You’ve heard it all before: refined sugar can wreck havoc on your health. Even Time Magazine widely publicized the research confirming what most of us know intuitively and what nutritionists, herbalists, fitness experts, physicians, and others in the natural health field have been saying for decades. Sugar is so hard on the body and so destructive that it may not deserve to be considered a ‘food’ at all. Sugar is really an anti-nutrient, a substance that skews the body’s biochemistry toward dysfunction and disease.
And yet, as much as we may understand intellectually about the detrimental effects of sugar it can be extremely difficult to stop eating it. Sugar cravings can be unrelenting and intense, driving us to make choices that make us scratch our heads afterward, or worse, descend into a cycle of self-reproach for having eaten something “bad.” The truth is that there are evolutionary and physiological reasons why sugar is so hard to give up—-and there are things you can do to make the process easier. My bottom line on this issue is that it’s not your fault. And it’s not hopeless, either.
Easing the Cravings
I’ll never forget the first time I heard a mentor of mine critique the common approach taken by many natural health providers to working with patients who are experiencing health problems due to their use of coffee, sugar, tobacco, alcohol, drugs, energy drinks, and other substances upon which the body can become dependent. The common approach, he says, is to simply coach people to stop using the substance (in this case, let’s confine the discussion to sugar) and maybe to supplement that single instruction by rattling off a long list of the terrible health problems that sugar is causing them. Rather than being motivating, that long list of harmful effects can really feel like a scolding. Rather than being effective, telling someone to simply stop doing something obscures the reality that if it was as easy as just stopping, the patient would have stopped a long time ago.
If a you’re hooked on sugar, you need real biological support to ease the cravings. Social support and encouragement—not shame—helps too.
My teacher goes on to say that if we imagine a person who is dependent on sugar and has nutritional deficiencies and health problems as a result, we can imagine that it’s almost as if there is a nutritional gap or hole in their physiology that they are driven to the sugar to try to fill (and many times there may be emotional or spiritual gaps, too. These are hard to avoid in modern life.) He asks us to imagine the logic of trying to replace a missing puzzle piece by taking something else away. Just removing sugar doesn’t correct the underlying imbalance or nutritional deficit. It’s also really hard to do—precisely because that piece of the physiological puzzle is still empty.
Perhaps true wholeness is not our lot as human beings. (Or perhaps we are always already whole.) Yet, I find the image of the missing puzzle piece very helpful as I think about building a wholesome regimen that can support them in letting go of sugar. And make no mistake—sugar is a crazymaking substance. Starting with sturdy ideas about wholesome food, deep nourishment, and supplementing the nutrients that sugar strip mines from our body makes it easier to keep our grounding when sugar cravings start to gnaw at us.
The Foundation (and a word about supplements)
The foundation of any plan to let go of sugar is a diet that contains adequate calories, minerals, healthy fats, and a rainbow of plant foods. Eating regularly is also of prime importance. Sleep plays a major role in insulin regulation, as does having adequate trained muscle mass. These healthy habits lay the foundation for being able to let go of sugar for good. You’ve certainly heard all of this advice before. It’s when you put everything into practice at the same time that big shifts become possible.
Generally, I prefer whole foods and plant medicines to supplements. There are many reasons for this, but at the bottom it’s about trusting the wisdom of the body to take what it needs if we give it foods and plants that it recognizes and has learned how to work with over millenia of co-evolution with our fellow living beings, both plant and animal. The reality of our modern environment, however, is so starkly different from what our species has ever experienced nutritionally and ecologically that there are cases in which I believe that supplementation is appropriate. Sugar dependence, including clinical insulin resistance and Type II Diabetes, is one such case.
The first steps I take with clients who are working with sugar issues are to add supplemental magnesium, chromium, zinc, and omega 3 fatty acids from algea. I counsel them to eat a breakfast that contains lots of fiber and micronutrients. Greens are an AMAZING breakfast food! When sugar’s got you by the throat, that’s about as much as you can manage. Once this process of replenishing and rebuilding has started the cravings often ease up enough for the client to be able to make even more beneficial changes. It usually takes less than two weeks for positive changes to start happening.
Take the First Step
If you’re reading this post because sugar is a challenge for you, remember that you’re not alone. Sugar dependence isn’t a matter of poor willpower or moral failing. It’s also something that you can change if you are willing to be kind to yourself and find ways to really nourish your body and spirit.
A great first step is to start with a breakfast that contains lots of fiber and micronutrients. Think about steel cut oatmeal with cinnamon and walnuts with a side of steamed greens. Or try having Stinging Nettle Infusion alongside a tofu scramble with turmeric, onions, bok choi, and fresh herbs. Or you can make chia pudding with sweet potato and almond milk.
You might also try using a liquid magnesium supplement along with chromium and zinc.
Try this for a few days and see how you feel. When you’re being fully nourished, sugar will loosen its death-grip on your throat and making healthy choices will become easier and easier.
