Why Diets Fail (Because You're Addicted to Sugar) by Nicole M. Avena Page A

different from other diets out there is that it treats certain types of foods like drugs. By understanding the basics of addiction (which were covered in Step 3), it will be much easier for you to recognize and cope with your behaviors, feelings, and thoughts involving food, as well as react in the appropriate way to satisfy your appetite, not your addiction. You will understand what it means to be actually hungry , as opposed to irritable from a drop in your blood sugar. You will recognize the temporary side effects of overcoming an addiction, like withdrawal, in the initial phases when eliminating certain sugar-rich foods, and not allow this temporary discomfort to detract from your overall goals. You will recognize the cravings that you have for sugar, chocolate, and other carbohydrates in the short term as nothing more than your addiction trying to control your behavior and reel you back into a lifestyle of eating for pleasure and not for need. You will learn to use food for its original purpose—energy—and to replace the pleasure or comfort that you used to derive from food with other things in your life. You will learn how to navigate food-related situations that could be triggers for you to overeat. Just as an alcoholic learns to avoid going to bars, you will learn how todeal with the foods, food cues, and situations that may contribute to your addiction.
    A second reason why the Sugar Freedom Plan works and differs from many of the other diets out there is that this is not a diet in the way that most people conceptualize diets. It’s not something you do each spring for three weeks in order to squeeze back into your bathing suit; it really is a new way of eating and living. Yes, it’s based on nutrition and science, but the impact on your life won’t be limited to just your food intake or your weight. Once you decide to make the necessary changes in your food choices and learn how to listen to your body and feed it the foods that it needs (not the foods that your addiction wants ), you will find that you can easily maintain this way of eating. And, when you see the results that it will have on your body weight and energy levels, you will be pleasantly surprised to see that not only will you be able to maintain this way of eating, but you will also enjoy it.
    HOW IT WORKS
    This plan is based on psychology and neurobiology. It is simple and straightforward. Step 3 explained how excess intake of certain foods can change both your brain and behaviors, much like what is seen with drug addiction. The goal of this chapter is to teach you how you can revise your approach to food and avoid common traps and pitfalls that can lead to and perpetuate addictive eating.
    The core principle of the Sugar Freedom Plan is that if you restrict your intake of foods that are high in sugar and carbohydrates that quickly break down into blood sugar, you can break your addiction to sugar. By committing to changing your eating habits for the long run, you really can lose weight, and the weight loss can last. As we mentioned in Step 2 , it can be time-consuming (and confusing) to determine how every food that you might wantto eat will work with this plan, so we have developed the Sugar Equivalency Table (see this page ) to help decipher which foods are okay to eat, and which are not, according to the amount of sugars, fiber, and total carbohydrates they contain.
    If all this talk of restricting and giving up is making you nervous, don’t fret! Many people start to worry that if they have to give up all of their favorite foods, there will be nothing left to eat. Here are two promises: First, you will not starve to death if you can’t have sugar-rich foods. Though it’s hard to imagine, our ancient ancestors—and even those ancestors as recent as your grandmother—survived without access to Dunkin’ Donuts or king-size candy bars). And second, there are plenty of other foods out that that are just as delicious and healthier that are