Posted by JLx on November 19, 2006, at 22:42:13
In reply to Intense Sugar Cravings, posted by kmwhitt on November 19, 2006, at 20:42:42
Hi kmwhitt,
This is a subject I relate to.
I know you've said you've tried all the usual suspects, but has that included "The No Grains Diet" by Joseph Mercola? There's nothing that profound about the actual book except the suggestion to avoid grains altogether, and also dairy and sugar -- the idea being that these are common addictive substances that reinforce each others' cravings. I was surprised that the "no grains" seemed to make the "no sugar" easier. Something to do with inflammation perhaps. Inflammation seems to be the latest buzzword in diets, i.e. "Ultrametabolism". Which raises intriguing if ill-formed ideas in my mind about reducing inflammation through nutritional intervention to assist in controlling cravings for inflammatory substances like sugar. See this interesting thread above about prostaglandins, inflammation and depression: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/alter/20061013/msgs/704435.html
Something else in Mercola's book that you don't see everywhere was his prescription to get past the addiction through EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique). http://www.mercola.com/forms/eftcourse.htm
What is EFT? http://www.emofree.com/newcomer.htm The manual is free to learn how to do it yourself, or there are practitioners.
One person's experience specifically with sugar addiction: http://www.emofree.com/addictions/sugaraddiction.htm
You sound like a reader, so I would suggest these pages on the EFT site specifically if you decide to give it a whirl doing it yourself: http://www.emofree.com/articles2/faq-lindsay.htm
http://www.emofree.com/Articles2/when-not-work.htm
http://www.emofree.com/palaceof.htm
I've been doing EFT for months now and find it fascinating.
Other suggestions from my own experience are Overeaters Anonymous and the book "Feeling Good" by David Burns, which is cognitive behavior therapy.
Re OA, a 12-step program is not everyone's cup of tea, but it definitely addresses the hard core addiction issues such as the need to eat away uncomfortable feelings.
Cognitive therapy is something I thought I already knew something about until I actually read that book and tried it and found I wasn't so smart after all. ;) The idea there is that our feelings are the result of our thoughts -- change the thoughts and feel better. Since I read that book, it's hard to take my own bad feelings nearly so seriously, as I remind myself that "feelings are not facts".
JL
poster:JLx
thread:705369
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/alter/20061118/msgs/705409.html