coffee,sugar,diet sugar

[blackrhino]

Hello paleo tribe!
Im really struggling with coming off of drinking coffee with diet sugar and sometimes SUGAR.With me being diabetic,i know its dangerous,but the temptation is unbareable!!I want to totally get rid of the demon and the deadly consequences.Does anyone have suggestions?

[eveheart]

Here are some cognitive reasons that help me completely avoid coffee, sugar, and diet sweeteners:

• Coffee and other so-called stimulant beverages exhaust the adrenal system. The "lift" that you feel is deceptive because it has an equally low backlash. I'm fooling myself if I think that coffee is really going to get me going.
  
  Coffee is addictive. After a while of drinking coffee, I become dependent on coffee. I don't want to be a slave to an addictive substance.
  
  Sugar is another substance that lifts me up and drops me later. Except for the sweet taste in my mouth for a second, there is nothing about sugar's effect that gives me pleasure. If I eat sugar mindfully, I do not truly enjoy it. It is deceptive.
  
  Artificial sweetener is the same deceptive taste as sugar: really too sweet to enjoy, if I think about it.
  
  Artificial sweetener produces the same biochemical reaction in the body as sugar. That is to say, artificial sweetener tells the body to release insulin. Insulin in my body tells my cells to store fat, therefore, artificial sweetener is as fattening as real sugar.

These reasons may or may not be scientifically proven. Simply, they are good enough to motivate me to shun coffee, sugar, and diet sweeteners.

[blackrhino]

Eve,
Your analyisis sound like its on the money!!Thank you soooo much!!I have many streese in my life right now that makes me gravitate to sugars,food,etc....So i feel like sometimes thats all i have.Im trying to change my way of thinking.

[Dorothy]

Ah - you are going to stand up against the demon are you?
Here are some weapons.
Licorice tea (as long as your blood pressure isn't too high). It is sweet but balanced the blood sugars and heals the adrenals.
Cinnamon - one of the best herbal healers for the adrenals.
Change over to teas first. They are less addictive.
Go slow. It's not a race. Coffee affects your body just like if you ate sugar. What the adrenal does is pump reserves of sugar from your body into your blood stream. Coffee is truly very bad for a diabetic. Good thing it's going - but it is powerful stuff that shouldn't necessarily be dumped all at once for someone in your boat. Every day drink less.
If you get a headache all you have to do is get your head lower than your heart and your legs. If you can stand on your head fab - but if not put your legs up on a pillow in bed and your laying off the edge. Coffee restricts the flow of blood to your break - squeezes in those blood vessels (I know - isn't that horrific when you think about it? I mean - stopping blood flow to the brain - who on earth needs that?) so when you give up coffee you can get nasty headaches - putting the head lower helps to get those vessels open easier and faster and stop the pain of that slow opening process.
Berries will give you a little sugar to replace the coffee adrenalin sugar making process and not usually stay as addicting - it can help in the short run. Just don't over-do it.
Every time you think about having coffee think about your brain vessels and adrenal glands shriveling and screaming "help me".
Tea, tea, tea - transition with tea. Much less caffeine and still gives you something hot to drink.
Drink lots of water. Coffee is a strong diuretic. You will be releasing and your kidneys and bladder will be reacting to taking away that drug. Dandelion tea can be replaced as a diuretic if you start to hold onto water. If you get constipated (coffee is also a laxative) you can replace that with some senna temporarily - or just eat a bit more fiberous foods - whatever works. Just remember - this is all temporary and giving up coffee is one of the very MOST important things you can do for your health. Personally - I think as a diabetic it's more important than raw or paleo. Coffee plays real havoc with the blood sugars.

Best of luck to you Rhino! You can do it!!!!

[goodsamaritan]

Took me a long time to even just completely eliminate coffee and finally stop experimenting.

Coffee just gives me hypoglycemia and it lingers for a few days.  Just 1 cup.

So I'm just fed up shit about coffee.

Maybe when you get fed up about it and realize how bad it poisons you, your mind will throw the off switch.

For socials I have taheebo tea and camomile tea right now in my office.

Bring some tea bags with you all the time in case you get into some social compromise.

[blackrhino]

thanks dor and good samaritan!

[cherimoya_kid]

I would transition slowly.  Don't shock your system.

[jessica]

maybe switch to lightly caffinated tea instead of coffee and stevia instead of artificial sweetners, then slowly to maybe sweet herbal tea with no sweetner..

i react the exact same way as GS to coffee....it smells so damn good but is the devil in disguise for me

roasted dandelion root tea is as close as it gets for me, its supposed to clear the body of uric acid too and is high in potassium and really pretty tastie

ps CEYLON cinnamon, the real stuff is supposed to be good for diabetics as it stabilizes blood sugar...cinnamon kind of turns to a clumpy booger in drinks tho:(
if you have edema or kidney/adrenal problems dont take licorice either

[Neone]

Has there ever been anything bad said about Stevia? I haven't found much but what I have found from using Stevia over about four years is that the amount that i would use at the beginning was just a tiny bit on the end of a teaspoon because we found it so strong. Now that we're used to it I can notice the amount slowly creeping up over the years of use.. Kinda like you build up a tolerance to it like you do to sugar and start needing more and more to 'taste' it.

[jessica]

stevia is something you can grow and grind yourself, its a perennial woody shrub, i have farmer friends who grow it and grind it, its pretty innocent i think, its got kind of a bitter sweetness but if you use a small amount it works well.

[Dorothy]

Oh - my stevia plant is VERY sweet. I take the leaves and cut them up real tiny bits to give my salads diversity of flavors. One leaf has LOTS 'O SWEET. Neone - I bet in a concentrated form like you are taking it, it could start to get someone into that cycle of wanting more and more. I'm not so sure that the full plant version would do that with me. I go out jonesing for berries in the yard, but don't do that same thing with the stevia.... but I hope you didn't just give me an idea.  

[alexx]

I should confess that i'm a coffee addict myself.   However, I'm an anti- artificial sweeteners. Aside from they have bad effects on your health, they were also made from chemicals. I'm using Natvia (natural sweetener not artificial). Replacing my sugar with natural sweetener (Natvia) has been effective a in my quest to weight loss. It tastes and feels like real sugar that I can’t even tell the difference.

[CitrusHigh]

Hey Alexx, not passing judgement on you at all, you're body, do what you will of course, but Natvia is an industrial food, a blend of stevia and a type of nectar. It is highly processed and that is never a good thing. You'd probably be far better off with SuCaNat (dehydrated cane juice) or honey as a sweetener, just don't use very much.

Since I started cutting back on sugar back in 07 I've found that I like my coffee now without any sweetener at all, or if I do put any in (very rare) it's a very very slight amount. Usually a gram or less of whatever it is. Same thing with all foods, you really need so little sugar for it to taste sweet, but not if your taste buds are used to sugar overload, exactly the same with salt.

Mmm, time for espresso just now! Have a happy morning everyone!

[Neone]

I have always used powdered whole leaves. I tried the 'sugar substitute' kind of stevia thats white, as well as the tinctured form but they are sort of weird, always just preferred the whole leaf kind.  I thought i would spice fish with stevia and cinnamon one day.... my wife was not impressed and my seasoning privilege was revoked.

[blackrhino]

Even tho your privileges were provoked,you can always redeem yourself and have them reinstated with another spice concoction! lol

[Rookkee]

I have truly the same reason. I am a diabetic but I can't stop eating sugar. I do it in a large amount. Anyway your suggestion, eveheart,  sound really interesting. Thanks for nice share.

[jessica]

take a month or two off work for sick leave and have someone help you get off sugar............seriously

[Dorothy]

I have always used powdered whole leaves. I tried the 'sugar substitute' kind of stevia thats white, as well as the tinctured form but they are sort of weird, always just preferred the whole leaf kind.  I thought i would spice fish with stevia and cinnamon one day.... my wife was not impressed and my seasoning privilege was revoked.

Put that same thing on fruit instead and you might be able to make it up to your wife.

[eveheart]

I have truly the same reason. I am a diabetic but I can't stop eating sugar. I do it in a large amount. Anyway your suggestion, eveheart,  sound really interesting. Thanks for nice share.

take a month or two off work for sick leave and have someone help you get off sugar............seriously

If you are Type II diabetes, the insulin-resistant type, you might look into a very-low-carb approach. You have to take your meds into account when you make changes, so work with someone who knows how to manage your meds.

I am insulin-resistant but not diabetic, what I think they call pre-diabetic. When I drastically cut carbs, I didn't experience anything that would have required a month or two off work - it was more like a week with low energy. Read a few books to find out what "insulin resistance" is and does - the basic concept is that there is insulin, but it is utilized to store carbs as fat instead of convert carbs to usable energy. The craving itself comes from the state of starvation when your carb-rich food is converted to body fat instead of being used as energy. That explains why you can eat and eat and eat carbs/sugar without feeling satisfied. In the absence of carbs, the metabolism with switch to fat-to-energy conversion in a matter of a week or two. At that point, you will be getting enough energy from fat and you won't have cravings for carbs.

With regards to sugar substitutes, that didn't work for me - it just kept my expectation high that I somehow needed to whack my taste buds with lots of sweetness all the time. Remember, the taste buds tell the body what digestive juices to secrete, so artificial sweetener tells the body "insulin!" and you are just as bad off as if you were eating real sugar. As far as I'm concerned, all this halfway stuff misses the point: if we were cavemen back in the day, we could eat raw honey when we got ahold of some... but if we have abused our metabolism for years with wrong eating, we can't just say "But, the cavemen ate this way" and get benefit from it. Bite the bullet and get yourself well.

[blackrhino]

Ive been doing research on an amino acid called dlpa and it helps with coffee addiction,as well as,carbs,sugar.Ive been taking this amino acid and im completely off of coffee and i dont crave sugar or carbs.Also,im more focused.

[Dorothy]

Ive been doing research on an amino acid called dlpa and it helps with coffee addiction,as well as,carbs,sugar.Ive been taking this amino acid and im completely off of coffee and i dont crave sugar or carbs.Also,im more focused.

Would you please share a couple of the best links you found during your research?

[eveheart]

Would you please share a couple of the best links you found during your research?

It's just DL-phenylalanine, the synthetic amino acid. It's a hormone precursor. Clean eating and exercise would have the same hormone-releasing effect without being synthetic. I'm saying this here because RPD offers a more natural way to balanced health and lets us get off the "designer" nutritional supplements.

[Dorothy]

Ah ok. If Rhino doesn't have a particular link that he thinks is the most informative then I'll google it to learn more. I'm not interested in taking it btw, just curious about things that work for people. It helped him as a diabetic get off caffeine and sweets which is pretty tough to do so it sounds like it could be useful to know about generally.

[blackrhino]

sorry dor i got silent once my findings got shot down lol

[Dorothy]

Oh - don't let that happen - please Blackrhino! People can get negative but it doesn't mean you shouldn't still share with someone that thinks your findings were very positive!

I'll do the research again and keep it to share with others that I know are diabetics but really struggling with sugar and caffeine so much that they can't even entertain raw paleo. Hard to be raw paleo when you can't stop yourself from eating cake!

How are you doing BR? Still fighting the good fight?