Moving Your Sugar Battleground

Picking your battleground. For years, I fought the sugar battle in my kitchen and pantry especially after dinner. Like a hound dog with an exquisite nose, I found myself snooping for sugar in my refrigerator, kitchen and pantry in the evening. After years of fighting that battle at home, I moved the battleground to the grocery store. If I don’t have sugared drinks, cookies, ice cream, candy, pies or cake in my house, I can’t drink or eat it. So it really means, that I can’t buy it at the store anymore. If you don’t buy it, you are committing to a big positive choice about sugar.

No more looking. Most shopping trips I don’t venture by the sugar goods anymore. Even when I am “just looking”, my brain has already begun a persuasive conversation to buy something sweet and take it home. So as a first step, I avoid the internal argument by not stopping in front of the candy, cookies, ice cream and sweet bakery goods sections of the store. Because once it’s in my shopping cart, I find it is very difficult to resist. If the sugar items are at home, sooner or later I will “discover” it when looking for a snack.

Don’t start with me. Make your last stand the check out stand. As I wait to pay for my groceries, I find myself surrounded by brightly packaged candy bars on sale. Buy three and get one free. Candy bars are a high profit item that the grocers have intentionally put at check out for a “last call” impulsive buy. I have found the best strategy is to turn away from the candy bar view line. I flip through the flashy celebrity magazines as a distraction while waiting for check out.

Make it pretty. Once I unpack my groceries at home. I feature my fresh fruit in a pretty bowl on my kitchen island to promote healthy eating. When I crave sugar, my go to is whole fresh fruit.

A 10 day detox is not the solution. In my experience, eliminating sugar is not a 10 day detox experience regardless what some experts who are in it to sell books would have you believe. Anybody can make dramatic changes to their diet for just 10 days, but is it sustainable? Most sugar addictions are life long and willpower alone isn’t the solution. My clients enjoy processed sugar substitutes including small amounts of dark chocolate, and fruit as well as occasional desserts when eating out or celebrating a special day. It is not an all or nothing experience for most.

In coaching, we focus on small sustainable changes that last a lifetime. That means we move slowly from a diet high in processed foods with possible food sensitivities to a diet of clean whole food. Sustainable big changes like removing sugar out of your diet takes time. You can expect setbacks, roadblocks and detours. With coaching, we use work around strategies that are acceptable and relatively painless.