Kickas.org Forums Treatments, Drugs and Alternatives NSD and diet-related; Sticking to it- sugar addicts, how do you do it?

Hiya Inflammator.

As a suggestion to make it easier on yourself you may need to come off the sugary stuff except for moderate-small amounts of fresh fruit. So avoid chocolate and dried fruits which are very sugary. The reason is that your body is still in carb burning mode and prefers it as it's source of fuel esp due to the amount of exercise you do. If you keep eating sugary stuff this will keep happening. You need to break the cycle and switch your body to burning proteins and fats and then the cravings will go. It can take about a week of staying off the sugar for them to subside so the first week will be the worst.

This is the only way I would be able to follow the diet if I tried it as in normal life I have blood sugar levels that fluctuate all over the place and this is exacerbated by sugar. My hubby Jon however is not like that and he is able to eat sugary stuff on the NSD and not crave it and get wildly hungry all the time. He has very stable blood sugar and always has even pre-AS.

Hope that helps

That's good advice, a lot of people find it works like that for them. Not for me though, I tried for 9 months to get to that place but couldn't (did the 30 day paleo challenge, aargh!), and the longer I tried to eat low carb the more depressed and cravy and became. Adding 5-HTP helped but not enough. Adding in sweet potatoes and rice had me feeling way better within a day, until my joints flared up. So now I am working on finding non-starchy carbs that cause minimal issues for my joints and don't trigger cravings. It's interesting because I always saw sugar as the ultimate enemy but now I find that if I don't eat it with grains or dairy, it doesn't mess with my blood sugar or trigger binges like it used to. Of course it probably helps that I'm very limited in my choice of sugar-containing foods if I am starch and dairy free lol!

Thats probably a good idea. I guess my cheat days would be out the window too. On sunday I had a massive starch feast. I felt fine yesterday but I'm a bit stiffer and my SI joint started hurting a bit today. I asked for it but its hard to do a spontaneous weekend road trip and stay NSD. Spontaneous and NSD don't go together at all. The question is, if I do get to that state and stop craving carbs, how much meat and vegetables will I need to consume to maintain high energy for physical activity? I know a lot of people find going that route easier but there just aren't very many highly active people on this board who go into paleo diet territory. I know I could avoid sugar if I did nothing but sit around all day but I don't think thats good for AS long term either.

Molly,

lorax2013 is the username of the you tube video I watched. He did not mention the French Doctor by name, but here is the link and I'm sure you can email him and ask for the dr's name.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVn-jmCi4zI

Take care!!

I also have a problem with sugar (especially mixed with dairy...can you say ICE CREAM??!!!).

The good and bad is that it doesn't affect me negatively at all, as long as I make it homemade and am smart with my mix-ins. The bad part with the sugar is that I have this constant feeling of, 'well, I am not eating any starches so I'm going to eat sugar if I want sugar.' It isn't something I want to give up. I am extremely active, running ~10 miles, riding ~50-60 miles and do two lifting workouts per week. So, when I work out, I am ravenous. I have eggs or a smoothie in the morning (plain yogurt, strawberries, blueberries, 1/2 pear, coconut oil, pomegranate juice, whey protein powder, 1/4 cup vanilla ice cream) salad or lettuce wraps and fruit for snacks and lunch and healthy dinners of meat and veggies. But I end up keeping some hershey bars or yogurt raisins or chocolate covered raisins very nearby and I almost always eat them...to the tune of about 500 cal/day. Consequently, I have gained a couple pounds while on this diet. I don't really need to gain or lose any weight at all (5'7", 158lbs) and will be happy if I forever stay in the 150s. But. I. Love. sugar.

We went on a weekend road trip and the only snacks I had at home to bring were sugary: both varieties of raisins, fruit snacks, chocolate covered fudge balls, rolos... and I munched on that crap all day long, followed by a massive Ghiradeli sundae one night. Bleh. Too much sugar for sure. Need to back off it a bit for sure.

But, I do feel awesome and with minimal meds I consistently have pain free days. Was averaging a 4-5 with spikes at 7 in my SI and constant pain/stiffness in my back and thoracic. I feel the spondy monster begin to creep in within about 3 hours of an unintentional starch consumption, usually a dressing or sauce at a restaurant.

Lots of rambling, but I had to chime in on the sugar topic.