From skwigg's journal:
I was thinking about sugar addiction and eating sweets daily. Does that spell doom for weight loss? For abs? For health?
When I bought that KitchenAid mixer for my birthday a few years ago I was quietly terrified. I thought it would go one of two ways. I'd use it once or twice and never touch it again so I could stay lean, thereby wasting $300. Or, I would use it frequently, making it a good investment, but I'd gain lots of weight and have to learn to accept that.
See how those stressful either/or thoughts are complete boohockey?
What actually happened is that I used it frequently, making it a good investment, and I got even leaner.
WHAT?!
I suspect that I eat less sugar now than when I was actively avoiding sugar. Oh, the irony! I don't crave or overeat sweets anymore. I like them, but they're no big deal. They're no longer alluring or dangerous. No worries that I'm going to lose all control. Pre-KitchenAid, when I would take the lid off a pint of ice cream, I would eat the whole thing in one shot, OR I would use quite a bit of willpower to stop at half a pint. Now, it takes 4-6 weeks for me to finish one, and that's eating as much as I want whenever I want. I don't fixate on it like I used to. I have so many other options for dessert now, and that's been a GOOD thing! If you can have any dessert with any meal, it gets boring honestly. Plenty of the time, I don't want dessert at all, or I'm happy with two bites of something.
So that's been my experience with sugar addiction. LOL Going all in worked far better than my attempts to limit or regulate it. The act of trying to control consumption is what was driving my tendency to overeat it, that and being underfed. No chronically hungry person is going to sane around a pan of brownies or a whole cake. Every fiber of your survival doowacky will drive you toward those high-calorie, high-reward foods. That doesn't mean you're broken, hopeless, or weak. It just means you're hungry. When you're consistently well fed it will feel completely different.
But doesn't being consistently well fed make you fat? NO! The exact opposite. It makes for a healthy metabolism, better sleep, improved mood, effective decisions, clear hunger and fullness signals, and that magical indifference around previously "dangerous" foods.