When you are craving sugar, what should you eat instead? ) courtecy;-Daniel Thomas Hind, CEO at EvolutionEat Updated Apr 11, 2017 _)



Wendy was addicted to sugar.
No matter what she did, she seemingly couldn’t stop herself from snacking on candy all throughout the day. She’d have it everywhere: in her pocketbook, in the car, in her jacket, at her office, at home in the closet, even at her bedside. She was without judgment, an addict. It wasn’t ruining her life, per se, but it was sure as hell disrupting it. She was spending an extraordinary amount of time eating, getting, hiding, and thinking about candy.
At a macro level, I coached Wendy into a complete 180. I started by looking at her diet: what consisted of a normal day, a normal week for her? Turned out she wasn’t eating much throughout the day. A piece of toast and a nonfat, sugar free yogurt for breakfast. Sometimes she’d skip lunch; if she had it, it’d be a small piece of chicken over lettuce, or some cheese and crackers. Dinner was the only meal she’d eat, as it was with the family, and she was most definitely a Mom.
Do you see the pattern? Deprivation during the day. The only food she did eat was nutritionally lacking. Elements of “trying to make up for the candy” definitely present in her choices (or lack-there-of). The only meal that counted was back-loaded at the end of the day, after an entire day’s worth of bad decisions, candy chasing, and story-telling (our brains will come up with anything to rationalize why doing what we’re doing is “OK” and “makes sense.”)
OKAY. So we started by really loading up her menu, really filling her up with allllll the good stuff. Bacon and eggs for breakfast, a big-ass salad with plenty of omega-3 protein (salmon) and avocado for lunch, in addition to her family meal at night.
I said nothing about candy. Which is why Wendy conceded to try. I didn’t once mention doing away with it or depriving her of it, or changing anything else to her routine. All I wanted to do was disrupt her current eating routine by anchoring her day with three big, nutritious and calorically-dense meals.
“Let’s try this for a week and if you hate it then you can stop. If it makes you gain 10 pounds then I’ll refund you your money for the week. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.”
After a week she came back and said she felt AMAZING. Like, “OTHER WORLDLY” good.
“And the candy?”
“Definitely less. Way less. It felt like I was just eating at times because it was around.”
After that, I told her to remove all of the candy that she kept around the house, office, pocket book, car, bedside, etc. etc. etc. Everything from Twizzlers to Reeses to Jolly Ranchers. We did a full sweep, which made her feel REALLY uncomfortable.
She started coming up with objections and pointing fingers at my method.
“But this doesn’t make sense. Won’t all this bacon and eggs make me FAT?!?!” she said. “And what about all that cholesterol! That can’t possibly be good for you.”
“I know what they say, but it’s wrong. Saturated fat is actually a benign, even healthy source of fat that’s never been conclusively linked to heart disease. It’s the most stable kind, practically impervious to the oxidative damage that’s responsible for most heart disease. As for eggs? In the vast majority of people, dietary cholesterol from eggs does not increase blood cholesterol. It even improves cholesterol in some folks, increasing “good cholesterol” more than “bad cholesterol.””
““Good cholesterol”? There is such a thing? I thought all cholesterol was bad.”
“The old model of the arteries getting clogged up with cholesterol like what happens to your pipes when you dump fat down the drain is wrong. Cholesterol isn’t a monolithic entity. HDL is “good” and LDL is “bad,” but even that’s too simplistic. It’s not bad. It’s necessary for optimal health! We make important hormones out of cholesterol, and our body uses HDL and LDL particles to deliver nutrients.”
“Okay, so even if fat and cholesterol aren’t necessarily bad for you, that doesn’t mean you should actively seek it out. I bet YOU don’t eat this sort of diet. How else would you be so lean?”
“Actually, I’m what the fitness geeks would call ‘fat-adapted.’ Thanks to my high-fat diet, I have the metabolic flexibility to tap into my stored body fat whenever I need to. See, we store body fat because it’s a fantastic energy source. It burns clean and we can store upwards of tens of thousands of calories worth. I’m reasonably lean with fairly low body fat and I still have over 50,000 calories worth on my body. Meanwhile, I can only store about 500 grams of sugar in the form of liver and muscle glycogen. It serves its purpose to be sure, but you can’t rely on glycogen indefinitely without constant refills. That’s where your need to snack comes from. It also explains why your energy levels dip an hour or two after eating.
“Why do I need so much protein? I mean, I’m no bodybuilder, my doctor said too much protein is bad for my kidneys, and my vegetarian buddies say it’ll destroy my bones.”
“Well, you had mentioned never feeling quite full. I suspect that’s because you’re not eating enough protein. Protein (especially with fat) is the most satiating macronutrient. It fills you up, especially when you eat it in the morning. As for the kidney thing, that’s been disproven. People with existing kidney issues might need to watch their protein intake, but kidney impairments aren’t caused by how much protein you eat; they’re most intimately linked to diabetes and hypertension, both of which an adequate protein intake ironically improves. The bone health claim is really silly, as protein actually works synergistically with calcium to improve bone metabolism and calcium retention.”
One by one I knocked down her misconceptions and limiting beliefs.
“Look, I’m not saying this is going to work,” I said. “I’m just saying it’s worth a shot. You’ve admitted that you’ve tried everything else, but you haven’t tried this. You haven’t tried eating a lot nutritiously dense, fat-filled, protein-heavy foods before. Perhaps part of your sugar dependency has to do with the fact that you’re simply not giving your body what it needs.”
Then, I gave her an out.
“In addition to eating as we have the past week, I’m not saying you can’t have candy. You just can’t have it around. If you really want it then by all means go and drive and get it. And for all those moments that you don’t feel like driving, make sure you have these on hand.” I handed her a Quest bar. “It tastes like candy, only it’s not as bad for you. Have unlimited amounts of these if you want.”
See what we did there? We disrupted her current routine at a micro level by replacing candy with something similar: a Quest bar. This satisfies the craving for ‘sweet’ with a very similar but new routine: eating a Quest bar. What’s important, the Quest bar is packed with protein, which will actually help her feel full, instead of sugar and fat which, combined, lead you to wanting more.
We’ve now disrupted Wendy’s routine at a Macro (whole new diet + working with me 1:1) and Micro level (Quest bars for in the moment cravings).
I kid you not, within 9 weeks Wendy had only 2 slip-ups, and both were extreme situations. We’ve been working together for 24 weeks now and she’s still candy-free. She no longer misses it, she says. It no longer occupies any significance to her. She’s over it. She’s broken up with candy.
How powerful is that?
And it’s entirely real. And it’s entirely possible.

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