Junk food Withdrawal

Is junk food addictive? Is there something in high-fructose corn syrup that has us addicted?
I do believe there must be.

I’ll be the first to admit that I have a series caffeine addiction. I have trouble functioning without it most days. Even though I have given it up for months at a time in the past and each time I felt 10 times better than I do now, once I recovered from withdrawal.

But what about sugar and processed food? Why is it that I never crave sugar or even mac n’ cheese until I can’t have it? Of course with mac n’ cheese all I have to do is smell it and I’m going to want it for dinner every night for a week. Let’s just say that I suck at the whole moderation thing. I keep telling myself that in order to do anything about my physical size and shape, I have got to get moving.

Then a week of bad headaches and constant cravings and I give in on Sunday night because I’m bored and frustrated while sitting on my sofa with a book. I read a book a few months ago called the Body Ecology Diet which was very interesting and talked about dieting for health not weight loss. The big focus in the book was breaking the connection with sugar and yeast in our bodies. The book recommended probiotics and complete cessation of sugar in order to kill the yeast that is overtaking our internal processes and slowing down everything from metabolism to our immune systems.

There is no proof that sugar is addictive but plenty of people crave sugar as soon as they get a taste. Many others suffer headaches and body aches in the first few days of dieting, usually as a result of giving up the sugar and processed foods (that are often full of some form of sugar).

Is going cold turkey with your sugar habit the reason you give up your diet?
It has been mine.

In the 1990s “the average American eats the equivalent of 20 teaspoons of sugar a day” according to the FDA article “Sugar Substitutes: Americans Opt for Sweetness and Lite”. A decade later and we are consuming even more sugar since corn syrup is found in everything from brownies to chili.

With the preponderance of sugar in foods that aren’t sweet, can we really give up the sugar habit for good?