How to Break the Sugar Habit

Are you a sugar junkie? Could sugar be interfering with your success? How much sugar do you eat or drink each week?

The average US Citizen consumes an average of 101 pounds per year, almost 2 pounds of sugar each week! If you love sugar, you are eating at least this much. How is this possible?

Sugar is added to nearly all of your drinks and your food: sodas, fruit drinks, cereal, breads, canned food, frozen food, sauces, fast food, restaurant food, coffee drinks, and of course candy, cookies, etc. In fact, over 70% of everything in a grocery store includes extra sugar.

So What’s Wrong with Sugar?

The dangers of sugar are now described in thousands of new books, videos and articles. Just do a quick internet search and you see the overwhelming evidence that sugar causes diabetes, cancer, heart disease and obesity. Sugar addicts are often overweight and tired. They get sick, suffer and die too young.

Long before the damage caused by sugar was widely known, L. Ron Hubbard wrote the following in a 1972 article called “Pep.”

“Sugar is a deceptive thing.”

“Sugar, that is supposed ‘to produce energy’ does so only at the expense of physical health for sugar does not build up a body, it only burns it up.”

“The result of a heavy intake of sugar and carbohydrates* is to feel tired all the time — no pep.”

“If one is going to run a car, he has to feed it the right fuel and oil. If one is going to run a body it has to be fed the right food and that has to include protein.”

“By eating your hamburger and vegetables and leaving alone the candy bars and cokes, you will begin to build up a head of steam.” — L. Ron Hubbard (*carbohydrates or “carbs”: a food group that includes bread, potatoes, rice, corn and other starchy foods.)

Why Do Food Manufacturers Add Extra Sugar and Carbohydrates to Our Food?

Profit, of course!

Sugar is cheap. It creates an addiction. Sugar addicts won’t buy anything without plenty of sugar in it. Carbs are also inexpensive and just as addicting.

Like any addictive substance, sugar makes you crave more sugar. For example, a candy bar gives you a little extra energy for an hour or less. You feel pretty good! However, as soon as the sugar boost wears off, you feel tired and maybe a little depressed. So to feel perky again, you want another candy bar.

You use sugar to solve problems caused by sugar. The perfect profit-making substance.

Even though food companies know sugar is bad for our health, they keep looking for ways to add it. For example, they invent new names for extra sugar in the ingredients labels. These harmless-sounding names for sugar include corn syrup, evaporated cane juice, concentrated fruit juice and many others.

Food and sugar companies covertly make us think sugar is good. Examples:

It makes you feel good, such as “Have a Coke and a Smile.”
It gives you energy.
It’s part of exciting events, like sports games.
It helps you have fun with your friends.

Sugar has also become an essential part of holidays. For example, Christmas treats, Easter egg hunts, Valentine’s gifts, Halloween and, of course, birthday cakes.

Carbohydrates without added sugar can also be addicting. You crave a daily dose of things like potato chips, cheese puffs and popcorn.

Just like all other unhealthy industries, like the drug, alcohol and tobacco businesses, profit from sugar is more important than our health.

Ten Benefits of Breaking the Sugar/Carb Addiction

When you feed your body the right fuel, success is much easier. You earn and enjoy benefits that help you do better in life.

You have longer-lasting energy. You no longer have brief peaks of energy that require a constant flow of sugar to maintain.
You feel less hungry. Healthy foods smell and taste better. You burn off your fat and move closer to your ideal weight.
Your digestive system recovers. Sugar causes heartburn, gas and stomach pain because it kills the microorganisms (called the “gut biome”) that help you absorb food. Without sugar, you actually need less food because you digest it better.
Cutting out sugar often handles mood swings. You find more joy from healthy food and drinks.
Taking control of your diet is satisfying by itself. Your need to eat sugar goes away as you conquer this bad habit.
You live longer. You are less likely to get cancer, heart attacks and strokes if you live without sugar.
Your teeth are healthier. Sugar causes tooth decay and cavities especially if you do not brush and floss after you eat every time you eat or drink sugar.
If you already have a serious disease, like diabetes or cancer, going sugar-free can help you recover. Your doctor has probably told you this fact already.
Your skin looks younger and healthier. Cutting out sugar can help improve skin health and reduce blemishes and wrinkles.
Removing sugar from your diet improves your overall health. You need fewer medical drugs, your eyesight stops deteriorating, you avoid Alzheimer’s, you can beat arthritis and you are less likely to get sick.

If replacing sugar and carbs with healthy food was a pill, it would be the wonder drug of the century!

Speaking of “wonder drugs,” new weight-loss drugs, like Ozempic, can reduce your urge to eat sugar and carbs. However, they can also cause serious side effects. Even worse, if you stop taking the drug, the urge to eat sugar and carbs comes back, along with the weight. Who wants to inject themself with any drug . . . for life? You are much better off taking control of your diet.

Below are ten ways to stop eating sugar and carbs yourself. To start, use a combination of one physical and one mental method.

It’s time to buckle up and make it go right.

Five Physical Ways to Break the Sugar/Carb Habit

Your body is unique so just try any that look good to you.

1. Just Get it Over With

You might be able to use a cold-turkey approach and succeed. It’s not easy, but it is fast and effective.

Take a few days to completely quit; just get it over with. Make your body switch from using sugar and carbs as your body’s fuel to using fats and proteins as your fuel. This video by Dr. Eric Berg might help you.

You may suffer, but you won’t die.

2. Use Sugar Substitutes

Find or make foods and drinks that use healthy sugar replacements. The three best healthy sweeteners are:

Monk fruit
Stevia
Allulose

As a result, your food still tastes sweet, but you feel no temporary burst of energy.

Unhealthy sugar replacements, that you should avoid, include Splenda, Sorbital, Erythritol, Sweet ‘N Low, Xylitol, Saccharin and NutraSweet.

Unfortunately, honey and agave are just forms of sugar and do not solve the problem.

3. Prepare Your Own Sugar-free, Low-carb Food

Instead of eating food prepared by others (like fast foods and most canned and frozen foods in grocery stores) make your own food.

For example, find a way to prepare green vegetables that tastes delicious to you. Try any of the sugar-free recipes you like online and in cook books. Create your own combinations of fresh food and delicious seasonings.

Get a yogurt maker, ice cream maker or a juicer to prepare your own sugar-free snacks and drinks.

Make homemade soups with garlic, mushrooms and onions. Cook meat and fish with your own savory spices and sauces. Of course, enjoy giant salads without sugar-based salad dressings.

4. Improve Your Shopping Habits

If you are pressed for time, on a budget or simply can’t prepare your own food, create a healthy diet with inexpensive food from grocery stores that makes you happy without sugar and carbs. But read the labels.

Check for “Added Sugars” first. Anything with a gram or two of sugar does not solve the problem.

Calculate the net carbohydrates (Total Carbohydrates minus Dietary Fiber) and go for 5 or fewer grams per serving.

Next, read the ingredients. They are listed based on quantities starting with the highest amounts. You will see sugar is also called sucralose, high fructose corn syrup, maltose, dextrose, lactose, evaporated cane juice, brown rice syrup, concentrated fruit juice and others.

You can buy and enjoy all the nuts, humus, eggs, meat, cheese, beans, mushrooms, and vegetables you like.

Replace sugary drinks and satisfy your urges with healthy drinks, like Sport Tea, electrolyte powders and fruit teas.

Stick to lower-sugar fruit like blueberries, strawberries, peaches, blackberries and oranges. Avoid high-sugar fruit like raisons, prunes, watermelon, grapes, figs and bananas.

Replace “vegetable oil” (seed oil) with the good oils, like olive, coconut or avocado oil.

And of course, eat as many vegetables you like. They fill you up and give you long-term energy and health.

5. Spend Money Like Royalty

One reason that rich people live longer than poor people is they can spend as much money as they like on their health. You can too.

Use TipsForSuccess income advice to make so much money, you are happy to pay for healthy, expensive food! In the long run, the money you spend is tiny compared to the priceless benefits you get from not eating sugar.

For example, get the best meat and fish available. Snack on pistachios, macadamias, gourmet almonds, smoked fish and truffle cheeses. Eat all the avocados, fancy mushrooms and delicious olives you like.

Most things sold in health-food stores, and many foods sold in gourmet-food stores, can give you a new world of food enjoyment. Read the labels, of course.

Find delicious, but healthy foods on Amazon like ChocZero chocolates, LesserEvil Curls, Keto Crackers, 12 Tides Kelp Chips, Thai Kitchen Unsweetened Coconut Milk, Wilde Protein Chips, dried seaweed snacks and Miracle Noodles.

Live to age 96, like Queen Elizabeth II, and enjoy the healthiest, most-delicious food in the world!

Learn More

If you search the internet you can find dozens of other ways to stop eating sugar. For example:

YouTube videos, articles and books by Dr. Eric Burg
YouTube videos, articles and books by Dr. Steven Gundry
”The China Study” book by Colin Cambell
“Sugar Blues” book by William Dufty
“The Case Against Sugar” book by Gary Taubes

Five Mental Ways to Break the Sugar Habit

Because your mind has more power than your body’s urges, these five methods help you MORE than the physical methods. Combine one or more of these techniques with your favorite physical methods to get the final solution that works for you.

1. Use Your Imagination

Imagine having complete control of your sugar urges.
Imaging BEING the person who causes the win.
Imagine each solution to see which one appears to work best for you.
Imagine doing the steps of the method you like
Imagine steady progress to your complete success.

See “The Power of Your Imagination“

2. Take Control

First, let the urge be there. Accept it as something you cannot control.
Then start influencing it whenever you get a chance. Read “Control Circles” for details.
Finally, gradually take control of the bad habit. Each time you can stop the urge, change the urge or stop the urge, you are making progress. Read “Parts of Control.”

3. Focus on Present Time

Use any of the 20 tips in the “Present-Time Power Slideshow” to conquer your urges to consume sugar or carbs. For example:

Whenever you feel an urge for sugar or carbs, focus on the present moment.
Look around and enjoy what you see. Touch various objects. Notice the smells and sounds of the world around you.
Eat some healthy food. Notice how delicious it tastes. Enjoy the sweet or savory elements of the food.

4. Use the Problem Solving Steps in “Your Best Computer” to Create Your Own Action Plan

Write down your wording of the problem. For example, “I want to stop eating sugar, but I can’t.”
What do you want to know about that problem?
On a scale of 1-10, how important is a solution to this problem to you?
What would you have to do to solve the problem?
What was a similar problem you did not solve in the past?
What do you wish you had known about that problem?
On a scale of 1-10, how important is a solution to that earlier problem to you?
What would you have to do, or to know, to solve that past problem?
What similar problem might you have in the future?
What should you do now to solve this problem in the future?
On a scale of 1-10, how important will a solution to this problem be to you?
How will you handle this problem?

5. Turn it into a Game

List your purposes for upgrading your diet, like “Live to be healthy, happy and 90” or “Break my sugar addiction.”
List your freedoms, such as “I LOVE garlic cheese, garlic olives and garlic mushrooms.”
List your barriers, like “I’ve been drinking five cokes each day for years. I will literally die without my cokes.”
Cycle through these three lists and add additional items as you think of them.
Continue until you realize accomplishing your purpose is going to be a terrific game that you can win!

Read “Life is a Game.”

Seven Ways a Healthy Diet Helps You Succeed

Pride and confidence from taking control of your diet. If you can stop an addicting bad habit, you can control almost anything.
You generate more productive energy. You can work longer and harder than sugar/carb addicts.
Less brain fog, more intelligence.
Fewer lost days being sick.
Increased focus on tasks, less attention on food.
You look younger, healthier and more attractive.
You get comfort and joy from living, not from eating food.

Good luck!