Sugar Addicts’ Diet. Nicki Waterman
it from the blood or taking it to the muscles.
Imagine a roller coaster which starts off at a low level, climbing to a high peak before dropping down into a dip. It’s the same principle when you eat sugar. You start off with low amounts of sugar in the blood (the roller coaster dips), eat lots of sugar (the roller coaster rises), then insulin is produced to flush the excess sugar out, dropping sugar levels back down (the roller coaster dips again).
‘So what?’ you might think. Well, eating sugar – where the roller coaster peaks – and the rise in blood-sugar levels may make you feel high, happy and even euphoric. After all, that’s one of the reasons sugar is so attractive. But the point at which the roller coaster falls – the ‘sugar dip’ – can leave you feeling tired, ratty and even depressed. As well as increasing your risk of certain illnesses (see Chapter 4) and putting on weight, it’s this dip that can make you want to eat more sugar to get that roller coaster back on a high again. If you don’t break your sugar-eating habits, you’re essentially destined for life on a sugar roller coaster that you’re not allowed to get off. Life on this roller coaster is a crucial part of sugar addiction.
Which Foods Fuel the Roller Coaster?
Simple sugars are perfect fuel for this blood-sugar roller coaster, as are the ‘sneaky’ sugars – the refined carbohydrates. The extent to which specific carbohydrates (including ‘good’ unrefined complex carbohydrates) make the roller coaster rise – and the speed at which they do so – depends on something called the Glycaemic Index (GI). The GI is a way of measuring the effects of food on blood-sugar levels. Foods range from high GI down to low GI.
High GI foods break down quickly during digestion and raise blood-sugar levels rapidly and to high levels. Examples include white rice (not basmati) and white bread.
Mid GI foods break down moderately slowly. Examples include pasta and raisins.
Low GI foods break down slowly and release sugar gradually into the bloodstream for long-term energy. Examples include lentils, sweet potatoes, and fruits such as cherries and peaches.
In simple terms, if you want to stop the roller coaster – or at least stop it rising and falling so sharply – you should be trying to eat low GI foods rather than high GI ones. But don’t start panicking and trying to work out what the GI rating of foods is. The Sugar Addicts’ Diet incorporates these principles for you so foods we suggest you eat will tend to be low or medium GI, and those we advise cutting down on or removing altogether will tend to be high GI. We’ll be providing you with lists of these foods later on, as well as a meal planner and recipes.
Nicki’s Physical Addiction
‘When I had a bag of sweets in front of me, I’d have that physical “rush” you get when something really exciting is about to happen to you. And when I ate them, they never disappointed. I’d get an intense, overwhelming rush of energy, taking me to a real high. I’ve never taken drugs but I often wonder if it’s a similar feeling. The trouble was that I’d have to keep on eating the sweets to get that high feeling. In my world, there was no such thing as eating just one pink shrimp – I had to eat the lot. It was like being on a confectionery conveyor belt where the sweets kept coming and I kept eating. I never felt sick or reached “saturation point”, which really added to the problem. If I’d felt ill, I might have been inclined to stop! But of course I had to stop eventually, not because willpower kicked in but because the sweets ran out and there was nothing more to binge on. When I saw the bottom of the bag, I’d feel really sad and deflated. After my sugar “high” it was like payback time – I’d have low energy and would start feeling weary. Other people picked up on it, too. They’d say, “What’s the matter with you?”’
THE EMOTIONAL ADDICTION
As we’ve seen, a large part of sugar addiction is down to what sugar does when it gets into your body. Being on the sugar roller coaster means we feel terrible if we don’t have sugar because of the dip that inevitably follows our sugar hit. Not surprisingly, many of us reach for sugar to lift us out of that trough and get us on a high again. However, the part that sugar plays in making us feel certain emotions such as happiness or relief is also central to addiction. Perhaps you were given sweets as a child as a reward for being good, or maybe you raided the kitchen cupboard for biscuits after being told off. Whatever it is, it’s very likely you’ll have associations with sugar that go back to when you were younger.
What the Experts Say
‘It’s more Emotional than Physical’
Marie Reid, Professor of Nutritional Psychology at the University of Surrey, Roehampton, has written widely on sugar addiction. She says studies have failed to prove that sugary foods lead to physiological addiction, such as you can get with alcohol or drugs. Rather, it’s down to people making associations with certain feelings when they eat sugar. They may use it for comfort, for example, and if they’re denied it they can start feeling miserable.
Professor Reid says, ‘Research suggests that people are not addicted to sugar on a physical level but maybe on a psychological level. It comes from all the meaning we have around food – sugar is regarded as “forbidden” food. So if, from a very young age, there’s an association with that kind of food as a treat, something used as reward or punishment, they take that all the way through their life. A familiar pattern would be that good behaviour was congratulated with something like chocolate so chocolate is seen as a reward food. Or they may have been given it when something went wrong, like they hurt themselves. That then moves into comfort eating to cheer themselves up when sad or miserable, or a reward when they feel happy, or both.’
The food used for these purposes could just as easily have been something healthy like fruit. But Professor Reid says, ‘Sweet foods are often palatable, and humans have an innate preference for sweet foods – breast milk is sweet.’ She suggests that the ‘dependence-like addiction’ people so often have isn’t to sugar alone but rather to the combination of carbohydrates and fat – in other words, sugary, fatty foods such as cakes, chocolate and pastry. So as far as she’s concerned, there’s little evidence that an intense craving for sugar is down to anything physiological.
‘It’s Emotional AND physical’
According to some experts, sugar acts on brain chemicals as well as having an effect on blood-sugar levels. Certain chemicals in our brains – referred to as opiates – have been linked to feeling happy and are often dubbed ‘feel-good’ chemicals. The best known are the endorphins – the natural painkillers that give rise to the ‘runner’s high’ experienced by athletes.
In his book Breaking the Food Seduction, Dr Neal Barnard says that sugar causes the release of natural opiates, ‘cousins of morphine and heroin’ in terms of chemical structure. The result is, he says, ‘whatever physical or psychological troubles might have been bothering you are toned down a bit’. In other words, the opiate-releasing effect of sugar can make you feel like nothing else matters.
To complicate the situation, sugar and other foods rich in refined carbohydrates are also responsible for boosting levels of serotonin, another brain chemical which helps regulate mood and sleep. The release of serotonin that comes from eating sugar brings with it feelings of contentment and relaxation.
The trouble is that if you’re hooked on sugar, you need it to feel good. Low beta-endorphin levels can leave you with cravings and low self-esteem, while low serotonin levels can result in depression. Other experts say if you don’t have a sugar ‘fix’, you suffer withdrawal symptoms and can start to feel irritable. Most sugar addicts will respond to this by feeding the addiction, simply so they can feel ‘normal’ again. But the relief they get is only temporary, and this just locks them further into sugar addiction.
Professor Marie Reid counters that