Jonathan Steedman (00:01.048)

Hey food groupies, let's talk about sugar addiction. Sugar addiction or I'm addicted to sugar, these are phrases and things I hear from a lot of people that I work with, a lot of people I interact with online. A lot of people definitely feel like this is one of the major things that they're struggling with and one of the biggest things, holding them back from achieving whatever it is they're trying to achieve. So I wanted to talk about it today, give you some information about it, and then give you some ideas and some tips to hopefully help.

Yeah, there you go. There's your summary. So the first point I want to make and please listen to the whole point is that sugar addiction is not a thing. It is not a real thing. It is not a diagnosable thing. That does not mean that your experience is untrue or that you these those thoughts and those cravings and those urges that you have are not real. That is not what I'm saying at all. But what I am saying is as an actual diagnosable criteria,

in the same way that you have the flu or you have anxiety or these things are, they have a set of criteria that must be ticked off before you can become diagnosed with it. And we don't actually have that criteria for sugar addiction, unlike alcohol addiction and drug addiction, because those addictions fit those criteria, whereas sugar addiction does not, right? Like I said, that doesn't mean that

you're not experiencing what you're experiencing or you're not feeling what you're feeling, it just means that we maybe need to be a little bit careful with what we call it. And that's why I wanted to start by saying it's not real. Again, not to take away your experience, but because I think if you think you are addicted to sugar, that's a very, very, very powerful message, right? And I think you lose a lot of power in that situation. If you feel like you were addicted to something, you're quite powerless, right? And so,

I wanna encourage you to stop using the phrase, I'm addicted to sugar or even sugar cravings, if that's a hard one to say, but like those sorts of phrases kind of imply an addiction. And like I said, that's a really strong and powerful situation to be in and one that gives you no power. The good news is you have some power. I'm gonna go through a couple of different things you can do to help, but that is the first big thing I want you to take away, right? And you hear people joke about,

Jonathan Steedman (02:24.993)

this, but it is it is good to remember, right? Like, is it truly sugar that you were addicted to? Do you go into the pantry and get the tablespoon like, you know, just spoonfuls of castor sugar? Do you empty sugar packets into your mouth? You know, or is it a Tim Tam? Is it chocolate? Is it donuts? Is it ice cream? Is it lollies? Right? Those things are not sugar. They contain a lot of sugar, but they're not sugar. And that's an important point that we'll come back to. And then I guess the next thing is like when we talk about, you know,

addicted to, you like selling belongings to gain more sugar? Like, is that all you can think about? And of course, like I said, those urges and those feelings can sometimes be super overwhelming. But I think sometimes looking at it through that lens can make us take a step back, remove maybe some of the emotion out of the picture and go, okay, obviously, I have a complicated relationship with these foods, not with sugar, but with these foods. But it's not an addiction. And there's some things that I can do to maybe push back on that and start to shift my relationship.

that food, right? So like I said, that's the kind of next important point I want you to remember. It's not sugar, right? Sugar, literally just table sugar by itself, like it's sweet, but not too many people are super interested in that. What we love is the combination of sugar and fat and particularly salt, right? Most of the what we call highly palatable processed foods are that combination of sugar, fat and salt.

To take a donut, for example, yes, it's high in sugar, but it's actually got more calories from fat than it does sugar. But no one goes around saying they're addicted to fat, right? We just keep blaming sugar. And part of the issue with that then becomes anything with sugar in it could potentially be bad, quote unquote bad. So not just a donut, not just chocolate, but fruit and potatoes and like whole grains, right? Because they're high in starch, which is a carbohydrate, it's kind of a sugar. And so that's the other reason we need to be careful with this language.

if we're afraid of sugar for whatever reason, that can very quickly spill over into us avoiding foods that are super healthy, right? So first and foremost, no, first and foremost was sure addiction isn't real. Hopefully you're with me on that. Secondly, don't just think of sugar like it's these highly palatable foods. And I think as well, you think of them, palatable just means tasty, by the way. If you are thinking like,

Jonathan Steedman (04:43.912)

I struggle to stop eating really tasty foods all of a sudden that sentence to me seems less silly. You're like, well, of course I do. Like they're really tasty. I maybe I'm not broken. Maybe there's nothing wrong with me. Maybe I'm just a human being with taste buds. Right. Because and I'll fight you on this, but a double coat Tim Tam is one of the best things that you can ever put in your mouth that went to any the best food that you can put in your mouth. It's delicious. Right. And I don't struggling to moderate your intake of double chocolate.

my goodness, double coated chocolate Tim Tams makes you a bad person or makes you addicted to sugar. It kind of just makes you a human being. Right. So first and foremost, not being able to moderate or even just like finding it difficult to moderate those foods doesn't mean anything's wrong with you. Very normal, very natural. think the next thing though is there are a number of things that you can do physically and a number of beliefs and ways that you approach food mentally that can significantly shift.

how easy it is to moderate your intake of those foods. So there are some physical structural things that we can do to make sure that you're in the best position to moderate those foods. The first and most common one is don't eat them when you're hungry. Tim Tams are always delicious, right? It doesn't matter how hungry or full you are, they're always delicious. But if you're starving, your resolve, your willpower is gonna be low. Literally your taste buds will be like dialed up. That's what the body does when you're hungry.

so they're gonna taste extra delicious, of course you're going to struggle to moderate them in that scenario, okay? There's nothing wrong with you. Again, you've just put yourself in that silly position, that weakened position of being hungry surrounded by really tasty foods. So first and foremost, the best way to do that is to make sure that you're eating regularly throughout the day. When you're eating a meal, you're eating a proper meal. It's big enough, it's balanced, it contains a good mix of protein foods, carbohydrate foods, good fibers from fruits and veggies, you maybe there's some healthy fats and...

So each of your meals looks like that. You're not really going more than three to four hours without eating. So you're making sure that you've got a good rhythm. A particular point in the day that I find a lot of people struggle with is afternoon tea. So you're making sure you're not trying to get from lunch to dinner without eating anything because that's a really long stretch of time when you're typically more fatigued in the day. So once again, you're putting yourself into that weakened position and then lo and behold, if you come into contact with some Tim Tams, you may overdo it. Again, you're not addicted, you're just human.

Jonathan Steedman (07:09.866)

and that's okay, right? So setting your day up like that, making sure you've got a good balance of meals and snacks and timing is one of the most important things you can do, right? And that doesn't just mean at dinner, I mean throughout the whole day, because you can have a big balanced dinner, but if you haven't eaten enough during the day, after dinner or around dinner, your body's still gonna call in what is owed to it, right? And it's gonna push you towards those foods. So that's kind of the physical thing.

making sure we're not eating them when we're hungry, making sure we're eating enough during the day. I have a few other tips like in an earlier podcast on the chocolate rules. So go have look at that one. But basically it's things like don't eat them from the packet, you you portion some out, put the packet away so you're not sitting there with a full packet of Tim Tams trying to only eat two like that. Again, you're a human being, don't put yourself in that position. That's not fair to ask yourself to do that.

They're kind of the high level practical things that you can do. Really the physical mindset things is largely to do with permission. If you do not have permission to eat those foods, and the only person that can give you that permission is yourself. If you do not have permission to eat those foods, when you do eat them, you're probably gonna overeat them. You're gonna feel like you have failed or you're doing something wrong. There's gonna be some shame and there's gonna be some guilt attached because again, you're.

doing something you don't have permission to do. And typically shame and guilt are feelings that will drive consumption because you will be looking for comfort. And those foods can be comforting. Whereas if you have permission to eat those foods, you don't fall into that trap, you don't fall into that loop. The next thing is around how often you're allowing yourself to have that. So giving yourself permission to have a Tim Tam every Friday is still not there.

Okay, because there's six days a week where you're still not allowed a Tim Tam. And then on that Friday, when you are allowed a Tim Tam, do you really think you're going to be able to stop at one? No, because you're not allowed another Tim Tam until next Friday. So you probably going to suffer from something called the Last Supper Effect. This is where we, well, you can probably figure it out. But essentially, another Jesus Last Supper, although sort of more the prison Last Supper. You feel like, don't know when I'm going to get this food again, or I'm not going to get this food for a long period of time. So I'm going to...

Jonathan Steedman (09:26.759)

stock up, I'm gonna finish the packet because I don't get any till next week. That is also going to make it really difficult for you to moderate how much of that food you have. So you need to give yourself permission to have it. You need to give yourself permission to have it reasonably regularly. And when you first do this, you may eat more of it and eat it more regularly than you are comfortable with. And that's okay. This is an adjustment phase. This could be an uncomfortable phase, but it's an important part of the process of shifting you towards being able to include these foods.

in a healthier and by healthier I just mean more than anything mentally healthier way in a way that doesn't trigger shame and guilt doesn't trigger this huge binge restrict mindset and instead allows you to occasionally semi-regularly whatever frequency is your frequency but you're able to semi-regularly enjoy these foods with peace get the joy out of them and then move on with your life okay that's what I want for you that's why

If you feel like you're someone who's struggling with sugar addiction or you're addicted to sugar, please know that, like I said, those feelings and those urges are true, but there is a separate explanation for them that is not addiction, which is good news because people can recover from addiction, of course, but it's a very difficult road. This road may still be difficult, but I don't think it will be quite as hard. And it's something that's far more within your power. So take some of those tips.

If there things you are not doing, please, please, please start doing them. And if this, if you try it for a few weeks and it's starting to work really well, or it's not working well at all, either way, if you try this for a few weeks, I wanna hear from you. So please shoot me a message or an email. I'll chat to you guys next time.