It was about 20 minutes after midnight, and I had been weaving through the streets of Redmond, Washington, for at least an hour—driving, turning, looking for the freeway. I really should’ve been home by now, but after seeing a few friends’ bands play at the Old Fire House on a Friday night, I got lost. Confusing streets, unfamiliar town. I ended up somewhere that may or may not have been Canada. It’s hard to say. I took a lot of wrong turns.
After stopping off at a Safeway for directions and a Diet Coke, I got back in the car and kept driving, listening to the same song over and over again on my car’s stereo, and then I mindlessly reached over to the passenger seat and scooped a glob of coconut-flecked frosting off the side of a Pepperidge Farm Coconut 3-Layer Cake with two fingers. I don’t even know why I bought that goddamn cake. I suppose I needed something to go with my Diet Coke.
The frosting was still frozen—nearly inedible. The box said to thaw the cake in the fridge at least three hours before serving, but I didn’t feel like waiting. I also didn’t have a fridge in my car. So I set the cake on the floor of my Nissan Altima, blasted the heat, and waited impatiently for about 10 minutes. That would have to do.
The frosting on the outside had started to get warm and soft, sparkling with little pearls of condensation as it thawed, but the dense vanilla cake on the inside was still icy cold. I kept eating it anyway,
fingerful after fingerful, as I finally started to find my way back home.
By the time I arrived back in Seattle, my car’s steering wheel had a sticky film on it, and there was barely a quarter of the cake left. I took the rest of the cake inside and tossed it on the kitchen counter and crawled into bed.
The next morning, aside from feeling physically ill, I also mentally felt like utter shit. I honestly had no idea where all the cake had gone—I knew it was in my stomach, pumping sugar and saturated fat through my veins, but I didn’t realize, until facing it the next day, just how much of the pale white mound I had managed to destroy during one single, lonely car ride from the Eastside.
Consider this: There are eight servings in one of the Pepperidge Farm cakes that I ate and
25 grams of sugar in each serving. That’s about two tablespoons of sugar. I ate nearly six of the eight servings, so that means I ate about 12 tablespoons of sugar in maybe a half hour. Go to your kitchen and measure out 12 tablespoons of sugar—it’s nearly a cup’s worth.
I’m as disgusted as you are.
That wasn’t the first time something like this has happened. All my life I’ve loved sweets—it’s in my blood. My Great-Grandma Edeen was known in her neighborhood as the Cookie Lady. My Great-Grandma Kallicott was a master at baking pies and cookies, and she always had at least one or the other in her kitchen when I’d visit as a child (no one in the world can make fig-roll cookies like she did).
Over the past couple years, my once-innocent sweet tooth has gotten stronger, more difficult to control. I think it started when the QFC by my apartment in Ballard shut down for remodeling. The closest “grocery store” was a 7-Eleven, which was just one block away. That winter, out of laziness, sometimes three or four nights a week, I would make a dinner out of pints of Ben & Jerry’s or Hostess products. And you know what’s really delicious? Nestle Toll House ice-cream cookie sandwiches. I’d often grab a banana, too—you know, to balance it out (and FYI, a banana’s got about
12 grams of sugar in it, albeit “natural” sugar).
Then, writing about sugar somehow became part of my job description. It started with a couple Slog posts about new candy bars. Then, for an article, I taste-tested every cupcake in the city to declare the best. Later, I wrote a piece arguing for Fran’s Chocolates’ salted caramels to be the official state candy (after much field research, of course). And then, for a piece about the sugar craze in Seattle—the Yellow Leaf Cupcake Co., Molly Moon’s Homemade Ice Cream, Full Tilt Ice Cream, Pretty Kitty Organic Ice Cream, Bluebird Homemade Ice Cream & Tea Room, Fainting Goat Gelato, Peaks Frozen Custard, Old School Frozen Custard, Cupcake Royale, Trophy Cupcakes, Curio Confections, Theo Chocolate, Chocolopolis—I went to the Seattle Chocolate Salon to sample the work of dozens of different chocolatiers, including Oh! Chocolate, Intrigue, and Crave.
Every time a new ice-cream, cupcake, or candy shop opened, I’d either have to go visit it (you know, “for work”) or they’d send me a batch of their product (you know, “just in case I wanted to post anything about it on Slog”). I couldn’t escape it if I tried—not that I was complaining. Because I didn’t know there was a problem. I didn’t realize at the time that I had gained 20 pounds and become a moody mess because I was fine, so long as I created artificial happiness by starting the day with a nonfat latte (three sugars) and a piece of pumpkin bread from Cupcake Royale (they have the best pumpkin bread in the city).
When traveling to places like New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Nashville, I would pick up sweet treats for friends back home (Tennessee is the home of the Goo Goo Cluster, you know), but instead of saving them for their intended recipients, I would often end up, uncontrollably, eating them before the plane even landed. I’d be riddled with guilt afterward, but it didn’t at all seem like a bad idea as I broke open the package. I never told Alissa I bought her that mint truffle from Fannie May anyway.
So why not just stop buying the candy? And cupcakes and ice cream and Hostess products? Well, aside from the fact that I almost can’t stop myself from doing it, I’d end up making due with whatever’s in the cupboards.
I’ve eaten plain brown sugar out of the bag—first picking out the hardened lumps, and then making my own by pressing the sticky, sandy mounds of goodness against a spoon. I’ve squirted tablespoons’ worth of maple syrup straight into my mouth, eaten spoonful after spoonful of strawberry jelly out of the jar, licked my pointer finger and pressed it into powdered hot chocolate mix over and over again, bought bags of holiday candy promising myself I’d take it into the office the next day to share with coworkers only to end the night in an embarrassingly large pile of wrappers… It’s pathetic. Really, really pathetic. Especially for me, a young woman who has spent the majority of life purposefully avoiding any chance of addiction.
I’ve called myself straight-edge (no drugs, no alcohol, no cigarettes) since I was 15 years old. I’ve never even had a sip of wine. I never liked the idea of being “out of control,” and I never wanted to have an excuse for my actions, and even though I know you can drink a few drinks without losing control, I’m just not interested. Until one day in 2007, I would’ve told you I’m completely vice-free. It was then, in an attempt to feel better about myself and lose a little weight (every human being’s response to being dumped), I told myself: No more sugar. What was supposed to be an easy change in diet turned into years’ worth of detoxes, late-night binges, self-help books, mood swings, the first and only fight I’ve ever had with my current boyfriend, and the
ultimate admittance that I, Megan Seling, am an addict. I’m addicted to candy.
The woman behind the counter of Interbay’s Super Supplements helped me find the last thing on my checklist, a big bottle of cold-pressed omega-3 flaxseed oil (it was in the refrigerated section—who knew?). I returned to the cash register with bottle in hand and got rung up for about $100 worth of crap like corn-husk powder, liver-cleansing herbs, probiotics, vegan protein powder, and bentonite clay (exactly what it sounds like).
A few months earlier, a friend had followed this detox program, from The Detox Box by Mark Hyman, and said she felt amazing afterward. All you have to do is drink fruit smoothies, homemade vegetable broth, warm lemon water, and yes, clay, for 7 to 14 days, and it supposedly rebalances your system and, the box says, kicks sugar cravings to the curb.
Fantastic! The weekend prior I got bored and had a run-in with a dozen Cupcake Royale Babycakes and half a batch of raw cookie dough—yet another reminder to kick the sugar habit. So I went home, after stopping at Ballard Market for another $100 worth of fresh organic vegetables, bags of frozen organic fruit, and brown rice, and prepared for day one of the detox.
For the record, the most disgusting thing I have ever put in my mouth is corn-husk powder. When you put two heaping tablespoons of it in about six ounces of water, it gets almost gel-like and chunky in consistency. Of course, that’s the point—the high-fiber drink is supposed to help, you know, clear out your system. It tastes like dried-up grass and smells even worse.
I was dead set on sticking to this program, on conquering this sugar problem, disgusting fiber drink be damned. So I reluctantly took a second sip.
Gag. Cough. Heave.
And then another.
And then, when I tried to just chug it, I immediately puked it back up into my kitchen sink.
The trick, as I learned after drinking it twice a day for seven days, is to mix it with warm water and the juice of half a large lemon. The sour lemon nearly overpowers the taste. By the end of the week, I was gulping that corn-husk powder down like a champ.
I had two smoothies every day, made with the fiber of ground-up flaxseeds and plenty of frozen, organic berries; I ate steamed vegetables with a serving of brown rice for lunch and a serving of high-protein beans for dinner; I drank homemade veggie broth as a “snack” midafternoon; I even did the whole “hydration therapy” thing every morning in the shower, switching the water from hot to cold to hot to cold to hot again.
I didn’t do the yoga. I don’t have the patience for yoga.
But this detox wasn’t so bad. It was actually kind of neat. I never wanted to see another cabbage again, but I felt good, like my friend said I would. I had energy, I felt stronger, I stood taller, I was proud that I hadn’t touched so much as a doughnut hole, and I lost over five pounds (which I know isn’t the most healthy thing to do in a week, but it was mostly water weight). And then the next day, day eight, as a reward to myself for lasting a week and with very little hesitation or thought at all, I ate half a lemon meringue pie from the Ballard Market.
What the fuck is wrong with me!?
In 2008, a woman named Nicole Avena published data claiming that rats can become sugar dependent. “Sugar is noteworthy as a substance that releases opioids and dopamine and thus might be expected to have addictive potential,” she wrote. After analyzing four components of addiction—”bingeing,” “withdrawal,” “craving,” and “cross-sensitization”—she compared the animals’ behavior to the changes in the brain that occur with other addictive drugs. “The evidence supports the hypothesis that under certain circumstances, rats can become sugar dependent,” she said. And concluded: “This may translate to some human conditions.”
Avena isn’t the first person to compare the physical reaction to sugar to that of stronger, more infamously addictive drugs. For decades, a growing number of doctors and scientists have believed that the physical response to sugar can, in some people, be similar to the physical response to ingesting alcohol or opiates.
In the book Potatoes Not Prozac, Kathleen DesMaisons, PhD, writes, “Like alcohol, sugar causes a release of beta-endorphin. It can make you feel high. It can reduce both physical and emotional pain.”
She cites a number of tests that have been done on the matter and insists that there are only seven steps required to fix the problem—to “balance a sugar sensitivity, heal depression, and come alive!”
I bought this book, and all of its promises, one night in February or March of 2009, after one of the coldest, snowiest seasons the city has seen. It sounded crazy, but after a severe lack of sunlight and a holiday season filled with pounds of baked goods, I was completely open to crazy ideas.
At home, I drew a bath and I read about the chemistry of sugar and what DesMaisons calls “sugar sensitive” people. I read stories about women just like me, women named Carrie and Diane and I think Emily, who were moody and miserable and unable to control their sugar-addled diet. And then I skipped ahead to the part where DesMaisons claims it can all be cured by eating a potato, every night, right before bed.
It can be any kind of potato, prepared anyway you want, so long as the skin is left on and you don’t pair it with any food that contains protein. What the potato does, she explains in the book, is it raises your serotonin levels just like an antidepressant would. I remember antidepressants. I took those once. But I stopped (like I stupidly do) right around the same time I—holy shit, right about the same time I started eating so much sugar.
According to DesMaisons’s examples, a lot of “sugar sensitive” people also become (or start out as) depressed people. And treating that depression, naturally and with a potato, could theoretically stop you from eating three-quarters
of a three-layer coconut cake in 30 minutes. Or baking 80 different kinds of cookies in two months, which I’ve also done. Or whatever.
So that night I microwaved a plain Russet potato. I wanted to put cheese or sour cream on it, but the book said no protein, so I put a little salsa on it (which was store-bought and did contain added sugar, yes). I mushed it up on a plate, I ate it, I watched some TV, and then I went to bed.
I felt no different the next morning.
That night, I tried a different kind of a potato. DesMaisons said to experiment, so I tried a couple small white potatoes. Because they’re not as dry as Russets, they’re easier to eat without any toppings, so I ate them plain.
And I felt no different the next morning.
It only took four days before I abandoned the book. I didn’t just abandon it—I decided that book is stupid. A potato isn’t an anti-depressant or a cure to sugar cravings. It’s a potato. And even if the chemistry of it, technically, does work like an antidepressant and/or may fix my sugar addiction (you know, had I stuck to it more than four days), it was much more demanding than antidepressants, which just involved popping a pill every morning.
I don’t have the lifestyle for cooking myself a potato every night before bed. I’m a rock writer. I stay out late and go to shows. I have a wonderful boyfriend who often stays over, but as understanding as he is, I didn’t want it to come down to “Sweetie, I really love you and I’d like to continue this make-out session, but if you could just hold on a minute while I roast up these fingerlings in a little rosemary and olive oil, that’d be really great.”
Still, that stupid book did teach me something. It made me realize how the depression and the sugar are quite possibly linked. And what’s a good, natural treatment for depression? Exercise. So within a week, I joined a gym, got set up with a professional trainer, and decided to quit sugar cold turkey. By day 10, I had my first and only fight with my boyfriend of nearly two years. I didn’t like his tone of voice when he answered the phone, so I decided he was a cold-hearted, thoughtless jerk.
I was better off eating a potato.
After all the books, the detoxes, the Weight Watchers meetings, and the failed attempts to quit cold turkey, I absolutely believe there is a chemical component to my sugar cravings. I’m sure there are hundreds of other things that I could do to help control it, but right now, as I write this, it’s almost Christmas. And the makers of Junior Mints have introduced limited-edition
Junior Mints Minis—little green and red
candy-coated gems that are about a third the size of regular Junior Mints and delicious. I can’t stop eating them, they’re so cute! And they’re only around for another couple of weeks! I can’t not eat the eggnog cupcakes at Cupcake Royale either. Or those classic chocolate-chip cookies at my friend’s cookie party last week. And when I go to New Orleans in a few days, I’m going to have to have a beignet—I’ve never had a beignet before!
I know it’s terrible—Stranger readers have, with nearly every article or blog post I’ve ever written about sugar, told me it’s terrible. Society has made it clear that sugar causes obesity, causes diabetes, is the root of all evil and a number of other problems—but if that’s so true, why is it fucking everywhere? You can’t legally drink until you’re 21. You can’t legally do drugs ever. But sugar—well, sugar you can get almost anywhere for literally five cents.
So for the rest of the holidays, I’m going to keep eating it. Eight weeks ago, I started the “Couch to 5K” program, which is a nine-week program that trains you to run a 5K, even if you aren’t a runner at all. Now I’m running 30 minutes a day three days a week, so I allow myself to have a treat on the days I go to the gym. You know, only if I want. And so far that’s working out for me. In fact, on some gym days, I don’t have candy.
I also haven’t had the urge to binge on sugar—to mindlessly eat nearly an entire cake or a cupful of maple syrup—since I started the running program.
In fact, the only time I end up eating too much is when I try to stop. So, you know, maybe the best medicine, for me anyway, is to never actually stop.
Or maybe those are just the words of a true addict. 
Why do so many self-professed “straight-edges” still drink caffeine? A girl I went to college with was very vocal about her straight-edge status (she had prominent tattoos that said things like “poison free”). She also talked loudly about her copious consumption of energy drinks. When I brought it up, she said that “caffeine doesn’t affect me” and is therefore acceptable. Despite the fact that she had just mentioned that it helped her stay alert for late night studying… If anyone has any insights into this, I am genuinely curious.
So one person’s difficulties are meaningless because others are wore off? If you find yourself doing things that are harmful to yourself and that you have trouble controlling then it doesn’t matter that other people somewhere else are also in trouble. And just how does Megan’s worrying about this affect those starving millions? Perhaps she also works to alleviate poverty, and the guilt of this unwanted, excessive consumption is part of the problem.
@51, because sugar addiction is limited to the rich who can afford it, sure…
Sugar as well as high fat foods aren’t something that humans haven’t been craving since all of eternity, sure…
Yet there are places deep in rural Africa, where people are able to supply their addictions to soda (due to the glory of supply and demand) and yet have no access to reliable health care or even toothbrushes to take care of their sugar-rotten teeth.
Haters keep hating… keeps you from reproducing.
You should try acupuncture. Your system is probably really out of whack after years and years of not taking care of yourself, and that can help balance things out again. Plus its fun and makes you feel better all around.
The link between your sugar consumption and your depression aren’t surprising: When you ingest nothing but shit all the time, how can you expect to feel good? Feeling good physically leads to feeling good mentally, which leads to less emotional eating (sugar binging), right?
I would suggest seeing a nutritionist or naturopathic doctor. S/he can help you with meal ideas that are super simple and cheap and filling and GOOD FOR YOU. Forget the potato strategy, that sounds dumb.
You need to start giving a shit about other things than the all ages music scene, girl!
The real problem with, and advantage of, all addictions is that they dull down the intensity of real life. Some of us, maybe all of us, just can’t take it straight on. The solutions are inadequate, and with food addiction, often come down to trying to control intake, which is the one of the problems in the first place (trying to control our world).
“I’m as disgusted as you are.”
Then you aren’t really disgusted, at all.
I LOVE the “1 tip of a flat belly” ad running at the bottom of my page right now.
Also, fuck the haters. Go create something instead of shitting on someone else’s work.
I ate a pound of Reese’s peanut butter cups Saturday night. I ride my bike at least a hundred miles a week, I’d be a blimp if I didn’t.
@58: That’s me, I’m that jackass.
I had a doctor say “tone it down or your heart will quite-nearly explode in a decade.”
So I stopped slogging down crushed-up no-doz stirred in coffee (no fuckin’ lie) and started sleeping regularly. Helped a lot. Saved me a bunch of money, too– spending $25 a week on No-Doz and another $40 on coffee when your art books cost $400 is a big deal.
Sugar was easier to cut back on than that little hell-spawned concoction, and I’m able to drink coffee like a normal human.
But straight-edge folks who are addicted to sugar or caffeine? Yeah, they can be a little jackassy. Errr… we. Not “they”, but “we”.
i can totally relate – being a sugar addict myself. unfortunately i am now at a point in my life (38) when it is all catching up to me. i always had good numbers when it came to cholesterol, blood sugar, blood pressure, etc. so i never thought about it. well now i have been diagnosed with pre-diabetes – and if i don’t drastically change my eating habits and lose weight i will develop diabetes in approximately 3 years. this is especially upsetting because i have a neuromuscular disease, too. my lack of mobility caused me to gain a lot of weight (since i was eating the same as i was prior to my illness, with much less movement). since mid-september i have lost 25 pounds. i need to lose 100 more – but am taking it one 10% chunk (no pun intended) at a time. i am working hard to completely eliminate sugar from my diet and it is the single hardest thing i have ever done – way more difficult than quitting smoking. it’s was much easier for me to stop doing drugs, stop drinking alcohol, and stop smoking cigarettes than it is for me to change my eating habits. i strongly recommend this book as well: http://www.amazon.com/End-Overeating-Ins…
I admit I am powerless from saying negative things about Fnarf when consuming sugar.
There.
That feels better.
nice article! 😀
I’d liked your story. I don’t think you act “holier than thou” and those people are assholes. Good luck.
I’d liked your story. I don’t think you act “holier than thou” and those people are assholes. Good luck.
I approached my sugar issues by cutting out all high fructose corn syrup. so no more soft drinks. I do still add some sugar to coffee and some to iced tea, those are my two tricks to having caffiene without HFCS. otherwise it is my real dislike of exercise that is more of a problem.
that couch to 5K is great, actually. get really good shoes.
Mystified by all the trolls here.
Great article; sounds like you’re not through the woods yet, though.
There are people who have an easy time with absolute rules and people who do well with moderation. It might be helpful for you to figure out which you are, because abstainers will keep telling you that No Sugar is an easy decision rule and moderators will keep telling you that forbidding something will make you want it, so just cut way down and chill.
Either way, good luck to you.
It’s very simple. We live in a still very puritanical society. All bodily pleasures are scorned, and woe be to any woman who indulges, whether in food or sex.
While I don’t struggle with sugar to the extent that you do, I can see how somebody COULD. I find sugar to be like other vices in my life (booze, pot, social networking sites :p ). I tend to go through cycles where I’m good at moderation for a long time, and then life sucks for whatever reason and I lean harder on one or more of those vices, start to see it getting out of control, and then take a month or so cold-turkey to get out of the habit. While I’d prefer that I just always stay in the place of moderation, this cycle seems to work ok for me. Those cold-turkey months are hard, though! And it definitely takes that long to break a habit.
When I’m wanting to be sure to moderate, I do pretty well with giving myself just one thing, too. Like, I’ve been craving sugar since it got really cold (probably because I’ve been exercising less; I totally buy that link), and so I let myself have hot chocolate in the evenings. Since it’s just that one thing, and I’m sorta bored with it, it keeps things sane.
I have never been an addictive type, but sugar is a demon! Just switching from coffee and a pastry for breakfast to plain whole grain hot cereal, or a couple of eggs or full-fat plain yogurt changed my life. No more crashies in the afternoon and general better energy all day long. It’s not that hard – I have been running a bar for years with the attendant strange schedule, and the eating well thing can be done.
These recommendations aren’t related to the addiction aspect, and can be sort of fanatical at times, but reading them and absorbing the less-wacky parts has led me to a much healthier approach to food:
Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon (cookbook that’s chock full of nutrition information)
http://www.westonaprice.org/
Based on your questionland avatar, I think you’re super cute! Besides being douches/misogynists the people/person calling you fat is just straight up wrong (not that fat and cute are mutually exclusive). More importantly, you are a thoughtful, intelligent writer.
Megan, this is a great article, I’m really glad you had the courage to write it.
Personally I have no sweet tooth whatsoever, and I get “oh if only I were strong enough to turn down sweets, you’re so lucky!” but sugar isn’t the only food for compulsive eaters. I can eat nearly a pound of pasta in one sitting. I will ALWAYS go back for seconds of whatever fatty, salty, starchy entree or sides are offered. Dessert I can always do without, but it’s not restraint, it’s just that my drug is carbs.
I also drink quite a lot. Clinically my habits would be considered frequent binge drinking. I’ve quit drinking a few times for a month or so at a time just to give myself a rest, to check in with myself, etc. When I quit drinking I almost inevitably develop a sugar craving. Our bodies are such clever chemists, metabolizing this into that and substituting certain chemicals for others. If i didn’t drink, I’d most likely be addicted to sugar AND carbs.
I guess it’s a good thing I’m a drinker?
Thanks again for this article. So many of us struggle with similar issues, it’s fantastic to hear someone so plainly and openly share her own story.
Hey, Megan!
You are right on target in getting that sugar addiction is real,painful and complex. And I love that you got the book Potatoes Not Prozac. However your comment that *DesMaisons claims it can all be cured by eating a potato, every night, right before bed.* is so far from what the book is suggesting, my socks were knocked right off. The book is about healing your biochemistry through a very specific set of steps. The potato is a tiny part. Actually going off the sugar is a big part too, but somehow you seemed to have missed that part. Man, the idea that the potato is a *strategy* is down right silly. The whole book is based on the very science that Dr. Avena used with the rats.
I guess my question is whether you want to heal this or just continue to play head games and dabble. Sugar feelings distort the ability to see a solution right in front of you. If you want what we have, do what we do.
A person can have a compulsion for many different things — shopping, gambling, cheating on a partner, eating sugar — but, ultimately, stopping that compulsion comes down to willpower, either the willpower to simply quit (or cut down on) the activity, or the willpower to seek therapy or some other kind of help.
I love sugar. If I ate and drank what I wanted to every day, I’d weigh much more than I do, so I’m constantly choosing to forgo sweets. Giving in to temptation would be so much more pleasurable in the short-term but my weight and health are more important.
This was a really cool article. Ms. Seling, you are great. And how brave to write it all out. Honestly, I don’t know many people who have the balls and the wit to write like this.
I myself am a salt fiend. I want to eat salt until my mouth hurts. I pick the salt off of friends’ giant pretzels, I put soy sauce in my ramen noodles. Salt turns up the volume on life, and no one can convince me otherwise. Not even my puffy, struggling heart.
Oh, how I relate to this. I hope you’ll post a follow-up.
to all the people who are saying megan is making a mockery of “serious” eating disorders like anoerexia:
i don’t think you really understand disordered eating. society’s fat phobia, coupled with misinformed conventional wisdom tells us that anyone who cannot simply stop over-eating or binging just lacks will power. this could not be farther from the truth, as evidenced by the conflicting emotions, failed diet experiments and shameful binges in isolation that megan details in her article. the commenters who wrote things about megan being a spoiled/fat american with no real problems completely missed the subtle nuances of her piece. i suggest googling ED-NOS (eating disorder: not otherwise specified) to understand how damaging and REAL this kind of mental illness can be. coupled with depression, it can be downright lethal and not to be taken lightly. people with ED-NOS don’t just “eat to feel love” or “binge to suppress our feelings” – rather we restrict to the point where our body is devoid of necessary nutrients and fuel until it literally compels us to binge. cognitive therapy is the only true method of coping i’ve found, and a good cognitive therapist will encourage you to find something active to do (like yoga or, in megan’s case, running) as part of making yourself feel good about making healthier choices.
Megan, I am so with you on this. It’s painful to think about, so I kind of skimmed your article with one eye open.
I agree with a previous poster, I would love a follow-up article.
Great article! Thank you! 🙂
Megan, I was nodding all the way through your recount of the behaviours and feelings that go with the sugar addiction. I and many other people at radiantrecovery.com could match your stories with our own shameful memories. The delightful fact though, is that the misery can change.
4 days is a funny amount of time. If you re-read Potatoes not Prozac, you will notice that 4 days is a biochemically significant time period.
The potato is a food, not magic and not a pill. Doing the potato for 4 days will not give any noticable changes without the preparation that steps 1,2,and 3 give. And neither will doing the spud (step 4) give the whole solution. There are 7 steps , and taking the sugar out is step 6 because the rest of the steps provide the scaffolding for the construction of a healthy biochemistry which can then live without the drug. It takes time and gradual change to resolve the problems that are the result of years of unhelpful choices.
But the results? oh boy!
I went from being permanently tired and depressed and physically ill to gradually changing what and when I ate. I began by eating protein and a complex carb at breakfast within an hour of waking every day.
I continued by recording how I felt in response to what I ate. I got to know my body and to understand what the effects were of the choices I made. I got to know that I could help myself feel better. it was not half so haphazard as I had thought. I moved my sugar intake to meals, and gradually eliminated snacking. And I began to feel better. I had *never* been able to go more than 4 hours without eating before. Wow.
Then came the spud step, and I began to sleep deeply and wake refreshed. I moved from refined to wholemeal carbohydrates and felt a lot more satisfied by what I ate. I was able to eat less and feel more full! I went to remove the sugars, and was astonished to find that most of it had gone, I was simply less interested. I who had lived on sugar, who had baked everyone happy, who always had freshly baked cakes and biscuits in the house… I was satisfied with the meals I prepared and ate, I was contented, and well!
I began to work on step 7. I began to face the things that life served up. I began to act in my own strength instead of from the sugar hazed state I had lived in for years.
I am becoming the real me. And at 46, I am finally beginning to feel like an adult, not a perpetually miserable teenager.
It has not happened instantly, and it has involved making deliberate choices. But when I wanted healing more than I wanted the immediate numbing comfort of sugar, I did what they did, and I got what they got. For me, Healing beats sugar any day!
Hi Megan, good for you for having the courage to write about your sugar addiction, now that you can finally identify what it is. I know our society mostly doesn’t acknowledge this as an addiction, but research has proven it to be true, and you are experiencing it first hand. I believe you misread (did you read the whole book?) PNP by Kathleen DesMaisons, Ph.D. A lot of people do, skimming it to *get the quick solution* but missing the meat and potatoes, as it were. This book finally answered what the hell was wrong with me, and fixed it. I had nearly every side effect and some others I didn’t even know were related. I worked her steps slowly and deliberately and was off the sugar…and healing the very stuff that causes addiction (to sugar and everything else) in about a year. I’m two years into this solution and will never go back to that horrible place…or any other addiction. I suggest you re-read the book or come on over to http://www.radiantrecovery.com and give it another try. I do not believe there is any other solution for healing sugar addiction. Get off the sugar train once and for all…there is hope and a better life awaiting you!
You just wrote my story.
Funny how most on here stating “trolls” are the actual trolls on slog.
85/itmeantnothing: “i don’t think you really understand disordered eating. society’s fat phobia, coupled with misinformed conventional wisdom tells us that anyone who cannot simply stop over-eating or binging just lacks will power. this could not be farther from the truth, as evidenced by the conflicting emotions, failed diet experiments and shameful binges in isolation that megan details in her article.”
First of all, regarding your “fat phobia.” We have a huge obesity problem in this country — fueled by a lack of physical activity and poor eating (eating too much food and eating the wrong kinds of food) — with a lot of related health problems.
Second, stopping overeating or binging (or smoking or gambling or cheating on your spouse) does, ultimately, come down to willpower, to taking personal responsibility for yourself and your actions. If you want to stop cigarettes (or too much food) from going into your mouth there are only two ways to do it: have someone next to you 24/7 who will grab cigs or food away from you, or do it yourself. The former is not an option so what remains is the latter.
I’m not saying that stopping compulsive behaviors is easy. It is not. It is very difficult. I am also not saying you have to do it entirely on your own. You can seek help from a therapist or your friends or some kind of structured program (or pray, if that’s your thing.) But again, it ultimately comes down to you, to your willpower. The therapist and your friend and a program can give you support and tools but they can’t prevent you from indulging in the behavior. Only you can do that.
So then…
anyone who has every smoked pot, smoked a cigarette, or had a drink Does have a substance abuse problem???
Megan,
Have you thought about talking to a nutritionist? He or she might be able to help you balance out the sugar and do it slowly. Make it a treat, then just an occasional thing, and then cut it almost totally out.
Great article. I read every word and am going to post it on Facebook. Thanks so much for sharing and for going into all the detail that you did. I’m glad it was a long read instead of a quicker, tossed-of approach.
I have NO idea why a few of the comments people are writing here are such mean-spirited attacks on you… Huh? Screw those people.
No time to read all the posts. I just feel it’s necessary that a potato has a high glycemic index and perhaps substitutes for sugar because it… is… sugar. The water, some potassium, trace of fiber–big deal people. You want to avoid carb cravings you eat energy that lasts–some fat or protein–otherwise on sugars your insulin spikes, your blood sugar plummets, and you get hungry again. Is this news?
I think a lot of the hate is just aggression because she mentioned she is Straight-Edge. She may be nice, but by and large, those people are awful, obnoxious dipshits that ruin everyone else’s fun and blather about people who have one beer being worthless addicts LONG after the Teenage “I know everything” phase makes it excusable to do so. They tend to be excessively pushy and judgemental towards people who drink or smoke pot, and that’s not going to win anyone over. The ones who simply say “no thanks, I don’t drink” or “I don’t smoke pot, sorry.” without being dickheads are fine. But they are few and far between. That’s why people are being unnecessarily mean to her: She’s a sXe with a socially invisible addiction, and that seems hypocritical to people. I don’t think she’s a hypocrite, she was just in denial for years.
I completely agree with 98.
while megan says she’s 20 lbs overweight, not all who are addicted to sugar are overweight. i have been a runner for 14 yrs (largely got rid of my sweet tooth until this last year), and have been told by a couple doctors not to lose anymore weight. but i am absolutely a sugar addict. i could have written this essay myself. like i said, my running largely curbed my sugar addiction, but this last year, with the stress of moving to a foreign country (where i’m not very fluent in the language), and some trauma stemming from being physically attacked by a stranger, i’ve found myself deep in the clutches of the sugar addiction again. i try to keep myself to the american equivalent of one small candy bar (such as a 100 grand) a day, but the holidays have really thrown me off. thanks for writing about this, megan. good luck and try to stick with the running.
@98: I have met pushy straight-edgers, and so I see where you’re coming from, but I hope you’ll take my word for it when I say that Megan isn’t one of them. Considering the amount of drugs and alcohol that people in this office consume, she’d have been bludgeoned to death a long time ago if she started to lecture us every time we tied one on.
Sugar makes my adult acne explode all over my face. Not wanting to look like shit, I find it easy to avoid sugar. As for High Fructose Corn Syrup, if I eat anything containing it I can go to a mirror an hour or so later and actually watch the white heads growing. After the 3rd of 4th time I did this just to prove to myself that it was the HFCS, I realized that indeed HFCS is bad.
Also after cutting refined sugar from my diet I realized how disgustingly sweet most food is. Makes it hard to go back!
Wow. People are assholes.
I hope you’re not reading the comments, but if you are, I completely relate to your story, Megan, and I thank you for sharing it. Some people may find it “hilarious” but I found it sincere and moving.
It is easy for commenters to sit back and point at what you did wrong, where you failed, how your current plan is flawed. Yes, there are a slew of other approaches you could have taken (or maybe you did and chose not to write about them). But this is what’s working for you, right now.
Best of luck to you.
Funny, Funny writing. Life is uncertain. Eat dessert first. 🙂 And Always.
Good rule of thumb for people who tend to carb binge/are carb addicted- Avoid White Foods (and foods with “white” ingredients): flour, starch, rice, and simple sugar.
It’s not easy. Especially in the US. Sugar is cheap and everywhere.
But it’s worth it.
Sugar addiction can also happen to men, btw
Crook, William G. (1986). The yeast connection: a medical breakthrough. New York: Vintage Books. ISBN 0394747003.
It’s not you chasing the dragon, it’s the yeast.
Hey Megan,
Regarding you quitting sugar and being snarky to your boyfriend – who says you have to be nice all the time? I think feeling like you have to be perfect is one of the reasons people use substances…so it’s okay to be unhappy/a jerk from time to time even if it’s totally off the wall. You learn how to deal with real stuff through trial and error and not through a hazy white cloud of azucar.
The article is amazing, Megan. Anything that would inspire this amount of advice, bizarre confession, venomous accusation, sympathetic juxtaposition, projection, speculation, comparison of vices, et al is truly awesome.
And it wasn’t just shock effect — like “The Long Winter” it was an unflinching yet elegant essay based in self-awareness and brave disclosure.
Bravo!