Do you feel like your sugar habit has a hold over you? Does it feel like a sugar detox challenge is the only answer? An in spite of your best intentions are you always left with the question “why do I crave sugar so much?”

Then this is the episode for you. Because we’ll be dismantling a couple of myths around “sugar addiction”, addressing the reasons that you can’t seem to help sneaking your kids leftover chocolate (even though it’s not that nice) and showing you how to build a healthier relationship with the sweet stuff, which isn’t about having to constantly control your sugar intake through restriction, guilt or control. 

What we’ll cover in this episode:

• Why you’re not addicted to sugar (and why the “sugar is as addictive as cocaine” headline is misleading).
• The hidden needs sugar is really satisfying (comfort, reward, relief from stress or boredom).
• Three key questions to ask yourself when cravings strike.
• Why restriction and detoxing never solve the root issue.
• How to start building trust with yourself instead of fighting with food.

🎧 If you’ve ever felt powerless around sugar, this episode will help you flip the script and create a relationship that feels calm, balanced, and free.

Want to break free from the cycle of sugar spirals, guilt, and all-or-nothing eating? Join me inside The Body You’ll Love Living In and get access to my Pattern Interrupt Kit (a launch bonus available right now). Head to lifeeditcoaching.com to find out more.

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If you have ever found yourself staring at an empty chocolate wrapper thinking, I just have no control around sugar, or you feel like having sweet things in the house constantly puts you seconds away from a sugar binge, or a sugar detox seems like the only answer to finally getting a grip on your sugar addiction, then this is the episode for you.

We're going to take a look at what's going on when you feel the urge to inhale those 17 biscuits.

We're going to dismantle some of the stories you're telling yourself right now about your sugar addiction.

And we're going to offer you, I hope, a new way to tackle those cravings that allows you to enjoy the sugar but not feel like you're being controlled by it all the time.

Welcome to the Busy Woman's Guide to Fitness and Wellness, where we celebrate you exactly as you are and help you to be the fit, strong, confident woman you deserve to be.

We tackle everything from diet, culture and body image through to how to let go of the hustle, the pressure and the overwhelm and find your balance and energy in a busy life.

I'm Alix, women's fitness and wellness expert, therapeutic coach, founder of Life Edit with Alxx and mum of two, and I'm here with your weekly dose of inspiration, helping you to rewrite the rules and live life on your own terms.

Hello. Welcome back to the podcast. Lovely to have you here, as always.

And today is one of my favorite topics, which is sugar, because not only has sugar been demonized time and again over the years, but it is also so damn delicious that sometimes we feel we have absolutely zero control over ourselves when we're confronted by it. We kind of know that we shouldn't be having too much of it, but we also find it very, very difficult to avoid.

And this is certainly something that I know very, very well myself. I for years said, I've just got a sweet tooth. I'm just addicted to sugar. I can't have it in the house, if it's around I'm just going to have the whole lot. And after a week of dieting, my treat on a Saturday night was a massive bag of Haribo.

I would literally inhale that thing because I'd been dieting all week and I was just wanting to mainline that sugar. So definitely I used to do that. I used to go through phases of doing detoxes, phases of getting rid of sugar.

And, you know, I bought into that story as well - the thing that they always used to say was, oh, if you give up sugar for a while, then your taste buds completely change.

You just don't want it anymore. Not my experience.

I detoxed a few times from it and yes, certain things ended up tasting sweeter than they did previously, but, I mean, put a sticky toffee pudding in front of me, I'm still going to eat that and it's not going to be a problem. I'm not going to be one of those people that goes, oh, it just felt so sweet that I only had two spoonfuls.

So I've definitely been there with all of that. Luckily come out of the other side of it now and created more of a relationship where I can enjoy it without the guilt, but I also don't feel beholden to it. I also don't feel addicted to it anymore. I don't feel that it has a hold over me. And, you know, for sure, I love sweet stuff. I just do.

I love sweet, sugary stuff like a lot of us do, but it's not controlling me in the way that I used to feel that it did. And it's not because of any detox I ever did or anything like that. It is simply because I've changed my relationship to sugar.

And I hope that that is what I am going to be able to show you here today.

And this is also something that has come up again recently with Joe Wicks.

I don't know if you follow him, if you've seen any of his recent posts, but essentially he very recently did his own sugar detox to the point that he was even avoiding fruit, as if it was some terrible gateway drug to the real hard stuff, the proper stuff. And then there was this other video he made about how he'd had a couple of Jaffa Cakes and it just completely dismantled his progress.

I think he talked about it as a relapse. That's the word that he was using with it. And let's just way it caused a lot of debate.

There were an awful lot of people who were, yes, on the one hand going, oh, it's so great that you've shared this. You know, it's great to know that we're not alone in this, that you struggle with this too.

And Joe Wicks has always been one of those everyman people that he has the same struggles, and he shares about the same struggles and he's done an awful lot for this country in terms of getting people moving again. However, there were also some very problematic things that came up around this recent sugar detox that he did.

And it's safe to say that the general consensus from the qualified dietitians and nutritionists who were commenting on these videos was not favourable, to put it mildly.

A lot of people saw it as really demonizing sugar, really promoting an unhealthy relationship with sugar and an unhealthy way to deal with our relationship with sugar. So that's just really to say that this has definitely come back out into the public imagination again. I don't think it ever went away.

I think it's always something that is underlying underneath, you know, this need to get rid of sugar, this need to eat less of it, this feeling that we are maybe addicted to it. But yeah, I just think that it brought it to the fore a little bit more again recently.

And like I say, there was a lot of debate around this and a lot of it was not particularly favorable because of the way that he went about it and some of the language that he was using that was really demonising even things like fruit, for example. So that is sort of part of the messaging we get around it.

But there's lots and lots of messaging that we get around sugar, which really feeds into this idea that we don't have any control around it. So this messaging around sugar being as addictive as cocaine.

So there were basically some studies done in rats that showed that sugar lit up the same chemical receptors or areas of the brain as cocaine did. And therefore the extrapolation from this was sugar is as addictive as cocaine. And basically that's why you can't help yourself.

But it's not as simple as that, for sure. Like, say, messages around not eating too much fruit because of the sugar content of it.

People saying, well, just stick to one piece of fruit a day max, because if you have too much of it, then you're essentially just taking in loads and loads and loads of sugar and it's not as healthy as you think. Completely ignoring the fact that fruit also has amazing things like fiber in it and vitamins and minerals that we need and things like that.

So definitely that has been a lot of the messaging, messaging around sugar as being the root cause of things like tiredness and skin problems and mood swings. Now, that's not completely wrong because there are certain things that sugar does to our system. Which, yes, can make us more tired.

If we are mainlining sugar and then we're having these big sugar crashes afterwards, it's making us feel tired for sure. Going to have an effect, can affect our skin. You know, too much sugar can lead to more wrinkles, can lead to more skin problems and things like that.

So there's an element of truth in there.

But it's also been taken to this extreme of we've got to cut out all sugar, we've got to get rid of all refined sugar, because refined sugar is the cause of all of these things that are going on without really talking about the nuance behind it, about how it fits into more of a general lifestyle.

And you know, there's a lot of messaging around avoiding the refined sugar, subbing it in for things like maple syrup, for example, as a natural sugar, when in fact the body doesn't know any difference.

It has no idea if you're having refined sugar, if you're having maple syrup or whatever it is, whatever the sub is, the exact same systems and processes are happening in your body regardless.

So it became this demonization of sugar without really looking at the, the kind of, the bigger picture around activity levels and what else you're eating and how much of it you're eating and all of those kind of things. So of course, again, we saw sugar, or we have seen sugar as a real problem in terms of our health.

We've seen messaging around sugar is just empty calories, it's got zero nutritional benefit, so why would you eat it at all without any nuance around the context we eat in, around moderation, around enjoyment and all those kind of things. And then also this idea that sugar is just toxic and it just leads directly to this inflammation in the system.

And again, it may be a part of the story for people, but for sure, if you are a healthy individual and you are having some sugar in your diet, it's not going to mean that you are suddenly inflamed. Can be a part of the story, but it's not the whole story.

And I think kind of like so many things when it comes to our health these days, the problem is the lack of nuance. We are given one part of the equation and then we are sent away to make of that what we will.

And because the stuff that sells is sensationalist stuff, sugar is toxic. Don't eat sugar, don't eat too much fruit. Sugar is as addictive as cocaine. Right? They're the headlines that we're reading.

We're not reading the headlines that say actually sugar can be a healthy part of a normal diet. That's just not happening. And so what has happened is we've come to demonize sugar.

We get jumpy around it and it becomes this naughty pleasure, this thing that God we love having. And it tastes amazing, but we feel like we should be avoiding at all costs.

And we all know that when we set up a relationship like this, i.e. It's naughty, I shouldn't be eating it, I need to stop. We've been taught to relate to sugar through the lens of control and restriction. It becomes even more tempting.

And then let's add into that our modern day environment. Because of course as humans, we are naturally wired to seek out sweet things because they're energy dense.

In the days gone past, they were being important foodstuff for us when we could get hold of it, because we often couldn't. So whenever it was freely available, we would probably overdo it. The problem now of course, is that we've got this overabundance everywhere.

Like it surrounds us. We feel like we can't escape from it.

Every time you walk in the supermarket, every time you open your cupboards, every time you go into a coffee shop, you're surrounded by the stuff. So it makes us feel like we're bombarded with it. Our natural urge is to go and eat the sugar.

Because when we do eat the sugar, we get this dopamine released in the brain. It feels good, it calms us, it makes us feel more relaxed, it's enjoyable, it tastes nice, all of those kind of things.

And so all of that together, along with the messaging around, but it's naughty and you shouldn't be eating it, just creates this very complex relationship with sugar. It leads us into a place where we believe we are addicted to it. There's nothing we can do about that.

We have this addiction and that we need to find ways to control ourselves around sugar. We feel like we can't have it in the house. We feel like we can't have just a couple of biscuits or we are going to polish the lot off.

In other words, we feel like sugar is controlling us. But like I said before, the situation is a lot more complex than that.

And the first thing that I want you to take away from this today is you are not addicted to sugar.

Because when we think we are addicted to something, it takes on this, what's the word I'm looking for, this legendary status, this heightened status of something that we can't help ourselves around. And yes, those reward centers light up in the brain.

But there is so much more to our food cravings than just the chemical component, the chemical reaction that happens within our body. Because those cravings we have around sugar are also about habits. They're also about our environment.

They're also about our emotional regulation as well.

And when we really think about it, when you think about those sugar spirals that happen, you think about those times when you have gone and you have reached for the packet of biscuits and, like, literally polished the whole lot off within five minutes without even realizing that you're doing it.

It's often happening when something else is feeling a bit wobbly, you're stressed, you're tired, or you've got these unmet needs you might not even realize at the time, but you've got these unmet needs that are not being looked at. And the reason that it feels so intense in the moment is because your body is asking you for something.

It feels like it's asking you for the sweet stuff, because the sweet stuff provides the dopamine, which makes you feel better in that moment. But really, what's going on is your body wants comfort, or it wants boredom relief, or it wants reward, or it wants relaxation.

Because sugar can satisfy all these needs very quickly, very easily, very cheaply. It's a very cheap, easy way to solve a problem. And so our habit becomes, when I feel like this, I have the sugar. And then if your story is "I can't help myself around sugar", then of course you can't, because that's your story. That's the thing that you believe to be true.

And the problem is that for as long as when your body asks for regulation and relief, you serve it sugar as the solution, it's going to feel like it's the sugar that's the real problem. So then we focus our energies on the sugar addiction.

We focus our energies on trying to exert control over ourselves and eating less of it. We focus on getting annoyed with ourselves when we struggle to control it. And we tell ourselves it's the sugar that's the problem.

That's the thing that has to be controlled. And all the while, because we're not looking at the actual thing that needs to be looked at, but we're literally like sugar coating it instead, we end up feeling stuck in that loop, that loop of trying to control it and then failing to control it.

So let's take a step back, because it's very easy to blame sugar. It's very easy to make sugar the scapegoat.

And it's very easy to make yourself feel bad when you give in to the temptation. But what if your addiction is a reaction to the rules and the pressure that you feel around food?

What if you feel like you lose control because you don't fully trust yourself around food? And what if the consumption of that sugar is a way to give yourself something else that you need?

Because I can pretty much guarantee you this, sugar is not the problem. Control is not the solution.

And the more that we go through that cycle, the more we are going to stay in it, the more we are going to stay beholden to it, the more we're going to feel controlled by it, the more that we are going to get annoyed with ourselves because we cannot seem to sort this out.

However much we try and keep the sweet stuff out of the house, however much we try and do the detox, however much we tell ourselves this week I am not eating sugar, it's going to continue to exert control over us because we are, we still believe that that is the problem. But what if you could take a step back and you could say, actually, I'm not addicted to sugar and sugar isn't the problem.

Would that maybe open you up to looking at some different things in your life? Would it maybe open you up to creating a different relationship with food, with sugar more specifically?

I think ultimately what we want is we want to create that trusting relationship with ourselves, right? That trusting relationship where we, can have that sweet stuff in the house and not necessarily eat every last bit of it.

So that's what we really want to do is, is create this more trusting relationship with ourselves where we, we can choose what's right for us, where we can trust in ourselves. Best choice for us in that moment in time. So what I want you to ask yourself, there's three questions I want to ask you to ask yourself about sugar.

And these are some of the things that I will often work through my clients with. So one of the things that my coaching clients come to me about is things like I can't seem to get consistent around food.

I seem to be really good for a couple of weeks, and then it all falls down the pan and I'm there in the kitchen eating the cooking chocolate. The crappy cooking chocolate doesn't even taste nice. And I'm shoving it in because it's just there and it just feels like the thing that I need.

So I'm helping women to deal with those kind of things, to deal with these urges, to deal with this self sabotage, to deal with these cravings that they seem to have and they can't get out of. And these are some of the things that we work on or some of the questions that I will ask them around it. So, first of all, where did I learn that sugar was something I needed to control?

So, for example, you ate a big slice of cake as a kid and you got called greedy. You grew up in a house where sugar was banned and you were told it was bad for you and you were stopped from having it.

So again, it became this thing that had to be controlled. You maybe had relatives who would talk about how naughty they were when they ate that cream cake, for example.

Or maybe in more recent times, you've seen influencers on social media talking about the addictive qualities of sugar and how we should be avoiding it and how it's a toxin that we should be cutting out of our diets altogether. There'll be lots and lots and lots of stories, lots and lots and lots of things which have told you sugar is something that needs to be controlled.

You need to be in control of it. And of course, as we all know, the more you try and control something, the less control you ultimately have over that thing.

So we, we put ourselves into this spiral of feeling we need to be more in control, trying to control it, realizing we're not actually in control ultimately, and then just going round and round in circles with it. So where did I learn that sugar was something I needed to control? Is the first question to ask yourself.

The second one is, what's the need that I'm trying to satisfy here? Because more often than not, when you reach for the sugar, yes, sometimes just because it tastes nice, right? And that's fine.

But sometimes when we just take a pause, we see, I'm just bored. It's just a habit. It's just what I do every Friday evening is have the sugar.

It's comfortable, it's making you feel better because you've had a bit of a stressful day. It's overwhelm. You don't like the feeling of overwhelm, and so you mask it with the chocolate or whatever. You feel stressed.

So all of these things are happening. And like I said before, we reach for the sugar because it's easily available and it's a quick solution. It's just a quick solution to that problem.

We don't have to do anything else. You just have to eat the sugar and everything feels that little bit better.

Of course, until later when you then feel guilty about it and like, oh my God, I've ruined everything. I wasn't meant to have that. And then the cycle begins again.

So, yeah, what is the need you're trying to satisfy and how can you pay attention to that again? Childhood patterns are always interesting here. You know, you felt sad, so your parents took you out for an ice cream.

You were bored so you got sent to the shop for 10p's worth of pick and mix. In our household, for example, Friday night was chocolate night. It was the night that we were allowed to have a bar of chocolate.

So of course, even to this day that happens. Another thing that always used to happen in our house was when we went on longer car journeys. There were always sweets in the car.

We'd always eat sweets when we were on car journeys. And so I came to associate a car journey with sweets.

So my parents have always lived a few hours drive away or when I was a kid, we lived a few hours drive away from our relatives. So we often did these longer car journeys that we took that for. And you know, we still, I still do that now when I go and see my mum and stuff.

It's like a six hour car journey. Occasionally we'll have sweets, but not always. Like, I remember when I first got together with my husband and he just thought it was a bit weird.

Every car journey I went on I had to have sweets. So all of these things are like playing into, you know, what, what's it doing for you?

You're bored on a car journey so you're eating sweets, you've had a stressful day so you're eating some chocolate. At the end of it you feel sad, so you take yourself out for ice cream, right? It's satisfying a need.

And if you can recognise what's that need, then that can help you to untangle those two things. And it's not necessarily a specific action that you take, but it's just recognising that, it's just going, okay, well I get why I'm doing that.

Now I understand why I'm doing that.

And maybe next time I might make a different choice or I might try and give myself something else, something more constructive to deal with that particular situation.

And then the third question is, what is my body actually telling me right now? So is your body telling you I feel guilty about something?

Is your body saying I feel bad about myself right now? Is your body saying, I don't feel safe right now. And I think we underestimate the role of safety.

We often assume we are safe, but actually there's something that is happening to us in that moment that doesn't particularly feel safe for us.

And so if we can identify what is my body trying to tell me right now, then again, you get curious about and you can lean into that rather than just reaching for the instant fix. And I think this is the thing. The sugar becomes the instant fix in all those situations.

And if we can put a bit of distance between that and ourselves and we start to understand that urge within her, we can actually gain a bit more clarity around it.

And it's not to say that it's suddenly going to mean that overnight you give up all sugar and you understand exactly why you're reaching for the sugar and your relationship is perfect forevermore. No, but it's gonna start you on that path to understanding and to understanding that this is not about this chemical sugar addiction that you have. Even though it feels like it's not about a chemical addiction. Yes, it feels good.

Yes, it releases feel good hormones into your body, but it's not an addiction to those things. It's an addiction to what it is doing for you. It's an addiction to comforting yourself. It's an addiction to not feeling bad feelings.

It's an addiction to never allowing yourself be bored. That's what the addiction is. And that's the thing that we need to address.

If we're just focusing our energies just on the sugar and on our need for control over it, then we don't address the stuff that's actually going on. And I think ultimately this isn't about fixing a sugar addiction or trying to have more control over yourself.

It's about restoring a bit more trust with yourself. So instead of blaming yourself, you're just being mindful.

You're being mindful that, yes, as humans, we are driven to seek something sweet and it is hyper available now. So it's more easy than it ever has been to address that desire, that need within us. And it just so happens it's not our fault.

It's just that sugar has become a very easy answer to an awful lot of questions. So when you recognize what it's trying to answer, you can start to undo that toxic relationship you have with it. Because the sugar is not toxic.

Certainly not if you're eating it, you know, every now and again. The relationship you have with it, however, is a different matter. So ask yourself those questions. See where you get to.

I think it's just an interesting way to kind of flip this. Flip yourself out of I'm addicted to sugar and flip yourself into, oh, okay. Sugar has become the answer to a lot of questions.

What are those questions? Why am I ignoring them? And how can I stop ignoring them? So I'm gonna leave that with you.

Before I go, though, I just want to let you know this is exactly the kind of thing that we dismantle inside The Body You'll Love Living In, because we look at those hidden dynamics underneath your habits and those patterns that are happening habitually which are keeping you in that place where you maybe feel addicted to the sugar or you feel like you can't help but binge and you struggle to kind of get that consistency with food.

And then we rebuild a new set of habits that basically aren't going to fall apart the moment you get stressed or the moment you stop trying to be perfect so you can relax a little bit more around food and you can have maybe a more constructive relationship with it as well.

And included in that right now, in The Body You'll Love Living In, is a Pattern Interrupt Kit, which you can use in moments like that where, you know, the kids leftover chocolate is calling you or you're about to dive into that bag of Haribo. So that pattern interrupt kit actually just momentarily calls you back to your body. It stops that spiral before it starts.

That is one of the bonuses that I'm offering right now with the body you'll love living in. But just fair warning, this is a launch bonus, okay? One of three amazing bonuses that I'm including in that right now.

So it's not going to hang around forever.

So if you want to get hold of that, if you want to come and work with me inside that, then just head to lifeeditcoaching.com I'll put the link in the show notes as well. But with all that said, I'm going to love you and leave you and I'll see you back here again next time.

Thank you so much for joining me today.

If you have loved this episode, don't forget to hit follow so you don't miss future episodes. And of course, head over and follow me on the socials as well @lifeditwithalix.