David Gillespie - Hi, from Marie, Sunshine Coast Queensland

16 May 2016 2:28 AM

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Message # 4021846

Deleted user

So here I am Day 24 Sugar Free. First week was horrendous - particularly yawning, streaming eyes, Headaches +++, nausea every afternoon, diarrhoea, aches & pains all over my body, sinus-cold symptoms.Today is actually the best I have felt since I started this thing. I realise now that when I did a Sandra Cabot detox about 10 years ago and I had severe headaches I thought it was due to my coffee addiction because it went away when I had a cup of tea (due to the caffeine in the tea, I thought). Now I realise it was the sugar I put in my tea which eased the headaches, not the tea itself. AAaaarhh! I went through all of that and still went back on the sugar becuase I didn't know that was the problem! Anyway, have read the three books -White Poison, Big Fat Lies, and the Quit book. When I was goiing through the awful symptoms above (and am still not 100 % better) I had the bookmark in the page of the Quit book listing the withdrawal symptoms, just so I could reassure myself that this was normal. However David said that the desire for sweet things might be gone after three months (I hope I'm not misquoting you, David) so I guess that means only 66 days to go! I can also relate to the lady you quoted in your book about how "compact" she felt even though she hadn't lost many kilos on the scals.. Yes, compact's a good word for it. Weird, huh? But in a good way. Thanks David - Marie

17 May 2016 5:44 AM

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Reply # 4024351 on 4021846

Anonymous

Hi Marie - good on you! Sounds a lot like my experience when quitting smoking :-(

I often wonder about what motivates us to think about and do things which do not serve us. With smoking, and I guess with wrong-diet, that there are two drivers.One is habituation (aka self-trained attitudes based on upbringing and experience). And the other is self-esteem - we don't value ourselves enough to do what is best for us. The advertising industry enjoys helping us along this path. Over against that is Dr Robert Lustig's assertion in his book "Fat Chance" that it's NOT our fault. That fructose not only disables our appetite-control system but also affects our brain function to addict us to the pleasurable effects of fructose/tobacco/alcohol etc. Whatever, in my view, it is the lucky ones who come across someone or something which motivates them to make life-enhancing changes in their lifestyle. Sounds like you are among the lucky :-) Hang in there - it WILL get easier :-)

JohnN

18 May 2016 12:35 AM

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Reply # 4025891 on 4021846

Deleted user

Thank you John, I remember one really bad day when I was having all the above symptoms and I wrote in my diary "It will be worth it! It will be worth it!" Another trick I did was to mark the page where David's withdrawal symptoms were listed with a Big yellow post-it note so I could refer to it (sometimes on a twice daily basis) and say to myself "it's not just me, and I'm not sick, these symptoms are normal for a person who is overcoming Sugar addiction." Did you have much trouble giving up? Marie

19 May 2016 2:21 AM

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Reply # 4027771 on 4021846

Anonymous

Not much. I still used sweetener in coffee until a few weeks ago when I read that "Splenda" kills 50% of the good gut microbes! I have a slice of raisin toast when having coffee out occasionally, but I can't say that I crave sweet stuff. I monitor my weight and waistline once or more per week and make sure my BMI remains under 25. I let my head go a bit on holiday (David says "party food is for parties"). If I put on a kilo or so over a week or 10 days I just go carefully for a week or two afterwards until things return to normal.

JohnN