Have you ever felt like you're addicted to sugar? Like the moment you start eating, you quite literally CANNOT stop yourself?
Maybe you've heard the studies that compare sugar to addictive drugs, and you've concluded that since the problem is the food itself, the only solution is to abstain from sugar consumption altogether.
You've tried not bringing sweets into your home, replacing sugar in recipes with "healthier" alternatives, and creating rules around when it's "allowed" to eat sweets (for example: "I can only eat sweets on the weekends").
If you can relate, then there's a good chance you still feel like sugar has power over you. Like you can't trust yourself around it, because once you have one bite, it turns into a binge-fest.
Well, this episode is going to have you rethinking everything you thought you knew about sugar addiction.
During this conversation, my special guest, Leah Kern, an anti-diet dietitian and certified intuitive eating counselor, and I are debunk the myths and misconceptions that have been feeding this sugar-phobic culture.
This episode is not only going to help you understand WHY sugar seems to have such power over you (hint: it's not what you think), but it's only going to give you actionable steps you can take to build a healthier relationship with sugar, and food in general, so that you can:
By the end of our chat, you'll be equipped with a fresh perspective on sugar, and the tools to navigate your food journey in a more balanced way.
RESOURCES
Connect with Sabrina:
Have you ever felt like you're addicted to sugar? Like the moment you start eating, you quite literally CANNOT stop yourself?
Maybe you've heard the studies that compare sugar to addictive drugs, and you've concluded that since the problem is the food itself, the only solution is to abstain from sugar consumption altogether.
You've tried not bringing sweets into your home, replacing sugar in recipes with "healthier" alternatives, and creating rules around when it's "allowed" to eat sweets (for example: "I can only eat sweets on the weekends").
If you can relate, then there's a good chance you still feel like sugar has power over you. Like you can't trust yourself around it, because once you have one bite, it turns into a binge-fest.
Well, this episode is going to have you rethinking everything you thought you knew about sugar addiction.
During this conversation, my special guest, Leah Kern, an anti-diet dietitian and certified intuitive eating counselor, and I are debunk the myths and misconceptions that have been feeding this sugar-phobic culture.
This episode is not only going to help you understand WHY sugar seems to have such power over you (hint: it's not what you think), but it's only going to give you actionable steps you can take to build a healthier relationship with sugar, and food in general, so that you can:
By the end of our chat, you'll be equipped with a fresh perspective on sugar, and the tools to navigate your food journey in a more balanced way.
RESOURCES
Connect with Sabrina:
On today's episode, we are touching on one of the topics I get asked the most about by my listeners, and that is the topic of sugar addiction. Is it a real thing? What to do if you feel addicted to sugar and so much more? Let's get into it. Welcome to the Live Unrestricted podcast, a show where you'll learn how to heal your relationship with food and your body so that you can focus your time and energy on more important things, like your personal growth. I'm your host, sabrina Magna, food freedom coach, and my mission is to help make your life happier and healthier without stress, overwhelm or guilt about food. If you love the show, please do go out and share it, and if you're looking for support with your relationship with food, details about my programs are in the show notes. Thanks for spending time with me today. Now let's jump in.
Speaker 1:Today we are tackling probably one of the topics I get asked the most about, and that is sugar addiction, with a special guest, leah Kern. So Leah is an anti-diet dietitian and certified intuitive eating counselor who specializes in helping people heal their relationship with food and their body. Her approach to coaching is firmly evidence based, rooted in health at every size and intuitive eating frameworks. Leah is the host of her own podcast, shoulders Down, and her story of developing disordered eating and eventually it turning into orthorexia is so similar to mine and it was really cool to have her on and we took a deep dive into debunking the sugar addiction myth. And if you feel addicted to sugar, if you feel like the second that you start eating, you can't stop. You think about it all the time. When it's around, you have a hard time focusing on anything else. If you bring sweets or chocolate into the home, it is gone within a day, or just a few days. Then this episode is going to break down why you feel that way.
Speaker 1:So in this conversation we're going to talk about some of the symptoms of sugar addiction feeling. So what does it feel like to feel addicted to sugar? We're going to talk about the fundamental issues with asserting that sugar is addictive that you probably see in articles and on social media or white men with podcasts. We're going to debunk the common arguments made in support of sugar addiction. So you've probably heard the rat studies or the dopamine studies and we are going to talk about the nuance and the flaws in those research studies and then we're going to summarize and wrap things up into why you feel addicted to sugar and what are some of the steps that you can take to start building a healthier relationship with those foods.
Speaker 1:This was such a good conversation, so let's play that recording, all right? Well, welcome back to the show, and thank you so much, leah, for being with us to talk about a topic that we both get asked about constantly, which is sugar addiction. So, before we even get into the topic, can you start by telling us a little bit about you and how you came to do the work that you do now?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. I love hearing people's story. I think it's an important way to connect and know that you're so not alone. So I love sharing my story. So I grew up with a pretty normal relationship with food and body. I benefited from unearned and privilege, just like genetically. I really didn't have the added societal layer of having doctors shame me for my weight and my size or anything like that. So I was pretty sheltered from diet culture up until, I would say, high school, and diet culture sort of came into my world from many different angles, from social media, from watching what my peers were doing, from the internet in general, and I started to kind of innocently pursue wellness. And that innocent pursuit turned disordered pretty quickly.
Speaker 2:I read a book called what was called Eat to Live and this book really catapulted me into what I now understand is orthorexia, which is an unhealthy obsession with health. The book was about. It was written by some doctor and he pretty much tried to say nutrition is simple Just eat to live, just eat the foods that will support you best, your body. And that should be it. And there are so many issues with the book. But in short, it totally diluted nutrition to just being about optimization and completely ignored the other reasons why someone would eat, like pleasure or connection or tradition or anything like that, and it really made me feel shame that I wasn't just craving all the most nutrient rich foods. And what started happening was I was kind of starting to get more and more restrictive, becoming more and more focused on having clean or whole foods, and it became very performative where I would do that in front of other people and bring like a tofu salad with berries for lunch, but then behind closed doors I was struggling more and more with binging on foods that weren't deemed clean or sort of part of the plan that I learned from this book and that created a lot of shame of like I'm putting out that I'm this healthy, clean person, yet behind closed doors I'm not able to keep up that persona and pretty much the deeper I got into restriction, which at the time I don't think I would have called it restriction because I wasn't restricting, I was just being healthy and that's what my family members would have said and that's what society says. But of course the sort of subtext of eating clean or being healthy is there are good foods and there are bad foods and naturally you are restricting the foods that you perceive as bad. So restriction is certainly still happening. It's just kind of branded differently. So the more deeply I got into this like clean eating regimen and restriction, the more that the binges were happening. The more intense they were getting, the more often they were, and you know, as an intuitive eating dietitian, I now know that that's what happens. Restriction leads to binging.
Speaker 2:But pretty much it all culminated in me deciding that I wanted to go to college to become a dietitian, and it was from a very disordered place, this place of like. Let me learn how to be a perfect eater, and in my head at the time, a dietitian was the most perfect specimen of an eater. And so that's what I went to study. And in my first year of college to become a dietitian, I learned about intuitive eating, realized in learning about intuitive eating that I was struggling with disorder eating, which was completely news to me, because everyone around me was not only normalizing what I was doing but praising it, praising my discipline and praising you know how healthy I was.
Speaker 2:But of course I really didn't feel healthy. I felt out of control and obsessive. So learning about intuitive eating reading the book was so validating for me, changed everything for me, and then I was lucky enough that in my undergrad education I learned more about the weight, inclusive approach and intuitive eating. Then, once I became a dietitian, I knew that I wanted to teach people about intuitive eating and help people heal their relationships with food and body, because it was so powerful for me. It changed my entire life. It wasn't even just about food and body. It was about freeing up mental real estate so that I could have the bandwidth to focus on the things in life and the people in life who I love. It was just totally deeply spiritual experience and transformative experience. So, yeah, I started my practice and here we are.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I say that yeah it's really the exact work I feel I was put on Earth to do and I feel so grateful that it's the exact work I get to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I really see myself in your story and I relate to it so much. We have such a similar background in what you were saying, like what started off as I wasn't restricting, I was just eating healthy, Like I was doing it all in the name of health, and my family would say the same and a lot of people. I looked back on pictures of how I looked back then and I was definitely under my set point weight. But at the time I thought this is healthy, Like the smallest I can get myself, the healthier I can be. And people will ask me did your family never think anything of that? That you were just losing weight and for me, I was really good at talking about how it was all in the name of health. I was really good at putting up a front and hiding some of those behaviors that you're doing behind closed doors. So I think that's what makes a disordered eating, especially orthorexia, really difficult is that you get good at putting up a front for other people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and for me it's like it doesn't even feel like I was intentionally trying to hide the binging and stuff, like it was happening late at night and most of my family members were sleeping and maybe I would try to hide wrappers, but I don't know. It doesn't feel like I was trying to put up a front. But I guess when you put it like that, that is kind of what was happening. It was like I was performing this clean, eater, healthy crunchy girl, but then that's not what was actually happening behind closed doors. So it's interesting, I never really thought of it as putting up a front.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and you mentioned that this book that was Eat to Live.
Speaker 2:Is that what it was called? Yeah, I hesitate to even mention it, but the reason I say the title is because I think it really speaks to just like how diluted it was and it was just this guy being like it's as simple, just eat to live. But yes, it was called Eat to Live.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think the rhetoric of food as fuel can be really harmful, because a lot of people will say like I just want to see food as fuel, without recognizing that seeing food as emotional, as having a connection to it, is a really important aspect of having a healthy relationship with food. And when you start only seeing food as fuel, then you start demonizing anything that provides that other aspect, which is the emotional connection, the emotional satisfaction. And that kind of brings us into the topic of that unhealthy relationship with sugar. Because if we're talking about food as fuel, there is no way in heck that sugar gets ever put into that category. It always gets put into this like avoid at all cost, addictive category. So did you ever feel when you struggled with your relationship with food? Did you ever feel like, oh my god, I'm broken, I must be addicted to sugar? Once I start eating, I can't stop. Was that anything that you ever experienced? Because I know I did.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's interesting to think about. I've never really been asked that. I definitely remember thinking there are other people who seem like they can just take or leave the candy or the sweets. That's not me. Why do I have these friends that seem totally unbothered by the big snack draw at their parents' house, where when I go over to hang out at their house all I can think about is the big snack draw at their house?
Speaker 2:So I did have this awareness of there seems like there's something different about me in terms of how I relate to sugar. I don't think I ever had the language of I'm addicted, what's wrong with me? But I did have awareness of the friends who now I see, oh, it's because they had unconditional and unlimited access to those foods all the time that it didn't feel special and alluring and for me I had created this off-limits status for those foods, so they felt exciting and made me feel out of control. But yeah, I don't think I would say I had the thought of I think I'm addicted to sugar. I did definitely think it seems like other people have a relationship with sugar where they just don't seem as interested, and I noted that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I remember I used to go to my friend's place and they would have these big advent calendars or these big stores of sugar or chocolate and I would think, how long have you had that in your home?
Speaker 1:And they'd be months. I don't really want it and I would be shocked at that. Like the idea of people being able to keep that in their house for that long was really shocking to me. So, for anyone who is listening to this, who does feel that they are addicted to sugar and they've gotten the messages of the doctors and the therapists right, like we have people who are put on a pedestal, who are going on social media, who have podcasts, white men with podcasts, and they are, they're talking and they're talking about all these studies and there's all this fear mongering around sugar. So, for the people who really have that, that convincing that I am addicted to sugar, can we start by talking about what it feels like? Like what are the symptoms of someone who may feel addicted to sugar? What are some of the mindsets, some of the behaviors that someone can be like? Yes, this is me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so. First of all, if you're listening to this and you're like, oh my God, I really, really feel like I'm addicted to sugar. You are so not alone, you are not crazy. You might be feeling like it's all I can think about, like Sabrina just said, that feeling of like you're wondering how other people could keep it around without binging on it. You might be feeling like when you have some, you can't just have some. It's either you finish the whole sleeve of Oreos or you don't have any. You can't have an amount that feels comfortable.
Speaker 2:Another sign of feeling addicted to sugar could be that you feel physically ill in your body every time you have it. Like you, you can't eat an amount that feels comfortable and it's always ending up in a position where you're feeling regretful and overflowing, overflowing, uncomfortable. It might be the case that it's kind of like on your mind, a lot Like you're trying to plot ways of how can I get to a convenience store and buy a candy bar, sneak this in. You might experience sneak eating, hiding, hiding food, eating in your car, away from other people Any of those behaviors because of the underlying feelings of shame that I shouldn't be having this much sugar?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that's a really good way to put it and for anyone who's listening right now, you might want to like re-listen to that and see if you can check those off and see if that really relates to you. And for those people who are really in that convinced mind that this all means I'm addicted to sugar because other foods I can have and I'm okay, what are the fundamental issues with asserting that sugar is addictive?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love this question so much. First of all, again, I don't want to invalidate. If you really feel addicted to sugar, that makes sense, but the reality is that sugar addiction is. It's not possible to be addicted to sugar. The first reason for that is because we cannot be addicted to something that we need to live. We need sugar to live. Our body ourselves run on glucose, which is essentially sugar. It's a very simple form of energy and we cannot be addicted to something that we need to live. You can be addicted to drugs or alcohol because we do not need those things to live. You cannot be addicted to sugar. You cannot be addicted to food because you needed to live. That's the basic answer, but there are more specific answers of what's going on here. If you hear me say that and you're like no, but I heard this study where they were really showing Oreos as addictive as cocaine I had a client send me that study once how do you explain that then? If you're saying that sugar can't be addictive, what's going on in those studies is oftentimes the study design looks something like they use animals, because they often use animals for research.
Speaker 2:There's typically two groups. One group has what they call ad libyum access to sugar, which means free access. There's a little pump with sugar water available to the lab mice and they can have it as much as they want, Whereas the other group they'll typically have intermittent access to sugar. The pump with the sugar water is available and then it's taken away. It's available and then it's taken away.
Speaker 2:In all of these studies where they're showing in quotes that sugar is addictive, their only extracting the data from the group that has the intermittent access. What happens is the group with the free ad libyum access naturally moderates themselves. They aren't seen having an amount of sugar that's excessive. They are not seen hyper-focused on it. They're able to go about in the cage and do whatever and leave the sugar water, Whereas the other group is showing addictive-like behaviors to the sugar water that can really be attributed to the intermittent access. This kernel of information from the research is being extracted and twisted in these trendy articles that are sugar is as addictive as cocaine. What they're not communicating is the sugar in and of itself is not addictive. It's only seen to cause addictive-like behaviors in the context of restriction or intermittent access.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's such an important piece. That's my problem when people are very, very study-focused is that oftentimes it lacks the nuance of what is causing the behaviors. When we look at the rats, who are getting consistent access to that sugar, who are able to go about life and not obsess over that source of sugar, why do you think that is? Why do you think and I'm sure that it's not just an opinion, but why is it that these rats are not fixated on the sugar, knowing that it's constantly available and they can come back to it whenever they want?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's science. It's not why I think it's why it is. This isn't just animal studies. This has been replicated and shown in several human studies as well, and I'll send you a great meta-analysis on the state of the research on sugar addiction that you can link in the show notes if people are wanting to get into the weeds of the research. Why that is is because intermittent access inhibits habituation.
Speaker 2:Unconditional and consistent access allows us to habituate. The word habituation really just means repeated exposure to the same stimulus makes that stimulus less stimulating over time. To turn that into digestible English when you have consistent access to something, your brain is like oh there it is, there's the sugar water, it's going to be there. Let's put this into an actual example. Maybe it's ice cream. Maybe you're like I can't buy ice cream because every time I have it I finish the whole pint. I feel out of control. Then what do you do if you buy it and you eat the whole pint and you feel out of control. You're like that was bad, I can't buy it again. What you're doing in that case is you're giving yourself intermittent access. You have it and then no, I was bad, I can't have it again. When you inevitably come into contact with ice cream again, your brain's going to be like we have to get it all now because she might take it away from us again. We don't know when we'll have our next chance.
Speaker 2:That mirrors intermittent access, which impedes habituation.
Speaker 2:Your brain doesn't have an opportunity to be like oh there it is, I could take it or leave it, because the ice cream is never around consistently enough and long enough for you to have that experience of it becoming less stimulating, Whereas if you were to buy multiple pints of ice cream and have them on hand consistently every single day for several days, you would eventually get to the point where you would be like there it is, I could take it or leave it and forget about it in my freezer.
Speaker 2:If you're listening to this and you're like no, I swear I'd never feel that way. I would always binge my face off. I would never get to the point where I could just forget about it. I hear you and I remember thinking that too, but it takes a little bit of a leap and some trust If you think about it. Okay, say you gave yourself unconditional permission to have ice cream. How long do you think it would take you of having ice cream multiple times a day, every single day, until you really, truly felt like you were craving something else.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and what I always explain to my clients as well is that rebuilding trust with a certain food, or with sugar in general, is the same as rebuilding trust in a relationship. It is going to take some time because, especially if you're used to giving yourself intermittent access to food in the form of dieting, then your brain needs to really recognize that this is true this time around. This food is going to be unconditionally permitted in my life. There isn't another restricting around the corner, because most people who listen to this are used to going through those periods of either I'm not eating it at all or I'm eating it all the time. They're really only seeing that second period of I'm eating it all the time as their experience with that food.
Speaker 1:As you start rebuilding a good relationship and a good trust with that food, it is going to take some time for your brain to be on board as well, because of your history, there's always been a starting again on Monday or on January 1st. The only way for that food to really feel like it's not getting taken away is for you to keep repeating that same process. Yes, at the beginning you may go through a honeymoon period and that is 100% normal because you're not habituated to that food. The same way is when you start dating someone and he says I love you for the first time and it feels special and feels exciting. Over time, the more you're exposed to that stimuli, it does not feel as exciting. Really, the same process needs to happen with sugar.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely yeah. I love the metaphor of the honeymoon phase and dating. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So what would you say? So we've talked about that, those rat studies, which is a very common study that gets brought up when we talk about sugar addiction. Now let's talk about a second argument that tends to get made, and that is the dopamine effect on your brain, right? So they study the brains of people who consume sugar and see that the the same part of your brain lights up as when you do take drugs or any other pleasure experiencing substances or stimuli. So what would you say to someone who has that concern of oh, but the dopamine hit every time I get sugar, mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:What's going on? Yeah, yeah. So two things. One yeah, the argument, pretty much they.
Speaker 2:The kind of wording goes something like the same brain regions light up when you know the animals given sugar compared to when they're given an addictive drug. So to the average consumer who isn't very literate in science, you would hear that or read that and go, oh my god, that means that sugar is just as addictive as cocaine or I keep saying cocaine because that's just an article that a client sent me but you know, just as addictive as any, any drug that they're using for the comparison. And that's not the case. What it means is like yeah, the, the sugar causes pleasure centers to light up in the brain and so does the drug. But just because both those things light up pleasure centers in the in the brain doesn't automatically mean that you're addicted to both those things. It just means that they're both causing pleasure. So the, the way I like to kind of illustrate this if you were listening to music and you studied someone who studied someone's brain and it was pleasurable music, then the pleasure centers in the brain would light up. But that doesn't mean that you're addicted to that song. It just means that it's bringing you pleasure. So I think this is a really a problem of the some like media outlets and some influencers and whoever kind of using sciencey sounding things, but when the average consumer is consuming that content, they aren't thinking critically about what that means or they don't have the tools to dig into it because they don't maybe don't have a science background.
Speaker 2:So that's the first part, and then the second part is when something has an off limit status, it really does give you more dopamine. So when we just on the topic of dopamine, when people are like, oh my God, the food just feels like it tastes so good because it's off limits, it's like this kind of phenomenon of something feels extra good because it's bad, like you're breaking a rule, you're doing something naughty. So in making and taking sugar down from that pedestal and you know, creating all foods equal in terms of like, not assigning moral value, or sugar is bad and and you know broccoli is good you are actually going to help regulate the dopamine response in your brain because it's not going to be have this off limit status of being something quote unquote bad and therefore you won't have that same feeling of like being flooded with dopamine when you have it. So, again, the, the heightened dopamine, comes down to the status that the sugar has in terms of your relationship with food. It's not because of something inherent in the sugar.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and, and a really good comparison is think of like, when you book a trip, the longer in advance you book it, the more you look forward to it, because you're really hyping it up in your head and you have some time to really think about it and all the things you're going to experience. I don't know if you've ever done this where you've, like, booked a trip last minute and, yes, you're excited but you don't really have the time to hype it up in your head because you're like, ok, I'm packing in and I'm going. And the same thing really happens with food. If we take an example of someone brings donuts at work and you tell yourself, well, this is off my diet, this is off my planet, can't do it. So you say no that one time, and then this happens again and you say no that second time. Every time that you say no, you're putting that food more and more up on that pedestal and you're creating more tension with that food, so much so that the more thoughts you have around that food, the more they're going to amplify and then take that food and then intensify until, yes, you've hyped it up so much that when you go and eat that food, it is going to explode. Your taste buds, your dopamine receptors are going to fire on all cylinders because you've created so much tension with that food.
Speaker 1:So that's a really good point and I wanted to kind of summarize the reasons why someone might feel addicted. So that is one of those things is, the more you say no to that food, the more you hype it up in your mind so that your pleasure receptors do fire off when you eventually have it. What are some of the other reasons that we've already brought up so far that someone could feel and the feeling of being addicted to food can feel really real, because sometimes you can even be sad and then have sugar and right away feel better. But when I talk to my clients I'm like, have you ever done that with music, where like you've been really sad and then you put your favorite song on and you already feel better? And they're like, yeah, I have. And it's like, would you ever say that you're addicted to music? And most people will say no. So we've said like the hyping it up in your mind. So what are some of the other reasons why someone would really feel like they're addicted to sugar?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean all the reasons can be summarized by you feel addicted to sugar because, either consciously or unconsciously, it holds this forbidden status in your brain.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all of the reasons can be summed up by that you the other reasons we spoke about, like in terms of the research are kind of how the media communicates that you might be addicted to sugar, which like the thing of like same brain regions lighting up. So it comes down to three things. It comes down to like the way the science is diluted and not communicated correctly, the way that they're leaving out the fact that the independent variable in these research studies is whether or not the animals get unlimited access to the sugar. The second piece here is that the same brain regions lighting up doesn't automatically mean that you're addicted to sugar. It just means that it's bringing you pleasure, just like the same brain regions light up when you're having sex or listening to music or dancing or hanging out with a loved one, any of those things. And then the third piece being, when something has an off-limit status, you get that flooded dopamine response.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so that's a really good summary. And for anyone who's like, okay, maybe I'm coming around to the fact that maybe it's not the food itself but my behaviors with that food, what do I do? Because I'm so scared that I'm gonna go to the grocery store and then I'm just gonna buy all of like sour candies and ice cream and chocolate and then I'm going to binge, most likely, and then that's just gonna reinforce my belief that I'm addicted to sugar. So for someone who might be coming around to the idea that maybe I'm not addicted to sugar, but I'm restricting it so much that I feel like it, what do I do now? Like, what do I do with that information? What are some steps, some actionable tips that I can follow to start creating a better relationship with sugar and feel less out of control with it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say it really depends on where you are on your food and body journey. If you are someone who is still restricting, to the point where you're not eating consistently throughout the day, then you're gonna wanna start there. You're gonna wanna start with honoring your hunger cues and nourishing your body consistently throughout the day. Because if we just jump to telling you do a habituation experiment, go to the grocery store and buy 10 boxes of Oreos to habituate to Oreos, but if we tell you to do that but you're not already working on other aspects of intuitive eating, like honoring your hunger, then you're gonna probably binge on those Oreos for a lot longer than you would if you were baseline nourished, because your body's really smart and it needs fuel and Oreos are very energy dense. So, depending where you're at in your story, you wanna make sure that you kind of have like foundational pieces of intuitive eating down. If you feel like you're in a place where you're honoring your body's cues more consistently but you still feel scared of certain sugary foods, then I would recommend choosing. Well, I would recommend making a list of the foods that you feel like you don't trust yourself around, you feel out of control around, and then first just brain dump a list and then I would go back in and kind of assign each item on the list a number this is what I do with my clients something like scale it one to 10, 10 being the most distressing, one being not distressing at all.
Speaker 2:How distrustful would it be to kind of think about having an abundance of that food in your home and some foods might feel scarier than others. Start with the food that's the least scary, because we wanna build that trust and build that momentum and I would recommend going to the store and buying whatever feels like an abundance of that food. So maybe in the past you'd only buy I don't know one package of sour candies, because you're like I cannot have more than one around. I would go crazy, I can't trust myself with more than one. We want to signal to your brain that there's an abundance, that if you finish this, look there's more. You don't have to feel like this scarcity and kind of get it all in now, before it's gone. So I would recommend asking yourself what's an amount that would feel abundant. Maybe it's three packages, maybe it's five we really wanna lean into and even exaggerating, even going above and beyond and then allowing yourself unconditional permission to have that food as much as you want, anytime you want, for as long as you want, and thinking of it as an experiment.
Speaker 2:How long does it take to get sick of it? When do you start craving something else? And I would do this one by one, with one food at a time. We call this systemic habituation, because if you try to habituate yourself to sour candies and cookies and ice cream all at the same time, that will slow. It's not that you can't do that, but it will slow down the habituation process, because the variety of different sweets creates novelty and that novelty slows down that stimulus becoming less stimulating process. So if you're going to habituate to sour candy, I would buy three bags or five bags or however many bags it is, of the exact same sour candy, not one bag of sour patch, one bag of sour gummy worms, because even that little bit of difference creates more novelty and could make it take longer to truly habituate.
Speaker 1:Yes, oh my God, I love that.
Speaker 1:And we do talk a lot about systemic habituation and in episode 63 of the podcast we talk about how to keep those trigger foods in your house without losing control.
Speaker 1:But you mentioned one thing which I've never really like talked about, which is buying an abundance of food, so much so that it almost feels ridiculous, because a lot of people have that all or nothing mentality of if it's in the house, then I have to eat it until it's out of the house.
Speaker 1:And when you have an abundance, that almost feels ridiculous. Well, the amount of food and the amount of effort that it's gonna take for you to get that out of the house is going to be so much that it's going to be that resistance towards finishing it. So I love that and I wanna double down on that. So if anyone's listening to episode 63, make sure that you buy it in ridiculous abundance to really reinforce to your brain that this is something that is going to be sticking around, something that is not taken away. And those are such good pieces of advice to make sure that you are not changing from a KitKat to an Oreo, to a coffee crisp, to an on hand. We like really sticking to the food, because even those small differences can make an impact in your habituation process.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and yeah, it's pretty amazing. I've had clients. I signed this habituation assignment and they're like oh my God, my favorite. The food went stale Like I've never had it go stale before. My favorite cereal, my favorite sugary cereal, is stale in the cabinet. That's never happened before because it's never been left around long enough to get stale, and I share that to say that this experiment is powerful. And I also wanna add like if hearing this absolutely scares you and you're like I just couldn't purchase an abundance of a food like that and have it in my house that might be a sign that you would benefit from working with a coach of some kind, because it can be scary and some people do need someone to walk with them on the journey.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the environment that you expose yourself to those foods in is really important as well. I know one of my clients was trying to habituate herself to peanut butter jelly sandwiches and the first time that she ever did it she did it in the presence of someone who triggers her anxiety with food and her body, and so of course it wasn't a peaceful experience and of course she lost control. And then that reinforces, because the belief is already there that I have no control around food and then that reinforces that belief. So, making sure that you're doing it in environment, that you feel safe, that you feel comfortable. If you need to be alone, be alone, be at a dinner table, be somewhere where you feel comfortable, not kind of like hiding out in your car, because the environment and the mindset that you're in is extremely important as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree that's great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, leah, thank you so much for coming on here and helping us debunk the myth around sugar addiction, and this is something that, if you're interested my listeners into deep diving, then make sure that when you do read the research or follow people who are talking about sugar addictive addiction, that you take a critical mind and maybe you dive a little bit deeper into the nuances of the research and for anyone who wants to follow you, connect with you I know that you have your own podcast as well. Social media share all of your links so that people can find you. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:So my podcast is called Shoulders Down and you can search it. It's available anywhere podcasts are found. There's an episode that I think Sabrina referenced, which is what's the deal with sugar addiction, and we dive a little bit more deep into some pieces that we maybe didn't cover today that are more like research heavy. So if that's your jam, you can check that out, and I also linked a bunch of research in the show notes of that episode. Maybe I can give you the link to the episode so people can find it. And then my newsletter. I do a lot of writing. That's a place you can connect with me my blog and my website, leocurnrdcom, and I do have Instagram, leocurnrd, but I'm kind of pairing back on social media, so the other places are better spots to find me and interact with me, though I do have a big archive of content on leocurn rd on social media.
Speaker 1:Amazing. So I will definitely leave all those links in the show notes so that people can connect with you. Thank you so much for coming on. Thank you to all of you for listening. If you know someone in your life who struggles with feeling addicted to sugar and they could gain a lot of value from this episode, send it to them, share it to your social media and tag me, because I'd love to see it. And do not hesitate to send me a DM on Instagram at Sabrina Magna Health, where we can connect. You can ask me some questions or you can share some breakthroughs from today's episode. Thank you so much for listening. If no one has reminded you today, you are worthy. You are deserving of love, of respect. You are loved and I'm so grateful for you. I'll see you next week for the next episode.