How do I put an end to my sugar addiction?

I have been a slave to sugar all of my life. I don’t just have a sugar tooth, my whole body craves it. This burden was placed on me as a child when anything from Mt. Dew to southern sweet tea was placed in my cup. Not to mention cavities before I even lost any of my baby teeth. I am addicted and I am ready to let it go. The problem is that I don’t know how. Many of you may laugh at this, but my daily attitude is controlled by sugar or lack thereof. I have been fortunate that my metabolism has passed much of it through without any weight gain. Now, as I get older, it’s starting to effect me. I am also looking into pescetarianism (vegetarian who eats fish) because meat is starting to become a problem as well. Both sugar and meat are beating me down by the end of the day. Does anyone out there have any tips for cutting sugar out of my life and/or becoming a pescetarian?

When you are on a diet, cravings are sure to strike. The three most common cravings are cravings for sugar, fat and salt.

Sugar is considered by many diet experts to be an addiction as dangerous as nicotine or even heroin. There is nothing that gives us a bigger lift than a shot of sugar. However sugar exhausts the pancreas, is often followed by a crash in blood sugar levels and can lead to diabetes and other serious disorders.

An addiction for sugar usually has its roots in issues to do with stress and emotions. Many individuals find sweet foods, and particularly chocolate to be extremely comforting. The only problem is that the root cause of the stress or emotional problem that is causing you to “turn to sugar” to solve your problems is not addressed then you will probably always be addicted to it.

If you crave sugar there are some foods that are not sweets and cakes that can help you circumvent the body’s addiction to it. For instance the Jerusalem artichoke is a vegetable that is thought to regulate the body’s blood sugar balance. Vegetables such as sweet potatoes and yams can help satisfy the craving for creamy or milky sweets. However if you do crave sugar the best thing to do is reach for a piece of fruit, which will definitely have fewer calories than a slab of cake.

Some people who crave ice cream or rich products actually have a calcium deficiency. The same thing goes for people who crave a great deal of cheese, which of course can add pounds to a body in no time. To make sure that your cravings for ice cream or cheese are not based on a calcium deficiency it is a great idea to take calcium supplements, eat plenty of broccoli or Swiss chard and drink low fat skim milk.

If you are craving fat, you probably have a bit of an oral fixation. The craving for fatty foods is quite primal and has more to do with a phenomenon called “mouth feel.” Foods that are warm and fatty take us back to the cavemen days when biting into freshly killed meat and drinking the blood was common.

Cravings for fatty foods are commonly found in emotionally insecure individuals who need to express their anger by biting into something warm and fatty in texture. Psychologists call this “eating your anger.”

If you are craving sodium then you may need to eat a more balanced diet that includes more vegetables. Vegetables are a natural form of salt. A good substitute for high sodium dishes is sushi as the seaweed that wraps the raw fish is filled with healthy amounts of sea salt.

Drinking too much coffee or alcohol can also cause cravings for sodium. This can cause a shortage of sodium in the blood.

Many cravings have no biological basis at all and are “all in the head.” The trick is to realize that a positive association with a food is not necessarily a reason to continually binge on it whenever you feel blue.

Recently the news has been talking about cinnamon and how it can help regulate blood sugar levels. Cinnamon capsules can be found in almost any store that carries supplements. Both Walmart and Costco have great prices on cinnamon capsules (about $3 for a small bottle and $8-10 for a very large bottle).

You should avoid any types of products that is made with sugar substitutes, as in diet sodas. There are two reasons for this.
First off your body get used to having a sweet taste constantly in your mouth so it feels as though this is a natural feeling for you. This makes you crave more and more sugar, since your body believes that sweetness is normal. And second, it has now been found that your body may be reacting to the sugar substitute as though it was real sugar. You insulin levels then rise, then fall quickly making you want to have another quick sugar fix.

Sugar is a hard addiction to stop but with a little planning, taking a good multi-vitamin/mineral supplement, trying the cinnamon capsules and avoiding sugar substitues you can kick the habbit!

Myspace Addicts

Despite the dangers that smoking can bring, there are still millions of Americans who enjoy lighting up sticks upon sticks of cigarettes. In fact, figures show that about 25.9 percent of men in the United States are smokers, while about 18.1 percent of women light a cigarette regularly. Probably, if people are just made more aware of the ill-effects of smoking, then many, especially the younger generations, would find it easier to ditch this very deadly vice.

If you are a smoker or knows someone who does, it might be a good idea to continue reading the article so that you would have a better grasp of why a person needs to stop smoking cigarettes and refrain from using other nicotine-filled products as soon as possible. Those who have been chain smokers for a long time can benefit a lot from quitting now.

Impotence And Fertility Difficulties

Men who have been smoking for a long time may experience impotence. Women smokers, on the other hand, may find it hard to become pregnant. However, smokers who quit this vice can reverse the effects of impotence and infertility. Thus, before you take drugs that will help with your erection, you might first want to ditch the cigarette and see how your virility under the sheets could comeback in no time at all. The same is true for women. After quitting smoking, you will see that your chance of getting pregnant is also increased.

Lung Diseases

If there is one obvious body organ that would be affected by nicotine inhalation, it is the lungs. Even smokers know that they are more prone to lung diseases such as asthma attacks, respiratory illnesses and even cancer. However, your risk of developing lung cancer will be reduced by 30 to 50 percent after a decade of saying no to cigarette smoking. You will also find that your risk of upper respiratory diseases and infections will also be greatly reduced immediately after saying no to smoking.

Cancers

Aside from lung cancer, you can also get other types of cancer if you keep on smoking.  The other areas of your body that may be susceptible to cancer include the mouth, voice box, intestines, kidneys, pancreas, throat, and esophagus.

Stroke And Heart Attack

If you think that one stick of cigarette a day would not affect your healthy, think again. According to experts, lighting one to four sticks a day can actually raise your risk of getting a coronary artery disease. Furthermore, smokers are twice more susceptible to die suddenly than those who stay out of smoking.

However, if you stop this vice immediately, your chance of having a stroke or heart attack is decreased. If you stop smoking before you reach 50, you are also reducing by 50% your risk of dying in the next decade and a half compared to those who continue to smoke.

Dental Problems

At first glance, you will know a person who is smoking by the color of his or her teeth, mouth, and gums. More often than not, the gums of people who smoke are very dark. Aside from periodontal diseases, people who love to light cigarettes are also more likely to lose their teeth compared to non-smokers.

You may not mind having cancer or any one of the diseases enumerated above, but surely you should be afraid of early death, especially if you have family and kids to support. By quitting smoking, no matter how long or short you have been into this vice, you are going to minimize your risk of developing major health problems as soon as you say no to nicotine-laden cigarettes.

After reading the adverse effects of tobacco use, you should contemplate on ditching the vice. To help you effectively quit smoking, you might need to remove all traces of nicotine and toxins inside your body. You can do this by undergoing a cleansing program. A product that can assist you in undergoing detoxification with ease is Colpurin. For more details, just click on to http://www.colpurin.com/.

About the Author:

Janet Martin is an avid health and fitness enthusiast and published author. Many of her insightful articles can be found at the premier online news magazine. http://www.thearticleinsiders.com.

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com – How Smoking Can Take Away Your Health and Life

How I quit smoking 25 years ago and never picked up again

trying to find a stop smoking class in fort worth texas but every thing i find is hypnosis!?

I am trying to find some kind of support group or class that helps to break habits, I don’t want pills or patches. Any suggestions?

I think support is vital, and hugely helpful. Try http://www.nicotine-anonymous.org/meetings.asp
They also have online meetings if there isn’t one near you.
Good luck.

Stop Smoking Hypnosis

I need to quit smoking.?

Okay, so I started smoking about a year and a half ago. I didn’t do it to look cool or whatnot, I just had stresses in my life that were destroying me mentally so one day I just said f*ck it and started bumming them off my friends. Next thing you know I’m buying my own and here we are a year and a half later. To be honest, my biggest problem, is that I don’t WANT to quit. I like smoking; i can’t really explain it. Now every time I say I’m going to quit some little stress comes up (like a fight with my parents or I do bad on a quiz; stupid stuff) I end up buying a pack. I NEED to stop because I know how bad it is for me. I don’t want to use patches or gum, and to do this I know it needs to just be mental toughness. Other than that, if anyone has any recommendations, I’m all ears.

with out patches or gum the nicotine (idk spelling) cravings are going to be really hard to quit, my suggestion is get down to smoking less and less, yeah it will take time and a lot of hard work to resist the cravings, but if you can get down to only smoking once a day
then try going one day two days then three whole days, if you can get over the first 3 you can compleatly stop, the hard parts going to be resisting the cravings so find something that you can do to get your mind off of ciggettes like listening to music fidgeting with things a long math problem (lol) but you pretting much just need to find something to help with the cravings and be willing to quit

Vaccine against cocaine addiction shows promise
Vaccine against cocaine addiction shows promise
Addiction Treatment: Non 12 Step, Non AA, Medical Model. Presented by The American Health Journal.