Читать книгу Sugar Addicts’ Diet - Nicki Waterman - Страница 8

If you simply love sugar, does it mean you have a sugar addiction? Doesn’t it just mean you really enjoy the sugar taste and experience? It’s when enjoyment turns to compulsion – a need – that we begin to get into the realms of addiction. An addiction is:

• an intense desire for a substance, a desire so severe it disrupts normal life

• very difficult to stop

• something that prompts a severe physiological (bodily) response upon stopping.

People who are addicted to something experience a loss of control over their behaviour. They use a substance repetitively and compulsively, despite knowing it might have undesirable consequences. Some experts say that, unlike cigarettes, alcohol and other drugs, there is still insufficient scientific proof that physical addiction to sugar truly exists.

But many people say that their own overwhelming desire to eat sugar is proof enough. Some studies have also suggested that addiction to sugar can be demonstrated. In 2002, a psychologist at Princeton University showed in experiments that rats not only eat sugar excessively, but they suffer from withdrawal when denied it and continue to crave it weeks later. However, as we’ll see in Chapter 2, other experts suggest our desire for sugar (or, as they suggest, sugary, fatty foods) is more emotional than physical.

Whatever it is, there are lots of you out there who can’t get through the day without thinking about sugar – and probably eating it in excess, too. We don’t claim to be able to sort out the emotional side of why you want to eat sugar. That may be based on years of learning and habit, and addressing it may require soul-searching and even professional help. However, by focusing on sugar ‘dealers’ in Chapter 12, we hope to help you see that there could be emotional trigger points to your desire for sugar. In combination with our 21-day plan, this will help you start to feel on a more even keel, physically and emotionally, when it comes to your desire to eat sugar.

Nicki’s Personal Addiction

My sugar addiction was with me all the time. Sugar was an obsession – the desire for it, how I was going to get it and how long it would be before I could taste it. I just wasn’t satisfied until I knew I could have that fix. Even a five-course meal wouldn’t satisfy the yearning for sugar. It’s as if there was a ‘good’ voice and a ‘bad’ voice inside my head. The good voice told me, ‘You shouldn’t be eating the sugar and should choose something else instead’. The bad voice said, ‘Go on – go for it! You know you want to…’ I felt out of control, as if sugar had cast a spell on me and I was powerless to do anything against it.