Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1435: How to Kick Your Sugar Addiction in 5 Simple Steps

Episode Date: November 30, 2020

In this episode, Sal, Adam & Justin discuss the addictive nature of sugar and how to kick the sugar habit. Hi, my name is Adam Schafer and I have been addicted to sugar for 25 years. (3:04) The POWERFUL effects sugar has on the body. (5:45) Admit you have a problem. (9:05) Drop the artificial sweeteners. (17:06) The “cold turkey” versus slow approach. (20:33)   How to Kick Your Sugar Addiction in 5 Simple Steps.   #1 – Create the barrier in your house. (25:55) #2 – Allow “healthier” substitutes in the house. (28:46) #3 – Prioritize protein intake. (32:42) #4 – Avoid heavily processed foods. (35:23) #5 – Eliminate artificial sweeteners. (40:50) Related Links/Products Mentioned Visit Legion Athletics for the exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Code “mindpump” at checkout** Cyber Monday Special!! MAPS Program 65% off (Promo code “CYBERMAPS” at checkout) and MAPS Bundles 50% off (Promo code “CMBUNDLES” at checkout) Sucrose (oral) for procedural pain management in infants Should You Cut Sugar From Your Diet? - Mind Pump Blog Mind Pump #1247: The Dangers Of Eating Too Much Sugar Visit Magic Spoon for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! Visit Oli Pop for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Code “mindpump” at checkout for 15% off your first order** Why do we Need Protein? - Mind Pump Blog Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources  

So if your calories are high, and you're inactive, and you eat a lot of sugar, now sugar becomes inflammatory, becomes pro-cancer, and it causes a lot of problems. So why is this important to know? Well, it's important to know, because sugar, especially sugar in processed foods, encourages you to do what?

Eat more. And your mind is only one place to go. Mind, mind, up, with your hosts. Salta Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. Hey, you're listening to the number one fitness health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. Now, in today's episode, we talk about a tough subject. Sugar. Sugar causes a lot of people to overeat.

It can cause health problems when it's over-consumed. And they even, some people even say that there's such a thing as sugar addiction. In fact, my co-host, Adam, says he's been addicted to sugar since he was a kid. So in this episode, we tackle sugar. And we give you strategies on how you can reduce and maybe even eliminate your sugar addiction

or your sugar habit for better health, fat loss and better muscle gain. Now before the episode starts, I wanna let you know that this episode is brought to you by our sponsor, Legion. Legion makes some of the best performance enhancing supplements out there, including protein powders and a pre-workout supplement

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Hi, my name is Adam Schaefer, and I'm a sugar addict. I've been battling with sugar for the last 25 years, and I've ruined some of my most important relationships, family, friends, people that I love have all stopped talking to me. Oh, man. Welcome, Adam. We accept you. We accept you.

You may be wondering why we brought you here today. Yeah. You've been great to. That was real. You've been a great friend for the following reasons. Here's how you've damaged our relationship. Here's what'll happen if you don't. I got a message from my brother-in-law actually today. We're sitting here getting ready to plan for thanks,

giving a week right here and record a single topic episode. And he just happened to send me this message, like, hey, have you guys ever done an episode on sugar addiction and whether you should cut it cold turkey or tapering off? And thought, man, this is actually really good timing with what's going on, holiday season, right? So, and I don't know if we've done a topic like that specific. And that's very near and dear to me.

I know sugar is one of the big three, right? There's three components to food that they'll label in the hyper-palatable category. It's more complex than this, but it's sugar, fat, and salt. When you put those in foods, they have some special enhanced things. Properties, but sugar in particular for some people can be really tough and you've talked about this a lot.

Yeah, it sounds correct me too if I'm wrong. I heard some crazy stat, like 80% of all foods in the grocery store have like sugar infused in it, something like that. It's a ridiculous stat. Okay, processed foods just... Yeah, it's in everything. Added sugar like crazy.

In fact, I can't remember what it was. I think it was a documentary where somebody was trying to go and buy foods that are not typically known as like high sugar foods at candy and stuff like that. Yeah. And then at the end of it, he added up the sugar content and it was still through the roof, like normal products.

Like, catch up and stuff like that. Bread, toothpaste. Toothpaste, yeah, sugar. And it's an easy thing to add and it does. And there's like so many different names now for it. It's not just like you, you, you people think like, you go look at the labels and say sugar. It's like no, it's like some crazy sneaking in

with some alcohol, you know, verbiage. The hydrated, you know, coconut syrup and organic. Oh, yeah. It's just good. That's what's very good, right? Yeah, exactly, but it's all monk fruit. Yeah, no, monk fruit's not sugar. That's something different. Oh, see, I don't know. Yeah, but it changes every day. That Yeah, no, monk food's not sugar, that's something different. Oh, see, I don't know.

Yeah, but it changes every day. That's a better version, that's where you are. Yeah, that's an actual fruit that's got like a sweet or a plant. That's got a sweet flavor to it. But sugar is, I mean, corn syrup, it could be dehydrated, you know, cane juice or whatever, it could be, of course, regular sugar. And it does have some interesting effects on people.

Actually, so here's a crazy story. I talked about this on the podcast after my son was born. So when he was born, they wanted to do a quick blood test on him because the way he was born, they wanted to make sure he had enough blood oxygen. They wanted to test him out. And taking blood from a newborn is very difficult like to find a vein into all that. And it's heartbreaking.

Very as apparent. Oh, to watch. Oh, did you have to see something like that too? Oh yeah. And Courtney actually had to step in because they kept missing the vein. Oh. And so she's a pediatric nurse by trade.

And so she just kind of was like, hey, I can do it. And she did it first one. Dude, I almost stepped in and dropped with everybody. So, she's screaming off topic though, but did they let that happen? Like, because your wife is a nurse and she's got a baby there, like, or is that like not?

Yeah, they don't normally wouldn't do that, but like, I think somebody there knew her, you know, from Valley Med. It was a divisive Kaiser. So, anyways, they let it happen because they knew her. Well, here's the crazy thing. So they're doing this to my son. And before they did, they got a pacifier.

And then they had this syringe with like something on it. And they said, oh, don't worry, it's just sucrose. It's called sweet something. I don't remember what it's called, but it's just a little sucrose. And they put it on the little bit of the past fire, put it in his mouth. And while they're doing this, he's not crying at all. And I'm thinking, is there a pain killer in this?

Are they giving a medicine or something? Yeah. And I went and researched it and no, it was literally sugar. And for infants, it changes their pain, how they perceive pain. It does have some pretty powerful effects in the body. Sugar is not very easily found in nature. It's actually relatively rare. So the places you would find sugar would be like fruit,

honey, it usually indicates something safe to eat. It does. Sweetness means safe, typically, right? But, fruit, unless you plant fruit with agriculture, you don't find a whole lot of fruit just naturally growing. And natural fruit, before we started breeding it, was very low in sugar in comparison to current fruit. And an actual sugar cane is like bamboo,

so to get to like, you'd have to be like a panda bear and chew the shit out of it. Yeah, I remember I was read a stat a long time, and I know I've shared on the podcast a long time ago, but I think it's like, what is in a soda can, right, as far as sugar, is equivalent to like eight feet of sugar cane. And what that would take to that. It would never happen.

You'd have tons of fiber, it would not happen. And then honey, honey is a very concentrated form of sugar, but it's harder to find naturally, and it's guarded by bees, right? So sugar was relatively hard to find, but when you did find it was safe and it was a good source of energy So we developed a like strong craving and you know around sugar and nowadays sugar so readily available It's so easy. We subsidize the hell out of corn

So much of our sugar comes from corn syrup So it's everywhere and there there are some definitely consequences. One of them being this kind of sugar habit, or some people would even say addiction. In fact, if you look up sugar addiction, you'll actually find addiction facilities that deal with drug addiction, that also deal with other addictions. Sugar is one of them. Well, I think the first step is, like any other addiction is is admitting or realizing that you even have an addiction to it yeah how did you do that how did you how did you differentiate between oh i just like this but

between that and this isn't enough to really how many balls of ice cream did yeah well so i didn't think i did right so uh... he was snorting it off the table. No, I know what I think. This is a problem. What I think, and I can't be alone here, right? So because I was, I was, you know, athletic and moving around a lot, and I did a lot of different sports and activity, and I was weight training, and I was already a hard gainer, I justified the amount of consumption

that I was having of sugar because I wasn't getting fat. And so because I wasn't getting fat, I'm like, it's plenty healthy for me. And who cares, I'm burning it off, I'm not addicted. I never even questioned if it was addiction. It was like, I like sugar, I like candy, I like ice cream. I'm not getting fat because I move all this so I don't have a problem.

And I'm sure it's very similar to alcoholics who can get by their day and perform and be great at work still, but are still drinking eight beers a night, just because you're getting by, doesn't necessarily mean you're not addicted to it. So that's the relationship I had with it for 20 plus years. What, was there a moment where you're like,

ah, this might be an issue. So to be completely honest, it wasn't really, there there's probably like moments where you become a little more aware, a little more aware of it, like as far as like my habits and when I was starting to really dive into my diet, but it really wasn't until I completely kicked everything

to compete, which wasn't that long ago. So it wasn't until- And your 30s. Yeah, so it wasn't until my 30s when I eliminated and it was the eliminating of it and realizing how good I felt without it and then allowing it to be reintroduced. And I talk about this with other things, right?

Like to me, you kind of have to do that. Like get rid of something, introduce it, get rid of something, and reintroduce it before the light ball really goes off of like what's going on to where you can assess like what's going on with how you feel with your body and all that other stuff. What's interesting about sugar to me in particular, sweet foods to me in particular is how quickly your perception of sweetness starts to change and adapt based off of how much sugar you eat. So like if you never have a lot of sugar or

you barely ever eat processed sugar, one soft drink or candy, you know, piece of candy, whatever, it could really hit you hard and you eat it and you're like, wow, that's really sweet. Yeah, like my kids never had soda growing up and then as they got a little older with birthday parties that have them a little, a little bit of soda. And a couple times I gave them a whole can, just to see what would happen. And my kids would only drink a quarter of it and then give it back to me. And I realized that they had, they had hit their limit because they had had lots of sugar

up into that point. Now, if they had sugar all the time, or they had soft drinks all the time, gradually you start to want more and more. I noticed this with myself. If I have a lot of sugar, sweet foods, especially naturally sweetened foods, start to taste less sweet over time.

And I start to, it's like my tolerance for sweetness goes up, which is kind of a classic hallmark of an addictive property, like drugs, right? Like you take your first hit of a drug or whatever and it does everything. And then the next time you might need a little bit more, caffeine does the same thing. And I definitely notice this a lot with sugar.

Yeah, it loses its potency. I've noticed the same thing with my kids too. And it's a pure reflection of the size of the portions that people eat. It's pretty alarming to me. When you go to a softer place or a nice cream place and you see the actual cups that they offer. I'm like, I don't know how people eat all of that

like without just getting sick right away but it's a process of starting with the small and working your way up to that and you don't even realize like, you know, it takes that to just have the same experience. Well, you're reminding me of the first epiphany, right? Which, and it's a little embarrassing that I went, you know, almost 30 years.

So this is probably around 27, 28 of like kind of starting to pay attention of how much sugar and pulling it out. I honestly, I swear to God, dude, I didn't know that fruit tasted the way fruit tastes, like until like almost 30. I just thought that like strawberries and grapes and blueberries and all these fruits, apples, bananas, just were bland as shit.

They really were bland to me. I didn't like fruit. Fruit was lame to me. It didn't taste good at all. And I think it's just because of how much sugar that I was eating for so long that in the amount, when you get to think too, like I was consuming, not only regular candy and ice cream

and artificial sweeteners were in there. Like, so my palate for the, consuming, not only regular candy and ice cream and artificial sweeteners were in there. So my palate to be able to recognize how sweet something was had to be like, like you said, as like in an addict with drugs, it had my tolerance had to be so high that when I have something natural, like a strawberry, it was like, this is lame.

I'd bite into it and be like, I didn't like it at all. It wasn't until I completely got off of everything for a while. And then I remember, I'll never forget, by the end of my first Apple after I hadn't had any sugar or any process sugar for a long time. And I was like, holy shit. And I honestly, I thought of the special Apple. Yeah, I thought of the special Apple

at the time, but you're like, where did you get this Apple? You know, it's amazing. We gotta get the same Apple again. It's the hostess Apple. Yeah, seriously, it was like, it're gonna get the same apple again. It's the hostess apple. Yeah. Seriously, it was just the most amazing thing ever. And I know I can't be alone in this.

There's gotta be people out there that don't enjoy fruit that much. And a lot of it's because you don't realize that you've ruined it for yourself. Dude, think of it this way. If you're a sugar eater, right? Or you like to eat a lot of sugar, you have a teaspoon of honey. Have a teaspoon of honey.

If a teaspoon of honey doesn't taste like super, like crazy sweet to you, you know you have a problem. Because a nature honey is one of the most concentrated forms of sugar. It is pure, almost pure sugar. And if you eat that and you think to yourself, like, ah, honey's kind of, you know, it's not that good. Then you know that your tolerance,

and this is where the big problems come into play. Cause here's the of, you know, it's not that good. Then you know that you're tolerance, and this is where the big problems come into play, because here's the truth, okay. A lot of sugar and a lower calorie diet with that otherwise you work out, and you've got decent macros. If your sugar's high, you still make costs and problems. You may cost some problems with insulin resistance and that kind of stuff,

but the problems become massive when your calories go up. So if your calories are high and you're inactive and you eat a lot of sugar, now sugar becomes inflammatory, becomes pro-cancer, and it causes a lot of problems. So why is this important to know? Well, it's important to know because sugar, especially sugar in processed foods,

encourages you to do what? Eat more. So it's actually quite rare. It's not common, because I get this argument all the time with people in the fitness space. It's like, well, in the context of localities and high protein, it doesn't make that big a difference. I say, find me one person in the real world, not somebody that counts and measures everything every single day, a normal person in the real world who eats a high protein low calorie high sugar diet.

It doesn't work that way. It's always high calorie. High sugar. People are going to always argue to keep things that like they really enjoy and like this isn't going to affect me that much. And then meanwhile like their teeth and everything else is like a clear indication of, you know, this can't be that great for us to ingest if your teeth are literally rotting right in front. That's actually a good point.

It does make a big difference when it comes to tooth health. In fact, there was a study that showed that people could heal cavities. Actually, there were several studies. Yeah, reverse it. They could reverse cavities by changing their diet. And if you think, This was mind blowing for me because,

I mean, I was going through a lot of stuff with my crooked ass teeth and like trying to give everything fixed. And I found that I was getting a lot of ginger vitus type symptoms and like all this inflammation in my mouth. And every time I would eat, you know, some kind of a candy or something with high sugar, it was only a matter of like, you know, 20 minutes later where I'm just like, oh, my mouth would hurt and I get sore.

And so like, I just had stopped, I just lost interest in eating candy at that point. Well, there is an example, Sal, though, of a low calorie and high sugar, and that's the diet, you know, soda community and the people that are doing all the artificial sweeteners. And, you know, talk about how I think that can be dangerous. I mean, there's this side of our fitness base that that hates anybody who demonizes sugar. Like, you know, how dare you do that? And that they advocate for diet coax

and artificial sweeteners because there's no proof that it's no sugar in those, therefore. Yeah, therefore, because it's low calorie, therefore, it's okay. Because that was, again, another phase of me getting away from so much sugar was, okay, the first was, oh wow, realizing what, how much of it I was consuming now, switching over to the diet coke

and all the artificial sweeteners. And it still didn't solve the whole fruit thing in real sugar thing. In fact, artificial sweeteners are even stronger than like cane sugar. It feels like it's more sweet. The sweet signal is definitely higher. It's the, I don't know how many thousands of times higher

and when you look at equivalent size, so like a teaspoon or sugar versus a teaspoon of, let's say, sucralose. Sucralose is, I don't know how many hundreds or thousands of times sweeter. Now here's a deal with artificial sweeteners. In a calorie controlled, macro controlled environment, if you cut out sugar, replace with artificial sweeteners,

you do lower your calories, okay? This does happen. In the real world though, this never happens. In fact, every study that's done on artificial sweeteners, you do lower your calories. This does happen. In the real world though, this never happens. In fact, every study that's done on artificial sweeteners that does not have people in a lab with everything that's controlled, so in other words, they live a regular life and they say, okay, cut out your sugary soda, replace it

with artificial sweeteners and just do everything else normal and then we'll come see you in six months and see what happened. None of them lose weight. None of them lose weight. None of them lose weight because artificial sweeteners encourage people to overeat just like the regular sugar does. It's that sweet flavor.

Now that does have different effects in the body. We can argue as to whether or not sugar has better effects or worse effects than our official sweeteners. Some people say artificial sweeteners are benign. I disagree. I think you perceive it. Therefore it's not benign. Just the fact that you perceive the sweetness, can't possibly meaners are benign, I disagree, I think you perceive it, therefore it's not benign,

just the fact that you perceive the sweetness, can't possibly mean it's benign, there's something going on, right, with artificial sweeteners. But at the end of the day, again, replacing sugar with artificial sweeteners, you still get the sweet flavor, you're not gonna change your behaviors.

The behaviors don't change. The behaviors don't change, so you don't lose any weight, you don't actually lower calories, you actually increase calories by eating other things to replace the sugar. And then here's the other part, and this is one of the big issues

that I have with artificial sweeteners. If you're at least somewhat health oriented, okay? If you're at least somewhat aware of the calories and stuff and sugar that's in your food, you don't even have to be a fitness fanatic, just somebody that's kind of a little bit aware. Sugary sodas or sugary foods have a natural barrier that you can see and that natural barrier is calories, right?

So if you're like Adam, for example, and you're a trainer and you're somewhat aware and paying attention a little bit and you may have one soda because like, well, that's 200 calories, I'll just have one soda. Well, you have an artificially sweetened soda with no sugar whatsoever in it. That barrier's gone and so it turns into five, six, seven.

Next thing you know, all you're drinking is artificially sweetened soda, it's not even drinking much water. And I've seen this happen time and time again with people in the fitness space. So it's not a good substitute, really, isn't, unless everything's perfectly controlled, in which case, I would say you're probably not leading the best relationship long-term, at

least with food, anyway. Okay, so let's pretend that we've all become aware, right? We've come aware whether it be artificial sweeteners or regular sugar. We're eating too much of it. It's a problem. Where do we go from here? And that's the question that my brother-in-law was reaching for. He's like, do I just cut cold turkey and just turn it all off and eat all whole foods

and get rid of all the sugar, processed and artificial? Or is it a better way to slowly wing off? What is your guys' opinion? See, now, here's a funny thing. It really depends on the person because there's two approaches here. And you can do this with any substance. Caffeine could be sugar. So for example, if I go off caffeine, cold turkey, I know I'm going to have a shitty

week. But then after that week is up, I'm back to normal. I feel okay. Or I can say to myself, I don't want to have a shitty week. I don't want to go through that pain. So I'm going to slowly, gradually reduce it. And now it's going to take me five weeks to come off of caffeine. It's the same thing with sugar.

There's some clients I've had who are really good with the cold turkey cutting it out and they know they're gonna have cravings for the next week, but I've had other clients who are like, I don't wanna deal with those cravings in which case, I tell them to cut their sugar intake by a quarter every week, so it's usually a four week process. I think even with the cold turkey approach,

it's a very short-term strategy in terms of people keeping that up for very long. And I do think it does work on some people. I mean, for myself, I fasted and had went through sort of an elimination diet personally and then reintroducing it made it less desirable for me. But I just don't think that that's the, you know, the common person. I think that the other strategy actually, to keep it in there,

but start lowering the actual volume of sugar, I think is a better approach. So I really think it depends on the personality, right? So, and if you're the type of person who is, you have a lot of self discipline, and you almost like relish in the challenge of things, and like, you got, oh, it's hard. I'm gonna push through this.

You know, I've got five days and I'll be good or I don't care that I'm miserable. I know that's one more day down. Another day to go, you know, they have that kind of mentality towards anything. They tend to do really good with the culture. If you don't have that personality, it's because no matter what, the five days, you know,

if you were to do like a five day or seven day type of cleanse from it where you go cold turkey, it's going to be harder. It'll be harder than someone who's stretching out for weeks. Now it's longer and it takes more consistency stretching it out slowly over four weeks, but it'll be less painful. But some people are okay with that. It's the same people who like to push don't mind to be really sore like whatever, get through it, push through it.

I don't care if I throw up from training so hard, like if you have that kind of mentality then maybe the cold turkey, I think, would work really well for you. And I think too, if you have like a true addiction, you know, like that's gonna be something that you're constantly in the back of your mind, like you're thinking about it.

It's almost like you're taking it away from you and like you're trying to be like saying, no, I can't have this. And so that becomes a thing that you're going to carry with you, which inevitably might lead into like a binge situation. Correct. That's why I was going to say what's more important than picking the cold turkey versus the slow approach is how you're taking that approach in

sense of what's your relationship with the approach. So is it that you're restricting yourself? So are you saying yourself, I'm fat, I'm ugly, I can't believe I'm so much sugar, that's it I'm not gonna eat sugar anymore, or are you saying to yourself, you know what, I need to take care of myself better, I'm gonna do this because I want to take care of myself.

Very different approach, one feels restrictive, the other feels empowering. One makes you say, I can't have any more sugar, the other one makes you say, I don't want any more sugar. The other one makes you say I don't want any more sugar. And then the second part that I think is equally as important is the after. It's the after. How do I now maintain, let's say I do the cold turkey approach

or even the slow approach afterwards now. How do I maintain this because at some point, it's gonna come back at some point, I'm gonna lose my motivation or my resolve. At some point, I'm gonna go to birthday party, whatever. I might find myself in a situation where I'm starting to have a little bit too much sugar. Again, that's an important thing to focus on.

So that's why I like to slow approach better because unless the cold turkey, like if you were planning on getting rid of sugar and then never introducing it into your diet ever again, then okay, but that's not most people. Most people are there thinking they're gonna do that and then eventually sure, I'll let it, you know, intermittently into your diet ever again, then okay, but that's not most people. Most people are there thinking they're gonna do that and then eventually sure, I'll let it, intermittently into my diet.

So the slow approach trains you kind of that. So if you think about the slow approach, obviously you go week one is extreme, you're still having a lot and you're slowly tapering down. Probably where you're gonna land long-term is actually the last week or so. Where it's still kind of in the diet every once in a while, but it's not as prevalent as it was at the week,

week one of getting, winging off. So to me, I like the slow approach because it kind of gets you used to what, oh, when I'm almost completely off, this is what it'll probably look like when I reintroduce it, I'll still be able to have it every once in a while. It's just not an everyday thing for me.

Yeah, I think that one of the easier ways to do that, because that's me too Adam, I'll do be able to have it every once in a while. It's just not an everyday thing for me. Yeah, I think that one of the easier ways to do that, because that's me too, Adam, I would do the same thing, would be to take out the most obvious offenders first. So soda, right? That's a very easy big sugar bomb you could drop. Candy, right? Cake, pastries. You can reduce those first

because of those more common uh... offenders and they're just the big blocks or the big rocks i should say and then later on that start to move down of the path but uh... go ahead well i just you know speaking of that that to me like and i know that we had you know laid out like five steps and i don't think they're in the best order i think really the first the really first step is what you just a little to right now which is removing it from your house. Totally. Like right away you remove a barrier. Yeah, you remove the

barrier. Oh, you make a barrier. You put a barrier. Yeah, right. Exactly. So because that's one of the things when you're trying to, you know, if it's easily accessible to you and you're also trying to discipline yourself to get it out of your life, boy, it's really hard when all you got to do is walk down to the cupboard and just grab it really quick. But if I have to get in my car and go drive to get it, I'm less likely to go out. Totally, recovering alcoholic that works in a bar, probably not gonna be a good idea, right?

So, when you get the sugar out of the house, this is what you say to yourself. This is also very important. This is what you have to say to yourself. I'm not telling myself I can't have sugar. I'm just saying I don't wanna have it in the house. If I really wanna have sugar bad enough, I'll get in the car, I'll drive to the grocery store,

and then I'll buy a single serving of sugar. I'll buy a single soda or a single can. You're not making a Costco right. That's right. Now this is actually quite effective because typically for most people, these cravings or whatever tend to hit, after you're relaxed, you have dinner,

you're at home already, maybe you're chilling with your family and you think, oh man, I'd really like a pie or I'd really like some ice cream. Then you gotta think to yourself, do I really wanna go put my shoes on, get out of my sweatpants, drive the car, get to the grocery store, wait in line, buy it, and then bring it all the way home.

Do I really want to do that? And oftentimes, not every, sometimes you'll do it, sometimes you'll actually get up and do it. But oftentimes you'll say to yourself, nah, it's not worth it, I'm too lazy to do that. And then the checker, like, you know, judges you. Yeah. Oh, yes, for me.

Yeah, you're in your flannel sweatpants and slippers. Yeah, every time, yeah. Three gallons of ice cream. Oh, by the way, amen. Yeah. Oh, there's a week cream. Oh, my, amen. Yeah. It's a weekmom. One time I went to the garage, because that's what I do.

I don't have my wife's pregnant. That's why I say that. That's a good excuse. Actually, so, so, that's what I do, right? I don't have that stuff in my house specifically for that. But if I want to have it bad enough, I go to the garage store, and I'll never forget one time, Jessica and I were like hanging out, and I'm like,

yeah, do you want something sweet? Oh, you know, all right, I go to the store, store and like fine. I'll go do that. I'll go buy Some candy for us and she's like hey, can you pick me up some some tampons, too? So I said I don't know so I'm in the line and I've got like chocolate and tampons and I bring it up to the register And the guy looks at me like oh boy. I see what I get you're getting the wrong idea But no get it out of the house because when you put barriers in between you and the thing that you really want,

that's kind of an impulse, it actually reduces the impulsivity of it. And it creates a barrier, allows you to think about what you're doing and it slowly trains it out of it being an impulse. So I feel that that step one, and then step two, what you do allow in the house are things that would replace it.

So this is where I like these types of substitutes. I mean, for example, we work with a sponsor, like magic spoon, where you have a, gives me that feeling of, maybe I'm gonna get, feel like I would be eating a bowl of ice cream, but it's a lot better for me. This is what I like to have the substitutes are allowed to be in the house, but I'm also trying to manage that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. I like to have like, what is it? Celter water or, you know, bubbly water? I don't know, carbonated things. Right, what's the lime? Yeah, lime salt. If you put a little bit of salt and lime in that, for whatever reason, it kills that sugar craving for me.

It's also helped my clients. Here's another thing you can do. You can get these carbonator waters that are, you know, they have like the essence of fruit or whatever. In fuse. Yeah, it's like, it's got nothing in it, right? But it tastes like it was thinking of strawberry or whatever.

The fruit farted iron. Exactly. So what you do is you buy liquid stevia. Stevia is a, it's a sweetener, but there's no sugar in it and it's natural. So it gives you a little bit of that sweet flavor, put like a drop of that in that carbonated water that tastes kind of like strawberry,

and it does taste like you're having something with a little bit of sugar. Now I wouldn't recommend it all the time because then you'll run similar problems like artificial sweeteners, but it is a good substitute, definitely is. Well, I've even done like the carbonated water with like regular juice.

So if you have a major sweet to- Oh, cut it a little bit. Yeah, you just cut it in half. So instead of having a six or eight ounce glass of juice or something, you have three ounces and then the rest of it's the carbonated water and then it feels like you're getting like a flavor. Yeah, I think there's no scale like that.

So yeah, if you want diluted a bit, I think that's a good first step. We do work with two Oli pops and other, like, it is something that if you're so addicted to soda, soda is a big one for people too, just with the half sugar addiction. So there's like ways to kind of find products that also provide weightless sugar, but also gives you that kind of sweet taste. One thing I learned from Doug is, so when we, before COVID happened, we would travel, a few times a year at least, we'd do live events

or do podcasts and stuff out of state. Doug would always travel, because whenever we would get two hotel rooms and it was always Doug and I in a room, and then the two snoring guys in the other room, right? And the polar bear club. The polar bear club. Yeah. Doug would, no matter where we were,

who would pull out a bar. Dark chocolate. Very, very dark chocolate. Yeah, yeah. If 98% could count. That's right. It's just, no, what is it, Doug? 85.

85. So it's really low in sugar and it's got dark chocolate, which has its own health problem. So you'd eat like a piece of it and you'd get like a few grams of sugar. It would be very low. I've done this with clients as well. Really dark chocolate can be one of those things

that kind of helps with that craving getting away. Water, just water in general, drink a lot of water. It would be hydrated helps so much because I mean cravings a lot of times will like come up especially when you're dieting. Yes, fruit and then of course fruit, right? Barys are wonderful. They're they taste good, they're high in fiber,

and for fruit, they're relatively low in sugar. You can get a whole bowl of berries, and that'd be too bad at all. And the fiber in the fruit helps it improve, or it gives it more of a satiety effect. So it kind of makes you feel like you don't want to eat anymore. I had like a cocoa whip and blueberry, and then flaxy dish thing that I used to make all the time.

That's absolutely amazing. So yeah, there's a lot of things out there that you can use as replacements. And again, the idea and the relationship, it's like, I remember when we first started working with Magistroom, people were like, you guys are advocating for cereal. It's like, listen, there's a way for you to utilize this as a tool. And it's not something that we're advocating. Somebody has four bowls of this every day and you replace like whole foods. No, never would we say that.

But here's a great example of like a nice transition for somebody who eats a ton of processed sugar all the time to start to wing them off of that and actually get to the place where they're not having to deal with it. Right, here's another one. And this one is just in general, we'll reduce your food intake in general.

And that is to prioritize protein intake, okay? So if you're hitting your protein, if you are 120 pounds, and you're hitting 110 grams of protein a day, which is considered the high protein end of a diet for building muscle, it's good for building muscle, it's good for burning body fat, for most people that works best.

110 grams of protein, 120 pound person, your appetite is going to be limited. When you hit that first, you're satisfied. Yes, when you hit that first, even if you eat sugar later on, you're gonna eat far less. I weigh, you know, two out of them these days, I don't know what I weigh, two, 15 or something like that.

I hit 200 grams of protein a day. I'm full. It 15 or something like that. I hit 200 grams of protein a day. I'm full. It really in studies show this. Protein is extremely stetiety producing. It reduces people's caloric intake tremendously. And protein also burns more calories per gram than fats or carbs. So hit that first, make that a price.

So literally, that's the first thing you need to hit. And you can even make this deal with yourself. If I hit my protein target, then I'll allow myself. I was just going to say that I so this I had a lot of success with this, especially during the competing days where if I had this craving where I really want to sugar, maybe I haven't had it in a while and I don't like that relationship of no, I can't have like, yes, I can if I can, I can balance this out or figure it out. And so I would make this deal with myself that, okay,

if I get my, you know, 35 more grams of protein, which I need to hit my target, you can go have this thing. And nine times out of 10, after you eat that meal, you don't even have that craving anymore. It goes away completely. So I love that, like telling yourself, yeah, you can if you want, but first get what you need

and your body needs, and then see how you feel. So one of two things that ends up happening almost every time for me, either one, I don't even want it and I pass on it, or two, if I do the amount that I indulge in is like, significantly. Well, if you actually weans it out without having to feel like you're punishing yourself.

I think the more we can move away from that mentality, the more successful and long term this will be in your lifestyle. Well, think of it this way. I'll just give you a little scenario. Let's say you want some gummy bears or gummy ones, my favorite, right? That's my favorite candy, gummy candies. We're getting gummies.

Yeah, but they had to be organic. They had to be organic. I want to be healthy candy. But let's say I want to have gummy bears, really bad. And I say to myself, okay, I'll eat the gummy bears after I eat five ounces of chicken breast. Now, think of that in your head. You want a piece of candy,

but you get to eat five ounces of chicken breast first. You're probably not gonna want to do it, candy. Either you're not gonna eat the candy at all and not the chicken breast, or you're gonna eat the chicken breast and you'll have like, you know, a third or a fourth of the candy. That's right.

And now, I want to eat anymore. Now, the next thing, this one we've talked about many, many times, very important. This is important, especially in this category, which is to avoid just heavily processed foods in general. Here's the funny thing. Heavily processed foods, I said early in this episode, sugar, salt, and fat. What are the three things that they add to almost all processed foods to improve their palatability? All those. Yeah, talking about sodium, for example,

everybody's, you know, we've heard so many times, you don't wanna eat too much sodium, it's bad for your blood pressure, bad for your heart, blah, blah, blah. Here's the truth, you cut out processed foods, you can salt the shit out of your food. You can add all the salt you want on your food, you're not gonna eat a lot of sodium.

The people who eat too much sodium eat a processed food diet. Just look at the back of a can of soup or processed whatever, and you'll see even stuff that you don't even think had. Anything in a box or a can, basically. Yeah, just tons of sodium, same thing with sugar, same thing with typically with unhealthy fats and processed oils.

So when you eliminate processed foods, you reduce the food consumption, and you naturally reduce your sugar intake. Now, I do want to make a note on like, what, or at least what this looks like for me. So it doesn't, I don't go from a cold turkey on this either because you know that a lot of this has got sugar already in it. This is part of the, you know, coming off process,

going from, you go from no sugar and no processed food all at once going to be really difficult. So I look at like the greatest offenders. We've talked, we alluded already to like the soda thing. That soda thing would always be one of the issues that I always had. I was allowing that in the diet. So it's like, okay, I'm just gonna limit that.

And whatever number a week I was having, I'm gonna cut it in half and then eventually a quarter and then eventually none. So same thing goes for processed foods. If you're somebody who's eating a ton of, you know, bars and you eat a lot of stuff in wrappers and packages and then I'll send a side you're gonna get off the sugar thing and you're gonna go completely cold turkey.

I would look at one or two of the biggest offenders in that category and go from, you know, whatever you do in a week to cutting it in half, to cutting in a quarter to eventually none the same way. So even though it's not just, because you think sugar and we automatically think of like sugar cane or artificial sweeteners, but it's, just, because you think sugar, and we automatically think of sugar cane or artificial sweeteners, but a lot of that is hidden in these processed foods. And so that is part of the process

of coming off the sugar is also we can get off that. Well, and it's actually interesting too. I've had clients and also even Courtney, like I've seen this before too, where we make this, like we're definitely trying to limit our sugar intake, but also that tends to open up like more chips and more nuts and more things with salt and things and sort of like turns our focus more on

like getting those kind of snacky foods which then adds up and then the calories are still there and everything else. So in terms of like always having to have like these certain things available and snack on, like that's something that we need to address behavior at least. Well, yeah, just get rid of the process, most of the process foods get rid of those

and you can do them slowly like Adam said. You know, you brought up hidden sugars. I went to, we made burgers a couple weeks ago with the kids and I had to get ketchup. So I'm in the ketchup aisle and I see low sugar or reduced sugar ketchup. And I think reduced get ketchup. So I'm in the ketchup aisle, and I see low sugar or reduced sugar ketchup. And I think reduced sugar ketchup. Well, I don't know, ketchup had a lot of sugar. So I bought it.

It tasted so weird. I did not realize how much sugar they put in ketchup. When I had reduced sugar ketchup, it tasted like tomato paste. It was really strange. And you're right, look at the back of processed foods, and you would be surprised at the foods that you didn't even think are sweet

or would have sugar, have those added sugar. So get rid of those. I also think that's part of why this is so difficult for some people is they don't realize they're getting all that sugar there, plus their Coke and ice cream. And so the salad dressing, they're like, I mean, salads, it's good.

And then you try and get rid of all that all once, it's just it's so much. So be a pay attention to how much of that that you're having. And again, I like to look at one or two offenders cut in half, cut in quarter, then completely, and I like to do that for like a week. So week one, I'm going for, you know, whatever it was that I was doing,

I'm doing that now half of that, then after that a quarter of that, and then eventually not a year. So you like to go like a hundred gram, let's just hypothetical. A hundred grams of sugar down to 50, then from 50 down to like 25. Yeah, so, and then what I'm counting too,

so I'm not counting fruit, right? I'm counting any like through my processed foods or ice cream or sugar or sodas. Like that's the sugar I'm counting and paying attention to. I'm not paying attention to fruit, because eventually I want fruit to be in my diet on a regular basis and my main source of sugar. So that's the goal is to, I'm not gonna limit,

I'm not counting the sugar that's coming from fruit because that's what's gonna stay in my diet. I'm looking at all other sources of sugar that are in my diet that I want to start to get down and I do, I go half, quarter, none. Yeah, see I do something similar. I'll go, if it was 100 grams of sugar, I'd go 175, 50, 25, zero.

So I would do even, yeah, you're even slower. Yeah, in three weeks time, I'm definitely. You're going through, yeah. Yeah, see they're both very, very similar. You know, it's fun, you brought up fruit. I gotta say this, dried fruit. Oh, be careful, that's good. Dried fruit is not the same as fresh fruit.

It's not the same. You could eat, I could eat, it's not easier to consume. Oh, I could eat, yeah, 10 mangoes in Oh, I could eat 10 mangoes in five minutes if they're dried mangoes. Well, they also add sugar to that. Even if you don't. Yeah, because it's sprinkled sugar on time.

They do, but let's say they don't, because I've even done this while I'll buy the dried fruit, no added sugar, but it doesn't matter because it's dehydrated and it shrunk down. I will literally eat five or six mangoes in one sitting. I'll never do that with fresh fruit. Not the real one. No, so be careful with the dried fruit one sitting. I'll never do that with fresh fruit. No, so be careful with the dried fruit as well.

Now we talked about artificial sweeteners. I don't think that's a good strategy. The only population that I could say artificial sweeteners might help are people who are pre-contest, bodybuilders, physique competitors, bikini competitors, people who everything is measured and dialed in and they're measuring them. And even then, I say, you know what, people who everything is measured and dialed in and they're measuring it? And even then, I say, you know what, stay away from those because the rebound post contest

is going to be kind of nasty. But for the average person, artificial sweeteners don't help. So, you were the one who got me doing this and it actually made a big difference. So back when I was, you know, trying to kick the diet coke, you made a comment about, you know, why don't you just allow yourself to have a regular Coke or a regular drink with sugar in it, so you count it. And I actually found it was easier to do that than to, because when you have diet Coke

and it's zero calories, right? That was the main thing you want. Right, so then you end up having one meal free. Yeah, real quick, I'm having one with every meal, so I'm drinking two, three in a day, and the cravings that I have for sugar are higher than they'd ever be. So when I went over to drinking in the little Hanson Rupiers

that I like that have like, I wanna say 20 something or 30 grams of sugar in it because I know I'm getting sugar, I count it, and I'm aware of it, and I also noticed it because it's not artificial sugar, it doesn't, the cravings aren't as bad for it as from the diet. Is that weird?

You know what I, you know what's funny? People who are addicted to, or who say they're addicted to sugar-free sodas, it's hard, in my experience, it was harder to get my clients to stop drinking those, than clients to drink regular soda. Yeah, that's great. This is, does 100% true. If I had a client who came to me and said,

hey, Sal, I love having a soda every single day, or two sodas every day, that was easier to work with than the person who says, oh, I have, you know, a couple of few two sodas every day. That was easier to work with than the person who says, oh, I have a couple of few diet coaks every day. The diet sodas were so hard for people to kick and I think it's because there's so much stronger in the way that they hit the brain. And it's very, very strange, isn't it?

One thing that I do with soda, because Jessica and I will have one rarely, but if we do, it's what I do, I go to the grocery store and buy one soda for both of us, one, let's split it. And that's it, and then we're done. And if I want more, I gotta drive all the way back to the grocery store, there's that barrier thing again. Look, my pump is recorded on videos,

well as audio, come check us out on YouTube, Mind Pump Podcast. You can also find all of us on social media, that's Instagram and now also on parlor, you can find Justin in at mine pump Justin me at mine pump Sal Adam at mine pump Adam and Doug the producer at mine pump Doug Thank you for listening to mine pump if your goal is to build and shape your body dramatically improve your health and energy and maximize your overall performance

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