photo by libraryman1
Any form of addiction has symptoms. Often symptoms the sufferer isn’t totally aware of. When it comes to a sugar addiction, symptoms can be easily mistaken for general tiredness, dieting “issues,” seasonal affect disorder, or even depression.
By understanding sugar addiction symptoms you can not only look out for these symptoms in yourself, but in your loved ones too. With the proper treatment sugar addiction can be managed, and individuals will have fewer risks to their overall health.
If you are wondering if you or someone you love may be suffering from a full blown sugar addiction here are some symptoms to help you decide:
Obsessing about Sugar
One sugar addiction symptom is an obsession with food – especially sugary foods. Often individuals will be hardly able to go a day, or even a few hours, without consuming sugar. But even if they CAN go a day without sugar they find they are constantly thinking about it. Whether they are at work, school or even working out, the obsession of when they will get their next sugar fix begins to consume their thoughts.
Depression Eating
Even if an individual is not suffering from clinical depression, on days that they are stressed or slightly upset they may find that they automatically turn to sugary foods to try to cure their feelings. If you find that you are upset during the day and that you are craving foods high in sugar, you may be suffering from a sugar addiction.
Defensive Behavior
With most addictions, individuals do not want to have their addiction pointed out to them, let alone criticized. When eating sugar, even in small amounts, if others comment on your sugar consumption and you find yourself defensive, you may be suffering from sugar addiction symptoms as well.
Difficulty Being Abstinent
Individuals that are suffering from sugar addiction symptoms will often find that they are unable to refrain from their sugar eating behavior. Sometimes this can mean that someone cannot refrain from eating sugar for an entire day, while others cannot stop eating sugar for even an hour.
Needing to Eat When Bored
People that suffer from sugar addiction issues will often find that they are unable to sit in a boring situation without sugar in front of them. This can include while sitting in a classroom lecture, while driving, working in the office, or waiting for an appointment.
Multiple High Sugar Items Each Day
Often those with a sugar addiction will crave high-sugar items such as candy, chocolate or ice cream. Usually these items will be consumed several times throughout the day and often without the individual noticing it.
Lack of Energy
When a person consumers high amounts of sugar, their body begins to going into a vicious cycle of sugar highs and lows that affects insulin, energy, brain chemistry, and hormones. After eating sugar their body will typically begin to crash and they will become lethargic or even depressed.
Sugar Eating “Habit” Times
People may start innocently enough with a nighttime sugar snack only to find that as time goes on they are always craving sugar at the same time of the night. This can also apply to sugar fixes in the afternoon, morning or any time of the day where a person tends to eat sugar. These “fixes” are not just a habit but also a chemical reaction in the body.
Withdrawals From Sugar
Individuals that suffer from sugar addiction symptoms will most likely suffer from withdrawals when they try to take sugar away from their diet. This can include withdrawal symptoms such as headaches, fatigue, anger, crying bouts, depression, anxiety, mood swings, trembling, and even generalized body aches.
Where to Find Help
If you think you or someone you care for has a full blown sugar addiction I encourage you to seek the level of help you think is needed. For some that may mean a sort of in-patient treatment center for eating and sugar issues but for most of us that’s more help (and expense) then we really need.
Joining an in-person or online support group such as Overeaters’ Anonymous may be helpful to some. While for others just having a good friend to confide in may be enough.
I have worked with hundreds of people over the years who have come to me struggling with sugar – and for many of those clients the change that hypnosis made in their brains surrounding sugar was nothing less than what they would call a true miracle.
If you would like to give some hypnotic help a try my hypnosis audio “Losing Your Taste for Sugar” is a great place to start.
Have your own sugar addiction story of success to share? Feel free to drop me an email about it – maybe I’ll share your story on my blog 