It could even become perverse, when a persons lungs start to hurt - they then want to go smoke. Identifying these positive feedback loops IMO can really help clarify what is driving a behavior.
2. Replacement. Are you sitting at a desk eating too many sweets? Try replacing with mixed nuts or another snackable. (I swapped alcohol for tea once and was pretty successful there)
3. Desensitization. Cook 100% of your own food for a month or two. At the end of that, you'll be eating a lot less salt and sugar. Going from that, to then eating a big mac or candy is going to be nothing short of an assault on the senses. The big mac will taste greasy, the candy over-poweringly sweet. It'll be easy to jump right back in the feedback loop and become re-addicted to this food, but the initial positive feeling will be significantly lessened.
4. Budgeting. Be careful with this one. This technique never worked for me, but for some it does. Allow certain things at truly specific times & places. This is how some people control coffee, for example: they get one cup a day, before 10am, period. Ask that person if they want a cup of coffee and they say "I already had my cup of coffee for the day." My willpower to do budgeting is close to zero, so I don't try this, but it works well for some people.
5. Inspection, why do you love it? Addictions are centered around love. I loved smoking. It's really a very nice thing to do, it's fun, it feels good, relaxing, something to fiddle & fidget with, reliable, a nice little break every now and then to enjoy the night air. Once a teenage peer said of drugs to me: "what's the worst, you won't like it and won't do it again?" Actually, the worst is you do like, and you wind up liking it a lot. We do these things all the time for a reason, not just because we are weak, but because we love these activities, that is why we're addicted. In this technique, simply seek to better understand - what is this activity doing for you? Why do you like it so much? What holes is it filling in your life? Personally, I thought there was something very empowering to absolutely state, "I love smoking", and I will always love it - that is why it is an addiction. Once you make that statement, I think it's easier to gain compassion and agency, and then it becomes easier to also start to think about why. Before then, the thoughts of being a smoker were generally things like "I'm just weak", or "this is a small vice, I'm trying to kick", or "I don't really like this, it's all meh, I'll quit soon." These latter things were all lies for me, confronting head-on that I was dealing with something powerful, and slightly more profound than "just a small little vice", was just really important. Without that, thinking about the situation really just got very negative, makes you feel like a failure as a person, thoughts that generally humans do not like to dwell on - so instead less thought is given to the vice and the habits just kinda continue. Instead stating, "I love this, now let me think about why?" puts it into a frame that the mind can dwell on.
I'm overdue to write a book on this. I hope my experiences/thoughts might be of some help and interest.
1. Identifying and shaping positive feedback loops is so under-appreciated. As true for the spiral upward of exercise, healthy diet, good sleep, etc. as the downward dynamic you describe.
5. Absolutely. I used to say that cigarettes were my most reliable friends. Always there for me; always made me feel better. I imagine you've seen the idea that addiction is a consequence of loneliness/isolation. I think that's probably taking it a bit too far, but I'm sure that feeling belonging and love protects against it to some degree.
4. Doesn't work for me either, at least for a certain kind of addiction. One year on Halloween I had been sugar and refined-carbs free for months, had a fun-size Butterfinger at work, and then had a pint of ice cream that evening. Same thing with cigarettes.
It would be a good book. Let me know if you want to collaborate on it.
