What a great cartoon about sugar addicts from Mike Adams, The Health Ranger.

 www.NaturalNews.com

I have helped hundreds of people get off, stay
off sugar and lose weight. I have raised two children in
the sugar free lifestyle. I can help you become “sugar
free”.

BUT

This opportunity is for one person and one person only.

I have decided to coach one person for my upcoming
product release and for possible inclusion in my upcoming
reality show on Sugar Addiction.

The number one requirement is that you can admit that you
are a sugar addict. That you are finally at rock bottom and
are willing to change your eating and your life.

Below are a few simple application questions for you to
answer. Please be honest. I will be able to tell once we start
and I will go on to the alternate if you are not seriously ready
to change. (The process will be gentle but firm – as you can see)

(All replies held in the strictest confidence)

Video responses are welcomed and encouraged.
Pictures are also welcomed.

Please be thorough in you application. Let me know that YOU are the
one who is READY to Quit and move on with your life. Let me see the
burning passion to succeed.

Please tell me how you honestly feel. Would
you rather I use the terms, sugar cravings, sugar
dependency or sugar habit instead?

I hate to get locked in a word game or a matter of
semantics but this is developing into a real issue.

It seems people just hate the word addiction when
it is used to describe their sugar dependency.

I read a story last night about a doctor who owns
five weight loss and carb dependency clinics in
Northern California. In it they describe the word
game they need to play with the their patients.

Apparently, they have found, over years of trials
and error that when they use the term sugar addiction
they get an instant recoil and a not so enthusiastic
patient. But when they use the term sugar dependency
like “you just have a sugar dependency that blocks
your emotions and you self medicate” they get
responses like “yes. that’s right I do!”

I guess with that many patients, and that many
opportunities to help, they must know what works.
I would like to know your thoughts on this.

The story came from a book by Connie Bennett
called Sugar Shock. I count Connie as one of
the premier researchers and educators in the world
on this topic.

This issue is a thorny one. I’m sure the term addiction
conjures up thoughts of skid row bums, needles in
your arm or snorting lines of a mirror. Not to mention
a destroyed life.

You have a job, a life and a family. No really bad things
have happened as a result of your use of sugar — or have
they? Maybe you just can’t lose that extra weight. Maybe
diabetes runs in your family and you are getting a little
worried.

Here’s the question/test I always ask people: OK, so
you are this adult with this family, this job and this life.
You function fairly well in society. For the last X (you
fill in) number of years you have gotten up in the morning
and told yourself you were going to stop or limit your sugar
intake today.

Then, at the end of the day you tell yourself: Tomorrow I
will start and really do it this time.

I’m not sure that’s you, but if it is, I really don’t care what
you call it. If you want to change, we are here to help. As
I’ve said many times, most people want to quit sugar for
the benefit of the weight loss. But there are scores of other
awesome health benefits to living a sugar free life.

Feel free to leave a comment below on this crazy issue.

Please believe me when I tell you, the last thing
I ever saw my life evolving to was me being labeled
the “anti-sugar guy”, the “candy Nazi” and a kill joy
at family events because people think I’m judging
them for enjoying their sweets. I’m not by the way.

Also, I’d love to tell you I have some high and mighty
agenda like wanting to save the health care industry,
insurance companies and government programs
billions, which it would, .. but I don’t.

My concern and focus is on two groups of people
and two groups alone. The people that suffer from
this “monkey on their back” and the kids who were
never given a choice and share the same monkey.

I want to reach the people who are ready. The people
who have tried everything else and still eat sugar
compulsively and can’t seem to stop on their own.
In short I want to work with the people who are ready
to quit, and of course, in the process educate moms
and future parents.

“You need to quit before you “need” to quit.”

This where a bit of prevention and forethought come in.

When you’re 300 plus pounds, when your body is
ravaged with diabetes and other diseases caused
by sugar it’s just harder to quit. When the doctor
says” it’s your sugar habit or your life”. It’s not
impossible just harder. So what outcome do you
see if you continue on the path you’re currently on?
Addiction is a progressive illness. It gets worse with
time. More on that in future posts.

Please believe me when I say I want to help you in
anyway I can. But you need to take the first step.
You need to ask yourself: “Am I truly ready this time?”
Have you had enough pain? Are you at rock bottom
with your sugar addiction? If you are, then take the first step
today with just one simple gesture. Do it anonymously
if you must but just do it. Just leave a comment below
and say “Yes, I’m ready”. Then if want you can tell us
a little bit about why. Let it out, feel it, and remember it.

That’s the only step for today. The rest will present it’s
self. One caution and this will be good news. Success
in conquering sugar addiction is largly about learning to
be kinder and more gentle with yourself and not more
strict and disciplined.  How’s that for a switch to the
way you’ve been trying it all these years?

If you want to learn how to stop sugar successfully you
only need a few things. One: A willingness to do it, not
to try but to do. Yoda said “Do or do not…  there is no try”
Two: Some solid how to information and three a small
support group who understands where you are and where
you want to be.

Now leave that “Yes I’m ready” below and we’ll talk in the
next few days.

Caffeine is a drug. I’m not sure why some people, most people
actually, want to downplay that idea or concept. They want to
forget about, to not acknowledge it or some just don’t know and
never took the time to check it out.

I felt the need to interrupt our series on emotions and sugar
because I got lots of questions about my comment that you
should probably quit caffeine before you attempt a sugar detox.

In my upcoming book I will be describing the exact path to take,
which to quit first, second and third. Actually there are a lot more
things to quit than three but no worries – I make it easy.

The reason I mentioned quitting caffeine before you attempt your
sugar detox is because “when” you are successful, notice I didn’t
say “if”. When you are successful in eliminating or greatly reducing
sugar in your diet and you still have your caffeine habit you are going
to just drive your caffeine addiction deeper. I also believe, at least for
me personally, that caffeine maybe be more difficult to quit and you
will need your sugar addiction to help you quit.

Did you just read the HealthGuy say that I “would need my sugar
addiction to quit my caffeine addiction”? You read it correctly.
Quitting caffeine is hard. It’s used more in my mind as a performance
enhancer than what people think they are using it for which is as a
pick me up or energy booster.

For people who have journaled their caffeine use what they usually
find is that, after that morning fix to stave off the daily caffeine withdrawals,
people usually ingest just before meetings, before tests and to focus
intently on some task for longer periods of time.

By quitting caffeine first we can self medicate a little with sugar and
ease ourselves through the withdrawals. It isn’t a huge help but if you
have a few days off and can sleep a little more than usual it makes it
just a little easier.

The same issues I raise in our Sugar and Emotions series (click here to read)
are going to present themselves. Not only do we have the physical
effects of caffeine to deal with, like headaches etc, but we have to
deal with one more emotional analgesic. Just like sugar, caffeine
has been part of the cocktail of self medication we have been using
since almost birth.

Children are given chocolate (yes there is caffeine in chocolate) at a
very young age. I have even seen toddlers with colas, which I consider
child abuse BTW. So if you remember back to the sugar and emotions
post you’ll know that the same “weirdness” is going to happen to you
and you will need some support in dealing with a new, caffeine free way
to deal with the flood of emotions.

Please don’t mis-understand. I’m not saying this a long term strategy.

I akin it to medical intervention in a treatment center so the patient doesn’t
die from their withdrawals. As a drug at the low end of the speed spectrum
caffeine cause all kinds of mild paranoia, depression and anxiety WHILE
you’re using it. When you come off it these feelings intensify.

You have been pounding the hell out of your adrenals for years, sometimes
decades. They have nothing left to give. When you stop it will take time
for the feel good drugs your body naturally produces to come back. Your
glands need to rest and recuperate from the punishment you have given them
for years.

Give it time. You will feel 110% better very, very quickly after quitting caffeine.

You won’t wake up needing some drug to feel alive. You won’t need it to give
that speech or talk to that girl. You’ll be you again.

More on caffeine in the days and weeks to come. As you can see I try my best
not to be the one who gives all of the bad effects of caffeine and the other drugs I
write about. I found that there are plenty of books that outline the research and
details of just how bad the side effects of caffeine and the others are. That way
I can focus on positive change for you. If you’ve reached this blog I know you
don’t need convincing – you’re ready.

If you would like to read a great book on Caffeine and sugar addiction check out
Killer Colas by Nancy Appleton and GN Jacobs. Nancy is one of the premier
educators in the field.

Yesterday I gave you a brief introduction on the role emotions play in our
sugar detox. read it here if you missed it.

I was explaining that the real challenge was not the physical withdrawal from
sugar but the emotional changes that we need to be aware of if we are to be
successful.

The one part I neglected, probably because it is kinda hard to believe is this.
Again, like the revelation yesterday, this is key to your understanding of the
process you are undertaking:

Not only do you have to deal with the day to day emotions that come up, to
actually re-learn how to process them but you have to deal with a back log
of emotions that you never dealt with. You never did deal with them before you
just “stuffed them down” with sugar and flour and other stuff. Now
I know you’ve heard of the term “stuffing emotions” but what exactly does it
mean? I like the term “emotional analgesic”. We all, by the time we reach
adulthood, are using sugar, unknowing, unconsciously and habitually as an
analgesic to numb down or “take the edge off” difficult emotions.

It means that that the feelings you had about breaking up with your boyfriend in
the eight grade are partially still there if your method of handling that emotional
experience was massive amounts of sugar and flour. Now here’s where this
program gets weird and at some level unbelievable. AND if I hadn’t lived it myself
and helped 1000′s of others walk through it I’d call me crazy too. How is it
possible for an event that is ten, twenty or more years old going to effect me
today? To be honest I don’t know. But experience has proven to me in thousands
of cases that is exactly what is happening and has to happen for success.

When we stop using sugar we start getting a little weirded out. yes that’s a medical
term – weirded out. We have these massive sugar cravings for more of the stuff and
we feel like we really need the stuff just to get by. What’s worse is as we get a few
days clean it starts to get harder and harder. Like all drug habits the bigger the habit
the harder the withdrawals. So people who have used sugar as their drug of choice
for most of their life, and possibly have gained substantial weight because of it, are
going to have a tougher time than someone with a lesser habit. Mostly the same
rules of regular drug addiction and recovery apply. The bigger the habit has been the
more difficult the “emotional readjustment” is.

This understanding is really the missing link in all diet and weight loss programs.

When I interview folks with true, long term success in weight loss, and I ask about
this phenomena, they all have a story about their time of going through this. I also
hear something similar to: “Now that I am truly feeling my life – never want to go back”

This journey is well worth the effort. I hope you choose to take it and I hope I can be
a part of helping you do it. Tomorrow I give you the actual steps that will help you walk
through your sugar detox for good.

Till next time.

Be well,

Powers Collins

Many people write me about how to detox from sugar.

The very fact that they phrase it that way gives me
great hope. It means they are taking it seriously and
that they know they should reach out for help in the
process.

Support in this process is an important factor. Do NOT
expect most of the people close to you to understand
and please don’t waste time trying to convince them to
help or “do it with you”. Now it would be great if you have
a friend or spouse who voluntarily comes to the same
conclusion about the need for this. But save yourself some
time and just reach out to the available resources here and
around the net as opposed to trying to convince someone in
your immediate circle to join you.

This is not to say support is not needed or even, dare I say,
essential – it is. It’s just that convincing others is just excuse
making for you. Lead by example.

OK, on with the actual sugar detox.

I’m going to throw you a little curve ball here. Actually it’s kind
of a big curve ball. Most of you have probably read about the
actual physical detox and I will cover that too but I want to talk
today about the emotional changes that will happen and how
you can prepare for them

What happens to you emotionally when you try to stop eating
sugar is at the core of the eventual success you will have. It’s
actually at the core of most of what I teach about getting off
flour, sugar and caffeine. Speaking of caffeine you may want
stop using caffeine first before you start your sugar withdrawal.
I will cover more about the actual order in other posts.

So what do emotions have to do with sugar detox and withdrawal?
Everything! The reason the obesity rate is so high and people
have such little success in this endeavor is because of the
emotional toll it takes on them and the work necessary to actually
do it.

Since you were in your mothers womb you have been using sugar
to manage your emotions. Well your mother was at first. But then
she shifted the process to you by using sugar to control your
behavior. About 4 or 5 years old you unknowing and unconsciously
took over for her. By screaming at the top of your lungs for
sugar the cycle your mom had set in place was set for a lifetime.

Sugar, for all intents and purposes, is free to the sugar addict. It’s
not like other “hard” drugs (I hate that term). You can pretty much
go through life ingesting as much sugar as you need without causing
a major financial problem. Add that to fact that is 100% socially
acceptable and you have a recipe for disaster.

So, as a result. most everyone in the industrialized world grows up
using the drug sugar to manage their emotions but they do it in a way
that is, for 99% of the people doing it, 100% unconscious! The
ubiquity of the drug and it’s near 100% social acceptability has lead
us to all the problems we have with it today.

When you broke up with your boyfriend in the 8th grade you and your
girlfriends drown your sorrows in cookies, ice cream and soda. When
your boss yells at you and you find yourself and the candy machine,
even though you’ve sworn “today is the day I quit”.

So we arrive at a place as adults with a big sugar habit and real need
to find out how we REALLY handle life’s daily emotions. For a lot of us
weight gain, one of the by products of sugar abuse and addiction, doesn’t
even become an issue till our late twenties or early thirties. For some,
sadly, it’s much earlier.

Tomorrow: OK Powers I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt because I have
experienced a few things you mentioned. So how do I change all this and
how do I get through the emotional changes and the terrible, dreaded sugar
cravings? Bottom line: How do I quit letting sugar run my life and take it back?

Hey Gang,

I found this awesome shortened, interview
style video of Robert Lustig talking about
sugar and just what it’s doing to all of us.

So if you haven’t had time to watch the 90
minute version check this one out:

The Long Version for you serious folks:

Of all the topics, of all the emails and of
all the questions I’m asked:

“How do I stop sugar cravings?”

is the most asked question of them all.

There is a simple answer to the question
but I sure do get a lot of negative feedback
when I give it.

I told you I would go easy on the word addiction.

But please be honest with me and yourself.

Can you think of a better word? You’re a full
grown, responsible adult. Maybe even accomplished
in another part of your life. Successful in your career,
as a mother or father – any number of things.

But you wake up in the morning and swear you
won’t be eating sugar today and somehow you
are at the 7-11 buying your favorite sweet poison
“one last time” that same day.

No worries, I’ve been there.

The frequently asked question is: “How do I stop
sugar cravings?” and the answer is:   — drum roll
please –

“Don’t start”.

Is the simple answer. No I’m  not trying to be a wise
guy here. It really is the answer.

Wait, wait don’t click away, hear me out.

Eating sugar sets up cravings for more sugar.

It’s simple really, and proven in many a test by PhD’s
way smarter than me.

“Even if it’s been two days since I had sugar?” many
ask.

Even more so. Remember my post on managing your
emotions with sugar or other substances?  Read that post here.

After about the second or third day your body is in full
blown sugar detox and it really needs a “hit”.

Until we understand at a deep level that we need to
embrace the emotions that begin to surface when we quit
sugar we will always be drawn back to it’s power to put
them off for a few more hours.

That’s really all the sugar is doing. It acts as an “emotional
analgesic” to stop unwanted emotions from bothering you
for a few more hours. Then when that wears off you need to
re-ingest again until you pass out at night and the pattern
or cycle starts all over the next day.

Problem is most of have been doing this our entire life and
we have lots of “put off” emotions to deal with. Plus we have
to find new ways in which to actually deal with our emotions
of today too.

It’s not impossible.

Together we can get through this.

But the first thing we need to do is put down the sugar. Get
through the first weeks of abstinence without going crazy and
begin to understand exactly what our years of sugar addiction
did to us and how we can reverse and change that right now!

And losing a few pounds as a by product won’t hurt either.

Till next time.

Powers Collins
The HealthGuy

Did you ever wonder why you can easily quit
sugar and flour for a few days with ease and then
about the third or fourth day you start craving
sugar like never before, you start getting
depressed and overall you’re just freaking out
a little?

That phenomena could easily describe why we,
as a country and soon to be a planet, are still
consuming something that we all know makes
us fat and has a whole host of other negative
results and why almost no one can seem to stop.

It starts in the womb. Before you are born you
are being fed sugar. Why are there crack babies
but not sugar babies? Well actually there are.
Most all babies are born addicted to sugar.

Also, why is it that pregnancy is this free pass
to eat all the sugar products one cares to and
it’s cute to eat a banana split if it has a pickle
on it when you’re pregnant?

Sorry I digress. As you age sugar becomes
wrapped in all sorts of emotions management
that it was never supposed to do. You are given
a cookie just to shut you up. You are given a
cookie if you’re good, as a reward for some
task, and even for just finishing your dinner.

The point is that by the time we reach adulthood
we are unconsciously using sugar to manage our
own emotions and we don’t even know it. There
is no need to think about it because sugar, for
all intents and purposes, is not regulated by it’s
cost for most people. there always a supply that
they can have access to whether in food or sweets.
It’s totally, 100% socially accepted. So it appears
to be “just eating”, drinking a soda or having a
sweet.

Well without conscious awareness of your sugar
intake most of us will go blissfully on eating our 150
pounds plus a year. With that volume of sugar
passing through us daily (almost half a pound)
we are, in essence, damping down our emotions
– permanently.

In almost 100% of the cases of people with long
term success with weight loss and in stopping
their sugar addiction you will find stories of people
having to literally re-learn to manage the natural
emotions that flow through our body everyday.

It’s like learning to walk again.

The problem is, with the exception of treatment
centers and some 12 step programs, almost zero
“stop the sugar” or diet educators even mention
this. It’s all about some supplement, eating or
exercise regime.

So here we have tons, no pun intended, of people
who blissful begin diet programs of all kinds daily,
full of hope and optimism, and their leaders fail to
mention that they are on a collision course with
possibly one of the most significant emotional
events of their life.

If you’ve been through this, or know someone who
has, please leave a comment below. Help me get
this message out so more people can have success
with choosing the no sugar lifestyle, losing weight or
just getting healthier – emotionally and physically.

Much more on this soon.

Talk soon.

The HealthGuy