Video | Don’t Say You Can’t | Short-Term Goals | How to Eat | Avoid Hunger | Stoppers

When you remove sugar from your diet, you stabilize your blood sugar and insulin levels, helping your body burn fat and putting you in control of hunger and cravings. But, sugar is addictive, so how do you stop eating it? It’s doable. In this post, I share five steps you can take today to get sugar out of your life.

How to Stop Eating Sugar (5 Simple Steps to Get Control) [Video]

In this video, you’ll learn…

• The benefits of removing sugar from your diet.
• Five steps to take that will help you quit sugar for good!
• Additional resources for weight loss success.

Step #1: Don’t Tell Yourself You Can’t

The first step has to do with what you’re telling yourself. If you tell yourself that you can’t stop eating sugar, you’ll make it much harder to break free from sugar cravings. If phrases like “I’m hopelessly addicted to sugar” or “something is wrong with me” are part of your vocabulary, you’re not being fair to yourself.

The reality is that sugar is an addictive substance that causes the release of feel-good chemicals in your brain, giving you a temporary sugar high that feels good. Most of us make that connection between junk food and pleasure when we are very young. There is no shame in wanting to eat it, and you’re not weak or pathetic for being drawn to it. 

Instead of the negative self-talk, put sugar in the past. Read down through the comments under my YouTube videos, and you’ll see people who now say things like, “Life is excellent without sugar.” Adopt their new perspective as your own. Even if it’s not true for you yet, they were once in the same boat that you are now. You can break free from sugar as well. 

Step #2: Set Short-Term Goals

The next step to getting sugar out of your life is to utilize short-term goals. Telling yourself that you can never eat sugar again is as defeating as telling yourself that you can’t give it up.

When we use absolutes like “never again,” it feels heavy and overwhelming. More times than not, our good intentions backfire. Instead, set a goal to give up sugar for just today. When you get success with one day, step it up to two days, one week, and so on. When we go too far into the future, we feel the anxiety build, making us want to go back to sugar as a coping mechanism. 

Step #3: Eat to Stabilize Your Blood Sugar

Step 3 is to fill up on foods that stabilize your blood sugar. It is the dips in blood sugar that brings on the intense hunger that is hard to dismiss. Each time you eat sugar and refined foods, like the 3C’s: cookies, cakes, and candies, you set your blood sugar on a roller coaster ride with quick peaks and steep crashes that make you feel out of control of your hunger. 

The secret is to add blood sugar-stabilizing foods as you are subtracting sugar from your diet. By filling up on non-starchy vegetables, healthy fats, and protein, you stabilize your blood sugar and prevent the crashes that bring on cravings.

This concept of adding as you subtract is based on my popular 0,1,2,3 strategy. If you’d like to learn it, you can download it for free and watch four videos that explain how to get it working for you. 

Step #4: Avoid Extreme Hunger

Step 4 is to avoid extreme hunger. If you let yourself get too hungry as you transition to a sugar-free life, your body will try to get you to eat by spiking cravings. Often, we set out to stop eating sugar as part of an overarching goal of losing weight. 

When that motivation hits, you get inspired to change many things at once, so you reduce how much you eat, start an intermittent fasting routine, and join the gym. These are all beneficial practices, but if you start doing them before you’ve mastered step 3 and stabilized your blood sugar, you’ll struggle with hunger, making it hard to resist sugar and junk food. When you stabilize your blood sugar, you keep insulin levels low, allowing stored energy from fat to be released and burned.

At that point, your body feeds off of itself, making you feel naturally less hungry, and making it easier to add weight loss accelerators like intermittent fasting and exercise. 

Step #5: Use Stoppers

Step 5 is to use “stoppers” so you can rely less on willpower. A stopper is an item, drink, or activity that allows you to separate from eating. This can be as simple as popping a stick of sugar-free gum in your mouth, brushing your teeth, or sipping on a minty tea after a meal.

The stopper changes the taste in your mouth, and that new minty and fresh flavor makes it less desirable to keep eating sweets. In other words, stoppers bring acceptance. Eating is enjoyable, and sometimes we just don’t want that enjoyment to end. Stoppers are pattern disruptors. When you use one, you move into acceptance that the meal is over. Pie is short-lived enjoyment. Living in a fit and healthy body is life-long freedom.

Takeaway

Sugar has no redeeming qualities and can take over your life. That was my reality for many years. Back then, I did not think living a sugar-free life was possible. Today, staying away from sugar is easy for me to do. But, getting here was not the flip of a switch.

I remember nights of going to bed at 6pm because I was determined to stick to my guns and not give in to my sugar cravings. Those moments are hard to go through, but they are the times that move the needle and pave the way for freedom. I hope these five steps help you.

If you’d like a copy of my 0,1,2,3 strategy you can download it through the link. It will help you add the right foods as you subtract sugar! Thanks for reading and have a wonderful week!

About the Author

Becky Gillaspy, DC graduated Summa Cum Laude with research honors from Palmer College of Chiropractic in 1991.