I don’t want to spend the willpower required to cut it out entirely, or to agonise every time about whether something is really worth it
If you cut it out entirely, you get used to it, and no longer need a lot of willpower after a while. Though it’s probably less realistic to cut out sugar entirely than to quit some drug entirely.
Your experience may vary but I’ve done 12-week weight loss cycles where I ate no sweets and I never lost my desire to eat sweets. I’m on week 6 of a 6-week weight loss cycle right now, I had pretty strong cravings on week 2–3 and they significantly subsided by week 4 but they’re still there.
I do still eat fruit, which may be enough to maintain my sugar cravings, but if your goal is to improve health then I think it’s a bad idea to cut out fruit. And anyway I don’t get cravings for fruit, I get cravings for artificially-sweetened foods.
I’ve heard at least one person report that they entirely lost their sugar cravings when they stopped eating sugar. So it works for some people it just doesn’t work for me.
Oh, that’s disappointing. I once got rid of my craving for sweet drinks just by completely quitting drinks with sugar and sweeteners for a while. Unfortunately I since had a relapse. It’s easy to get addicted again, especially when another drug is involved, as in energy drinks. The randomization (gamification?) approach may work better in some cases.
If you cut something out entirely, that’s hard at first, but basically free later, when you became unaddicted. Just reducing consumption to medium level probably doesn’t cause you to get unaddicted in this way, so this requires some degree of long-term willpower. I assume this is why alcoholics try to stay completely “dry”, not just reduce their consumption.
That’s sounds like an interesting trick. However:
If you cut it out entirely, you get used to it, and no longer need a lot of willpower after a while. Though it’s probably less realistic to cut out sugar entirely than to quit some drug entirely.
Your experience may vary but I’ve done 12-week weight loss cycles where I ate no sweets and I never lost my desire to eat sweets. I’m on week 6 of a 6-week weight loss cycle right now, I had pretty strong cravings on week 2–3 and they significantly subsided by week 4 but they’re still there.
I do still eat fruit, which may be enough to maintain my sugar cravings, but if your goal is to improve health then I think it’s a bad idea to cut out fruit. And anyway I don’t get cravings for fruit, I get cravings for artificially-sweetened foods.
I’ve heard at least one person report that they entirely lost their sugar cravings when they stopped eating sugar. So it works for some people it just doesn’t work for me.
Oh, that’s disappointing. I once got rid of my craving for sweet drinks just by completely quitting drinks with sugar and sweeteners for a while. Unfortunately I since had a relapse. It’s easy to get addicted again, especially when another drug is involved, as in energy drinks. The randomization (gamification?) approach may work better in some cases.
Sure. I don’t want to spend the medium term willpower required to cut it out entirely either
If you cut something out entirely, that’s hard at first, but basically free later, when you became unaddicted. Just reducing consumption to medium level probably doesn’t cause you to get unaddicted in this way, so this requires some degree of long-term willpower. I assume this is why alcoholics try to stay completely “dry”, not just reduce their consumption.