“The sugar cravings are gone now”
The image does not represent the email sender
Would the health care system ever advise an alcoholic to drink alcohol at least six times a day and take pills to suppress the cravings?
No, hardly. But when it comes to eating disorders the standard of care often seems to be just that sick.
I got an email from Carolina Falini, who tells her story of how she became free from her sugar addiction and eating disorder when she did the opposite of what the health care system advised her to do:
The Email
I was so happy to read another story about eating disorders. I myself have been through something similar, but with a binge-eating disorder.
I’ve sought help at several different eating-disorder clinics to get my life back, but all the doctors did was to remind me to eat six carbohydrate-rich meals daily and to take antidepressants, as they suppress hunger. They repeated time after time how my eating disorder and constant cravings were caused by a lack of carbohydrates. I didn’t eat enough processed carbohydrates and the brain can only use processed carbohydrates, so when I didn’t get enough of those I’d binge eat.
I started to increase my intake of processed carbohydrates and I just felt more and more hungry, more and more sugar craving and more and more jittery.
After I had taken a course in nutritional physiology at the University of Lund, Sweden, I realized that all the information they had fed me was false.
A few months ago I started an LCHF diet and now the sugar cravings are gone. It was a tough battle, I have to admit. I felt like a drug addict on rehab. But after two weeks my sugar cravings were gone. Thanks to LCHF I’ve regained my sense of satiety. I now feel full after eating. Something that is a normal feeling for a normal person, but that I hadn’t experienced in 10 years.
I now have a life. I don’t dream of sugar and cookies and I’m no longer locked up in my apartment eating 5 big store-bought cakes, and then just 30 minutes later opening a package of crackers. I’m not staying home in agony over having managed to stuff myself with 15,000 empty calories. And now, three months later, I can even have a piece of a “sugary cake” on festive occasions without getting sugar cravings and without binge eating.
Thank you for your wonderful blog. It has really helped me with my motivation to cope with the first horrible week of LCHF.
Sincerely,
Carolina
Comment
Congratulation, Carolina, to your successes!
It’s bizarre and a disgrace that people with eating disorders receive such bad advice from the health care system. How can you advise someone with an addiction to INCREASE the intake of the very thing the person is addicted to?
Especially as more rapidly digested carbohydrates not only feed the cravings, but also increases the risk for weight gain, more anxiety, thus worsening any eating disorder problem.
The cornerstone when it comes to recovering from addictions is to get away from what triggers the addiction. You don’t tell a gambling addict to log on to internet poker at least six times a day. This would be a disastrously bad treatment.
When it comes to the possibility of having a piece of a “sugary cake” on festive occasions: be very cautious. If you have a latent addiction this can clearly be risky. Many learn this the hard way. I myself stopped using the moist Swedish form of snuff five years ago and haven’t taken any kind of nicotine since then. None. Zero. Not because I’m good, but because I don’t dare to.
In any case, LCHF seems to be an excellent first-line treatment for addiction to all kinds of carbohydrate-rich foods. Just as with all other types of addictions, where the basic principle is to get away from what you’re addicted to.
It’s not always easy to avoid large amounts of carbohydrates and it’s not always enough to break away from a sugar addiction. But it is a necessary first step. Hopefully this will soon be realized within the health care system.
Do you have any experience in this area that you’d like to share? Leave a comment below.
More
“LCHF Challenging Health Care’s Poor dietary Guidelines”
PS
Do you have a success story you want to share on this blog? Send it (photos appreciated) to andreas@dietdoctor.com, and please let me know if it’s OK to publish your photo and name or if you’d rather remain anonymous.
I, too, am a binge eater & sugar addict. I have gained about 75lbs in a couple of years and cannot seem to shift any. I am exhausted all the time but my cravings for sugar are out of control. I am a vegetarian so the majority of my diet is processed carbohydrates....not sure what else I would eat without them! Any tips would be gratefully received! :)
http://lowcarbdiets.about.com/od/vegetarian/a/Low-Carb-Vegetarian-Die...
Advice: honestly reevaluate your food choices and see where that takes you. Maybe you can replace some of the processed carbage with nuts (more fat). Only eat real food. If it comes in a box, don't eat it.
If you're vegetarian for ethical reasons, consider how you're treating the animal that is you.
Thankfully i'm at a good weight for the time being! However I find this article misleading because cravings for junk food may get better but rarely go away completely unfortunately much like with other addictions! :(
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The person who is having problems with sugar while trying to be a vegetarian should at least read Lierre Keith's "The Vegetarian Myth".
Just learned that a few days ago quite shocked!
Congratulations Carolina
Lost and I'm thrilled that I no longer feel like a slave to sugar.
I am in the Army and it scares me how little our doctors know about nutrition, always forcing us to carb load for energy when it is complete rubbish; I have never felt better!
My suggestions: 1) be patient, give it more time to work. 2) If you haven't done it already, make sure to have a wide variety of foods / recipes at hand. Bland food will ultimately lead to boredom and too many cheat days.