Dr. Nicole Avena: Cracking the Sugar Code for a Healthier Life

Discover what happens when the seductive sweetness of sugar meets the science of addiction, as we sit down with Dr. Nicole Avena. Her illuminating research uncovers the alarming parallels between our cravings for sugar and the intense grip of drug addictions. Our discussion takes you deep into the mechanisms of the brain that are hijacked by sugar, reshaping everything we thought we knew about our daily diets. Dr. Avena's new book, "Sugarless," offers a compelling seven-step plan to escape the sugar snare, revealing that the battle against sugar addiction isn't just about willpower—it's about understanding the hidden forces at play in our food and our brains.

If you've ever found yourself reaching for just one more sweet treat despite your best intentions, then this episode will resonate with you. We tackle the controversial intuitive eating movement and its clash with the realities of sugar's addictive nature. It's an eye-opening discussion on the necessity of awareness, and for some, a sugar-free path akin to abstinence from other addictive substances. We question the societal norms around processed foods and investigate the deceptive nature of artificial sweeteners. All this, while providing you with the knowledge to discern between the true needs of your body and the false hunger crafted by sugar's allure.

Armed with Dr. Avena's expert guidance, we round out our chat with actionable steps to regain control over sugar consumption. The transformative journey to a sugarless life isn't a straight line, and we explore the value of patience, resilience, and self-compassion in this process. From revamping nighttime routines to handling social pressures, we share invaluable strategies that promise to empower you in rewriting your food narrative. Join us as we champion a movement towards a healthier, more informed future, one where sugar no longer holds the reins of our well-being.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:04

Welcome to the Kicks Sugar Coat podcast. Join me each week as I interview experts who will share the science of sugar, sugar addiction and different approaches to recovery. We hope to empower you with the information and inspiration, insights and strategies you need to break up with sugar and fall in love with healthy, whole foods so you can prevent and reverse chronic disease, lose weight, boost your mood and energy. Feel free to go to my website for details on my coaching programs and to access free resources KicksSugarCoachcom. Welcome everybody to an interview today with Dr Nicole Levina. Dr Nicole Levina has a new book out that she kindly sent me an advanced copy. It's called Sugarless. Sugarless the seven-step plan to uncover hidden sugars, curb your cravings and conquer your addiction.

Speaker 1: 1:04

Let me tell you a little bit more about Dr Levina. She is a research neuroscientist. She's an expert in the field of nutrition, diet, but in particular sugar and sugar addiction. She's the author of many books, one of which is also called what to Eat when You're Pregnant. She's currently an assistant professor of neuroscience at the Eichens School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, new York City, visiting professor in health psychology at Princeton University. She received her PhD in psychology and neuroscience from Princeton and has completed her postdoc in Rockefeller University as well. She has published over 100 scholarly articles. She has appeared as a consultant and on TV the Dr Oz Show, the Doctors, fox, abc, cnn, you name it. They have reached out to her to ask her to share her wisdom, her research, her pioneering research on the topic of sugar and sugar addiction. Welcome, dr Levina.

Speaker 2: 2:04

Thank you so much, so happy to be here to chat with you.

Speaker 1: 2:07

I just imagine everybody knows who you are, but maybe not. Maybe you could just add a little bit about how you became one of the world leading experts on the topic of sugar and sugar addiction. How did that happen?

Speaker 2: 2:19

Well, it wasn't really something that I had set out to do. I fell into this topic when I started graduate school. I was a brand new graduate student at Princeton University, starting my PhD, and at the time I was working with a professor whose name was Bart Hobel and we just started working together and we were talking about some ideas for a dissertation project for me, which would be this huge event, this big project I've worked on for many, many years. One of the things that we have been talking about was and this is going back into the year 2000, 2001, was how obesity at the time was still being viewed as a moral failure. It was the person's fault that they were obese because they didn't have willpower. This was something that we were hearing more and more about.

Speaker 2: 3:11

As the obesity rates continue to rise, we started to talk about this whole idea that, well, maybe it's not the person's fault, maybe it's the food's fault, Maybe there's something about our food environment that is causing people to not be able to stop overeating these delicious foods that are often rich in added sugars. That set us down this path of looking into whether or not sugar could meet the criteria for being an addictive substance. We did a lot of experiments, published a lot of papers to test that and flash forward now 20 years. There's a lot of research that's amassed, not only from our group but also from others who have done clinical studies and replicated our findings. That's how I got here. It's interesting because I feel like I in some ways have never finished my dissertation because I'm still working on it. But I did finish. I promise they did give me a degree and I have it hanging proudly on the wall. But there's still a lot of work to do.

Speaker 1: 4:19

Thank you for that. So I think that your research brought a good news bad news story to people who struggle with their weight and struggle with obesity. The good news is it really isn't your fault, it's not because you're not disciplined. But the bad news is this that you actually might be addicted to sugar, right? So now you've awakened to the world to the fact this research is not just coming out of this little rocker whatever. You're probably at Princeton at the time when you were doing that research, right? Yeah, it's not just been coming out of Princeton. This has been replicated in universities and countries all around the world multiple times.

Speaker 1: 4:59

We keep coming up with the exact same conclusion Sugar acts like an addictive substance. And then eventually you came along to write a book now to help us get unhooked. So I've gone through this book in detail. I have got lots of little cue cards with questions that I have for Dr Avinah, so I'm going to just randomly pull out some quotes and give you an opportunity to talk about them. So I'm going to read three quotes first and then you can speak to it. On page 93, you state Our early studies of looking at the brains of sugar-addicted rats revealed their brains looked just like they were addicted to drugs, but the only drug they had access to was sugar.

Speaker 1: 5:43

Fmri another quote, page 94,. Fmris and PET scans reveal similarities between brains addicted to drugs and brains addicted to sugar. There is clear evidence of a brain change in rodents and this has been captured across many human studies as well. And the final quote is An addicted brain acts very different from a non-addicted brain and I'm imagining it looks different as well when you do these scans. So tell us about that. What is the difference between? Like how can you tell an addicted brain versus a non-addicted brain?

Speaker 2: 6:24

Yeah, those are great, great questions. I think that it's important to understand that there's multiple things that contribute to the development of addiction, and so we have genetic components, where there's certain people who have certain alleles to the dopamine gene and we know now that those individuals are at greater risk for developing an addiction. That doesn't mean they're going to become addicts in any way, but it does mean that they have a higher risk. When we talk about the brain, we've been looking at a variety of different things. One of the big hallmarks that we've looked at that we've been able to look at, fortunately, using our animal models is the release of dopamine.

Speaker 2: 7:04

Dopamine is a neurochemical in the brain and in reward regions of the brain.

Speaker 2: 7:08

It's associated with pleasure and euphoria, and one of the hallmarks of drugs of abuse is that every time you use a drug of abuse, it releases dopamine in those regions.

Speaker 2: 7:19

And one of the things that we found to be really interesting about sugar was that sugar did the same thing, and that's not typical of food. Normally, foods don't release dopamine every single time you eat them, but sugar seemed to be different, and when we saw our animals binging on sugar, their brains were behaving in the sense that it was like a drug in the sense that they were repeatedly releasing dopamine. So that's really one of the key features that we've focused on that. Looking at other studies, there are regions of the brain that will show heightened activity in humans, especially in response to using drugs as abuse, and if you look at individuals who struggle with obesity or who are overeating, you can see that those same areas of the brain are also overactivated. So we're able to draw quite a few different parallels in terms of the brain science between what happens when someone is using drugs like alcohol, cocaine, heroin, and also what happens when someone is overeating sugar.

Speaker 1: 8:23

Right, and you have another quote that talks about how it's clear that foods high in sugar can change the brain. So what you're talking about is that if I consume sugar, there's clear regions of the brain that light up when a substance of addiction has been brought into the bloodstream. But you're talking about in some places in your book where it actually changes the brain. How does it change the brain and how do you know it has changed the brain?

Speaker 2: 8:50

Well, it changes in a couple of different ways.

Speaker 2: 8:52

So, first of all, it's changing in the way in which the receptors are being expressed for dopamine.

Speaker 2: 8:59

So you're going to have more or less receptors being available depending on your history of use, and that's part of the neuroplasticity that's involved with addiction. That causes these changes, these actual physical changes in the brain. And also one of the things that we see from the addiction side of this is that if your brain is accustomed to over-consuming sugar or using nicotine or drinking too much alcohol, over time, when you don't have access to those substances or you go too long in between having them, you start to show signs of withdrawal. You'll show irritability, crabbiness, lethargy. There's different symptoms depending on the length of use and the type of substance that we're talking about. But the brain will also show those changes in the sense that there'll be alterations in the dopamine system that we can detect and other neurotransmitter systems. So we are able to see these changes that happen not only in terms of the way that our brain looks, but also in terms of the way we act in response to these changes that are occurring inside of our brain.

Speaker 1: 10:09

Right. So interesting Right. Which is why so often 12-step programs, addiction recovery programs will say you know, once the pickle, always a pickle, Once an addict, you're addicted Like it's just your brain has changed. Now when you consume it, you're going to likely be highly responsive and you will crave it and you will be compulsive about it. And it's not healable. It's not like a cold that goes away with time.

Speaker 2: 10:36

I think that it's something that, when people are afflicted with it, they need to be mindful of this forever, in the sense that you know it can. I think, much like with other mental health issues, there's a spectrum when it comes to addiction. You can have a mild substance use disorder or you can have, you know, severe form of substance use disorder, and people can fall in various different places along that spectrum. But I think the important thing to keep in mind is you know, even if you've done a lot of work to change your diet and change your mindset and your relationship with food, that you do need to be aware of that sort of little devil on your shoulder that might always be there. That maybe puts you at a bit greater risk for going back to some of these old behaviors, just because of the simple fact that you have this history.

Speaker 2: 11:28

And I think that knowing that can be really empowering for people, because it does allow them, you know, have ownership over their behavior. It allows them to know that they are, you know, in some degrees in control, but in some degrees out of control, in the sense that if it's an addiction, it's a brain disease, and so, you know, we have to kind of relinquish that piece of it. But we can make changes in our behavior and we can make changes in our environment. We can work on our relationship with food. We can work on you know how we have viewed food in our social circles and you know how we want it to be a part of our life and all that can help to contribute to people. You know being able to live amongst the sugar Right, right.

Speaker 1: 12:10

To get free and stay free. That kind of leads me to a quote that you have on page 96, where you're talking about how rats studies show that rats are quote unquote response response extinction resistant. They refuse to accept that sugar is no longer available, that they seem more stubborn about refusing to believe that when they hit that lever, their sugar is not going to come. What was that all about? What does that research tell you?

Speaker 2: 12:35

So that was our way of really trying to understand the craving component. I think that the craving component is something that is a very unique situation for humans, because we can articulate that, we can say I'm craving this stuff, I really, really want it. And so when we were interested in studying this from a biological standpoint with our lab rats you know, one of the studies that we did was we had them in a cage where they could press a lever and then they would get access to sugar. Little sugar bottle would come out and they could drink sugar, and there was a signal that would come on to let them know that. You know, you could press the lever. Now A light bulb would come on, and when the light bulb came on, if you press the lever you get the sugar.

Speaker 2: 13:17

And rats learned this really quickly, and what we would do then is, after they've learned this really well, suddenly one day we would put the light bulb on, but the lever wouldn't produce sugar, and so a rational rat would press the button a couple times, lever a couple times, and realize, oh, I guess it's broken. The rules have changed and this doesn't work anymore. I'm no longer going to get sugar if I press the lever. So there's no point in pressing the lever and that's called response extinction. So normal rats would slowly but surely just stop bothering pressing the lever.

Speaker 2: 13:56

But what we found is that a rat that were addicted to sugar. They kept at it. They kept pressing that lever even though they knew that the light bulb's on and nothing's coming out of the tube we're not getting sugar. So it's in many ways indicative of how powerful the substance is, that they're craving it, that they're not willing to give up trying to get it. And I think humans can relate to this if people have had experiences opening the refrigerator and hoping to see a slice of cake and it's not there. And they know it's not there. But they maybe open it again and they're looking around and hoping that something's going to magically appear and it doesn't happen. And I think it does really allow us to kind of address this whole concept of craving and how powerful it can be and how there is a biological basis to that as well.

Speaker 1: 14:47

Right, right, right. It's interesting as well that you said that 94% of rats preferred sugar over cocaine and you said it sort of suggests that the sugar reward might be even greater than the cocaine reward.

Speaker 2: 15:01

Yeah, I think that that particular study was interesting because I think it really does speak to the salience of sugar, and the fact that rats are able to find the sugar so rewarding even more rewarding than a very highly addictive drug that we all know about to me really suggests that this particular substance it can take on properties of an addictive substance in a very powerful way. And I think that it's important to keep that in mind, and especially when we think about the pervasiveness of sugar and how it's in so many of the foods that we eat. I mean, could you imagine if cocaine was sprinkled in different foods, that we weren't aware of it, or there was as much cocaine in our food supply as there is sugar? It would be a very, very dangerous situation. And I think when we look at what's happening now with our processed foods and just the amount of sugar that we're finding in our foods, it's really alarming and I think it's scary.

Speaker 1: 16:07

It is scary, especially for children, if they're getting so much access to it and they're getting so young, so young. One thing that I found interesting is that you said that the longer cravings for a particular substance can intensify, the longer you abstain from it. Rodents give an access, then, deprived it, intensified their seeking behaviors. So my attic brain tells me, dr Nicola, right See, if you deny yourself Lawrence, if you deprive yourself, you're just gonna want it more. So all those intuitive eaters are right, like, all foods are equal, just have a little, eat it when you want, just like, don't make a big deal out of it and it'll all heal and the whole problem will go away. So that's what my attic brain says. When I hear that, what would you like to say to that?

Speaker 2: 16:54

Well, you know, I do think that the intuitive eating idea I think there is a place for it. But when it comes to something like sugar, I don't really see how we can expect people to be able to moderate to that degree. And I think that you know, like I said earlier, there's gonna be a spectrum here where there are people who maybe have like a mild form of a sugar addiction where they know they're consuming too much and they want to cut back and they want to be able to reduce it down to the point where they can intuitively enjoy it. But I think there are a lot of people who aren't anywhere near that point where you know they really need to take some more drastic measures to reduce their sugar intake tremendously. Because the thing that's interesting about sugar is, even if you say that you are a very you know diligent planner of your diet and you aren't eating any sugar, you would be surprised if you were to, you know, go and actually write down what you're eating. And I have this as one of the exercises in my new book, sugarless, where, if you really write down everything you eat and then take stock and look at the nutrition facts labels for a few days, you'd be shocked to see how much sugar is in your diet, even if you think you're eating healthy. It's just hidden in so many things. So I think that you know for many people that goal of moderation is a goal that might take a while to get to and it's not something that you know people can just say, okay, fine, I'll only have one cookie. You know for many individuals they need to go for a significant amount of time without having any cookies and then, once they feel that they're in control and then maybe can slowly start to.

Speaker 2: 18:41

You know, have this intuitive type of relationship with food. It could work. But I mean, my argument is, with the intuitive eating movement, you know there are no such things as good foods and bad foods. That's part of the messaging that they have. I don't even think cookies and cakes are food. I don't see them as necessary for us to survive Like our ancestors grew for thousands of years without eating donuts and cookies and lattes that had 60 grams of sugar in them. So I don't look at those things as foods per se that, you know, nourish your body and fuel you. They're man-made concoctions and so for people to be expected to intuitively eat those things. I'm not really sure that that makes a lot of sense, because I don't know if our brains were designed to intuitively eat those man-made designer foods.

Speaker 1: 19:37

Right. Right, so we can trust ourselves when it comes to whole foods, but if we're being pulled in the direction of processed foods, probably there's an addiction in play, because what body, truly in their right mind, would ever call for something that's so damaging and detrimental? It doesn't make any sense, it doesn't support life.

Speaker 2: 19:54

It's true, and then if you take a look at, you know what I would be considering real foods like fruits and vegetables. I mean proteins. It's not really common for people to have problems with overconsumption of those. I don't really know too many people that you know have diabetes because they're eating too many strawberries. Right, it's because of these highly processed foods it's causing these conditions, and so I think that the foods that our brains were designed to eat, we could eat intuitively and we do, but it's these designer foods that I'm not sure if that really works.

Speaker 1: 20:36

Right. So intuition in the context of abstinence, in the context of whole foods only, maybe. Maybe you can get away with, rare exceptions aside, if you're low on the addiction spectrum, and probably not if you're on the high. You're gonna just keep finding if I have a little, I want more. I've run this experiment many times. Right, how about I just let it go? Yeah.

Speaker 2: 20:57

And I think it really boils down to the individual and deciding. You know, maybe just like with alcohol, I mean, there are people who are various different spectrums of having issues with alcohol use and some people get to the point where life is just easier to just not drink it at all. It removes a decision from them to have to make and it's just, that's it. It's one decision. They just decide I'm just not gonna drink alcohol anymore, I don't need it, I don't want it, end of story. But then there's people who are able to do more of a harm reduction approach where, okay, maybe they've been drinking too much, they want to cut back, like a lot of people are doing this in dry January, right, where you know they say, okay, I'm not gonna have any alcohol in January, I'm gonna have a reset, and so again, you know, these are different parts of that spectrum of substance use dependence where different people can fall and the strategies that are gonna work are gonna be different depending on where people are on that spectrum.

Speaker 1: 21:54

Yes, and it was very interesting. You said something about oh sorry, I think it just went out of my head. Oh my gosh, it was something in your book about how rodents in your studies and rats in your studies if they had minimal and only occasional exposure to sugar, their likelihood of becoming addicted was much less. Yes, the more exposure and the more you know, the more the amount was higher and the exposure was higher, they were more predisposed to become addicted to it, which is frightening because all of our kids are being massively daily inundated with processed refined carbohydrates.

Speaker 2: 22:32

Right, and that's really the problem, is that if we compare this to our rat studies, we're all the experimental rats. We're all the rats that are binging on sugar and having it day in and day out. You know there's very, very few people that would fall into the control groups of people who are having sugar once in a while. Right, and I think that's really where the problem lies, is that we're all at risk for developing a sugar addiction. And even if right now especially as you mentioned about young children, there's resistance among parents often to acknowledge it, because their kids are thin and they don't have any health problems, and you know they're doing good at school and they're behaving, and you know there's no issue, and you know parents like to think well, let me just let them have what they want. They enjoy themselves.

Speaker 2: 23:25

I hear this quite a bit and my response is always okay. But you know they might be healthy right now on the outside, but you don't know necessarily what their liver looks like and you don't know what's going on in terms of their blood, and you also are setting them up for a lifetime of problems when their health issues do manifest. And so when they're in their 20s and 30s and they start to get high blood pressure and cardiovascular issues. You know, now they've trained their palates to be constantly expecting sugar, sugar, sugar, so it's going to make it more difficult for them to deal with those problems later on, and so that's why, you know, I don't like to be this sort of you know, sugar police when it comes to children.

Speaker 2: 24:11

I have my own kids and so I, you know, can totally experience this from a parent's perspective too. But I think we need to think about the long game and you know, yeah, we want our kids to, you know, have fun and enjoy treats at birthday parties, and that's fine. But I think we also need to look at it within the broader context of what does our daily diet look like if they're having a pastry for breakfast and something else sugary for lunch? I mean, it's? It's really gotten to the point where kids could basically go all day long eating sugar, and it's often marketed and portrayed as actually not being all that unhealthy.

Speaker 1: 24:47

Right, right, right, it's harmless. Come on, yes, They'll burn it off, They'll be fine. Now one of the other things that was really interesting in your book and I hope I can find the quote. Let me just see, Mmm. It was about oh, I know I have a cue card on it. It was something about artificial sweeteners and low-calorie sweeteners and how rat studies showed. Here it is page 70. As a result, the rats gained weight and body fat. Artificial sweeteners causing weight gain and obesity were also observed in humans. Several research studies show low-calorie sweeteners positively associate with higher BMI and this was fascinating. Sit down everybody. Artificial sweeteners also affected the release of GLP1 and the body and slow down metabolism and the body wound up burning less calories. Yeah, so people are on a Zempack, right? So if they're taking an artificial sweetener that reduces their naturally occurring GLP1 and then it's actually slowing down their capacity to burn calories, it's making them obese and then they're going to a drug that would maybe naturally be in their bodies in greater number. It is such a vicious cycle.

Speaker 2: 26:06

It is. It is, and it's interesting that you mentioned that about the GLP system, because, yeah, I mean, the problem is that I think artificial sweeteners and these non-nutrient sweeteners they were marketed as our savior Right. It's like, oh, you can have your cake and eat it too. You can have something sweet and it won't have the calories. And I think that's because for the longest time we were afraid of the calories that were linked to sugar and it was somehow taught to us that it's the fact that sugar has calories and that's what's making it bad. But now we know that that's not the case. It's actually just the sweet taste that's making it bad.

Speaker 2: 26:49

I mean, yes, the calories don't help, because that's what contributes to obesity and to many of these other health issues that can arise, but it's the sweet taste that drives the addiction.

Speaker 2: 27:00

And so we've even done studies that I refer to in the book, where if you have just the sweet taste on your tongue, not even ingesting the calories, so if you just have any of these sweeteners, it can affect the brain in a way.

Speaker 2: 27:15

That's just like what happens with real sugar, and so your brain doesn't necessarily know that you're having a non-nutritive sweetener or you're having one of these other alternative sweeteners. It just tastes sweet and it thinks, oh, we're having sugar. And so again, I really have kind of mixed feelings about these artificial sweeteners. I don't completely distrust them or kind of dismiss them, because I do think for some individuals, especially people who are really, really struggling with added sugar, that psychologically using some of these can be helpful to bridge them away from added sugar. But I do think that the end game should be to reduce your dependence on all sweeteners. We've become so accustomed to having everything be so sweet, it's become so normalized, that now we just expect it. And so that's really the challenge is kind of breaking that association, and it doesn't have to always be so sweet.

Speaker 1: 28:17

Right. And we don't give up sugar when we give up the modern refined ones. There's sugar in fruits and vegetables and grains and everything. All the plant kingdom have glucose and various different forms of sugar in them. We don't go sugar less, we just have healthy whole forms of sugar and they're plenty satisfying once we recalibrate our taste buds just in time.

Speaker 2: 28:36

Yeah, it's true, and that's that one of the really I'd say the biggest tenet of my book is it's not completely sugar less, it's sugar less, having less sugar on ward. It's really going toward getting rid of the added sugar. Because, it's true, I talk about how fruits can be your best friend when you having a sugar craving, because they're naturally sweet and they contain sugar, and so it's not really about you know, like you said I love the way you said it about you know, it's about embracing the fact that, yeah, if we look at these natural foods that contain sugar, those are the ones that can help us and make us feel satisfied. But the problem is that, you know, we've become so accustomed to these over sweetened, man made, processed foods that people don't taste grapes and think they taste sweet anymore, because if you're a chocolate bar or granola bar or you know any of these other things, it doesn't. They don't taste sweet, they just taste different.

Speaker 1: 29:34

Right. Yes, I remember, as I was on the show, this journey, that tasting Brussels sprouts and crying oh my Lord, they're almost overwhelmingly sweet. Almonds are sweet, iceberg, let it. You can taste the glucose in all whole foods once you've recalibrated. So we're not going to go without the pleasure of sugar and sweet. It's just in the healthy whole food forms. There was a quote that you said on page 94, that I had to have read probably about four times. I'm like I have no idea what this is. I'm going to interview her. I'll ask her. Here's the direct words Studies show the endogenous opioids are altered when addicted to sugar, just like when someone is addicted to opiates. What does that mean?

Speaker 2: 30:18

So in our brain we have what are known as endogenous opioids, and so, basically, we have our own natural painkiller. So if I were to, let's say, you know stuff, my toe when I get up, it's going to hurt, and so my brain will release its own form of opioids to travel to that part of my body to make it not hurt anymore, right? So we have these ways in which we can help to control our own pain. We have what's known as a pain gate, and the opioids that are endogenously in our bodies work through that. That same with you know, substances that are opiates. They can also affect the opioid system, and that's how come they can, you know, make people feel really, really, really good, to the point where they get addicted to them.

Speaker 2: 31:11

So what's interesting about sugar is that we've found in some of our studies that when we looked at the brains of our rats, that we could see that the endogenous opioid systems were altered, meaning that just by eating sugar it looked like the rats were using morphine. The receptors for those opioids in their brain were upregulated, and so in many ways, this is why sugar is a painkiller for some people. It's an emotional painkiller Because, if you think about it. If you're upset or you have a bad day and you want to make yourself feel better, we either consciously or subconsciously might turn to sugar and it will self-sude us, it'll make us feel better, and part of the way that happens is through those opioids in our brain, and so in many ways it is like taking a painkiller, and that is part of the reason why a lot of times, people find that, just like they get addicted to painkillers, they can get addicted to sugar because they're using it in a similar fashion.

Speaker 1: 32:20

So it's literally acting like an opiate in the human body. Sugar is an opiate.

Speaker 2: 32:26

Yes, it's affecting the endogenous opioid system. So, yeah, it's acting like an opiate.

Speaker 1: 32:32

And does it affect it in the sense that it lowers our own production of endogenous opioids, like? Does it do any sort of permanent alteration, or is it just coming into the bloodstream, binding into the opiate receptor sites, acting like a painkiller, and then it clears, like all their painkillers, out of the system when we're back at baseline, or is it altering our baseline?

Speaker 2: 32:54

No, it alters the baseline, and so that's part of the contributing factor as to why, just like with prescription opiates, often you need more and more and more of them right in order to feel good, and this is part of the problem with painkillers and why we'd have, you know, in many reasons why we have, you know, the epidemic of people who are addicted to opiates right now is because the dose will only be effective for so long, and the same with sugar. That's why we see sugar doses escalating over time. People need more and more. That's why you know, if you're having a bad day, a bite of ice cream is probably not going to satisfy your pain, but you seem that you're feeling better if you have several, several bites right. And so over time, that need goes up, and that's because the brain has shown alterations in the receptors for the opioids and they're expecting more and more in order to feel that same euphoria.

Speaker 1: 33:58

Right, right. And when you take it away you're not, you know, consuming sugar all day long. Then you're left without enough of our naturally occurring endorphins feel good neurotransmitters, so we're left short and then we can wind up feeling like depressed and anxious and weepy and that kind of stuff.

Speaker 2: 34:16

Yeah, and I think you know part of the issue too is much like with painkillers. You know painkillers are going to make you feel really good, really quick, right, your aches and pains are going to go away much quicker than if you know you were to sit there and like, let's say, if you had a back injury. You know you're going to do some really deep stretching or, you know, put ice on it and you do these other methods. Those other methods might help to alleviate pain to some degree, but not as quickly and not as well as the painkiller would.

Speaker 2: 34:47

And the sugar is the same way. I mean we can. You know, if you have a bad day or you're, you know, just not feeling well and you need something to uplift you, you could go call a friend, you could go for a run, you could, you know, do all this stuff. But we've become accustomed to the quick fix, which is often, you know, let's just grab something that's got a bunch of sugar in it Totally Almost at the end of the research stuff and then we'll go, we'll move to the solution.

Speaker 1: 35:14

So you you talked to Fairbid about food cues and how People that tend to overeat, sugar over consume, maybe have weight issues, show a greater sensitivity, that the cue comes up and the brain lights up the dopamine's already flowing and then they're more likely to cave and to eat it. And one party of a book in page 87, it said one large study showed food cues can influence food choices 45 studies, 3,000 participants and there was clear greater sensitivity to food cues in the brains of individuals who are overweight and that the more sugar they consumed, the more sensitive they were to these cues and that the cues themselves can spike dopamine. I don't know if you wanted to add anything to that.

Speaker 2: 36:03

No, I mean, I think the cues are a really big part of this and we have to keep in mind the food cues are all around us. It's the marketing, it's the advertisements, it's just the normalization of having these processed foods everywhere we go. And so I think we need to keep that in mind, that even when we're not purposely seeking out those cues or paying attention to them, we're still being exposed to them.

Speaker 1: 36:31

And how important it is to protect our brains right From the sites the cell smells. Then maybe we don't. For the first 30 days it's a recommendation and most well-stepped food food addiction recovery programs don't need out. Don't socialize. You have to great, but avoid it if you can like. Give your brain the opportunity to feel strong before it starts getting pulled, pulled off course. Okay, awesome, so your solution. So you talk about how there's the three rules, the three rules that get us started on the path of eating less sugar. What are those?

Speaker 2: 37:09

Well, one of the things that I put together when I was developing this strategy and this was based off of not only the research that we've done and that I've been following from others for many, many years, but also about what practically works from a psychological standpoint, and I really put a lot of effort into evaluating the diet culture and how we have this diet industry that is built upon people failing, because if we had a diet plan that would work, then people wouldn't need any other diet plan, and so one of the things that is one of the rules that I have in sugar less is that we have steps that are outlined there's like a seven step plan but the steps aren't linear, meaning that you don't work your way through the steps and then it's over and you close the book. That's not how this is really meant to be. This is meant to change your relationship with food. It's meant to be something where you're on a journey and you're not trying to lose 10 pounds for your high school reunion or you're not looking at this from the standpoint of some goal that is on that level. It's about changing your relationship with food to improve your health, and so, as people work through the steps. It allows them to be able to do some of the things that normally would cause people to just throw in a towel. So part of it is being able to take a step back and maybe you need to reevaluate your relationship with the beverages that you're having and work on that, because you thought you had that under control but you don't, because you're finding that you're craving these sugary lattes when you walk past the store.

Speaker 2: 38:58

And so building at a level of forgiveness I think was important, because it allows people to be normal humans and, as we're in this environment, I mean we're not able to control our environment. I mean we're having these things thrown at us. We have social situations thrown at us. We have just all kinds of different things that happen haphazard schedules, work life, issues that aren't always gonna make it easy for us to control what we have in front of us, and in some cases that might cause someone to maybe eat some stuff that now they wish they didn't. In a traditional diet plan that would be telling somebody oh you failed, now you didn't do it right, so go back to square one. But that's not how I have this developed. I have it developed where setbacks are something that we can embrace, because we learn from them, and that's part of the journey. We're not in this linear relationship with sugar. We're in this relationship that's going to evolve as time goes on.

Speaker 1: 40:03

Right. Your three roles were don't rush, take your time unfold. Maybe take out drinks first, right. Then work on your breakfast and work on your dinner, then finalize with lunch. Like it's just a gentle, like just take all the frantic and the self-criticism out of it. Is there anything you wanted to say? Do you wanna go over the seven steps of recovery or do you wanna highlight some?

Speaker 2: 40:28

or Well, I think that the way that I organized the steps was really to kind of break this issue down. For people who are maybe coming into the whole idea of sugar being addictive for the first time, and now for some people that can be a hard pill to swallow to be able to say I'm addicted to sugar. Some people have a hard time making that makes sense to them and sort of embracing that. So, understanding that it's okay if you are addicted to sugar, there's lots of people who are addicted to sugar and then there's a community of people that you can rely on and there's support, and really that's what the book is about. It's about sort of living in a world if you're addicted to sugar and how you navigate that world, especially because it's a very sugar-centric world. And I think that's one of the steps is admitting that you're addicted to sugar. And it's silly because some people are able to okay, fine, like I think a lot of people who are your followers will have no problem admitting that because that's really been something that they've known for quite a while. But other people are resistant to it. There's still stigma around addiction for certain reasons that I still cannot figure out, and then it's not even for a stigma with just sugar addiction, but there's stigma around alcohol addiction and drug addiction. So I do think that it's important that people consider that piece of it and that that's a big step for a lot of people, and so I think that that's one of the more important steps.

Speaker 2: 42:04

And then some of the other steps are really around dealing with cravings and social situations and how do we navigate in this world. Because I think that's the real fear that people have when they decide that they are going to try to reduce their added sugar is that they're going to have to live some fake life that they don't want to live, like they're not going to be able to go to the places they want and eat the things that they want and be with the people that they want, and they're going to have to create this lifestyle. That really isn't what they want to do. But that's absolutely not true, because in the book I walk through okay, if you feel you're able to go to a restaurant and want to go with friends or family and have a dinner, here are the options for foods that are good choices that are likely to be sugar free.

Speaker 2: 42:56

Here are the questions to ask the server to find out if the food has sugar in it. Like, here are the things you need to be mindful of. And then even with preparing your own foods, let's just say you're a big coffee drinker and you just love that creamer, right? Well, I have recipes in the book for sugarless coffee creamer that's just as delicious and contains no added sugar. And really, just making those changes and tweaks to your everyday habits, you're still doing the same thing, you're just doing it a little bit differently, and it's going to make a huge difference in your health, because over time, those small changes really amount to a lot of change when it comes to your health.

Speaker 1: 43:39

Hmm, totally yes. One of the tips I really liked in your book is you said if you tend to eat at night, exercise at night. And I thought that was brilliant, partly because I'm well aware that, because I work in the addiction space as well, that I know that most of us will reach for an addictive substance for one of two effects one to give us energy, to stimulate us, or two to sedate us.

Speaker 1: 44:05

Right, because we're just looking to get numb and to check out and to be comforted and to get distracted from whatever emotions or intensities happening in our bodies, or to give us some energy. Just give me a little lift. I've got two more hours before the kids go to bed and I still have a little longer to do and we'll reach for something to sort of give us a bit of a lift. Wow, If you're aware at the end of the night that you're pulling, you're pulling through, you're opening the covers and you're looking for something you're probably looking for either to be quiet, to go to bed early, to take time to go meditate or to get some energy. So go exercise. Right, If your body, what it actually wants the sugar is temporary, Give it what it really wants. It wants one of those two states, which is it, and then give it to it, right?

Speaker 2: 44:50

It's so true, and a lot of it, like you said, a lot of this is habitual, a lot of this, and I find that quite a few people who struggle with food addiction are really pretty good at managing it during the day, but once the sun goes down it gets tough, and it's again because they've spent so much energy and worked so hard throughout the day to get to that point that they're exhausted and they're really just searching, like you said, for something to help numb them and soothe them.

Speaker 2: 45:28

And it's something that, really, when you sit down and look at your behaviors and the times when you tend to go for sugar and the times when you tend to be craving it, you can often pinpoint it to exact triggers, exact times a day, exact situations, and I mean we're not going to erase those situations or make them not happen, but what we can do is understand that, okay, if I tend to really start to get a sugar craving when I'm trying to cook dinner and the kids are asking for help with homework and the dog's barking and there's like a lot of chaos, I might say, okay, we need to revise that so that it's not so chaotic, so that I don't get that sugar craving, and so it can really be reflective when you start to look at the day to day activities that are what are triggers for many people's cravings for sugar.

Speaker 1: 46:20

Oh, and I back to that whole idea of a cue, a cue leading to the food thought, the food urge, that then you know, so do. We have to fight, and often we don't have the energy to fight it, we just it's easier to give in. So what are those times a day, those triggers that we can start to get smart about and then find alternatives or avoid them? Yeah, so to recap, in terms of the science, what Dr Evina says in her book is she makesa very compelling case that it's not just the properties of sugar, refined processed sugars, it's actually sweet, any sweet, any and all sweet can activate the addiction. She points out that rats, sweet little rats living in their little cages, no trauma, no psychological issues are all the same. They're running around, doing their little thing. They can become addicted.

Speaker 1: 47:08

So this whole sort of you know there's two different ways that we've been blamed for our addictions, like the obese have been blamed for being weak-willed If you just get pushed away from the table, you know there would be no problem or the addicts are also under this and under the same sort of microscope. Or like well, what are your issues? You know what happened in your childhood? Hello, irrelevant. Okay, first of all, let's be clear this is what addiction is. You consume a substance, in this case sugar it activates the addictive response. Dr Evina's research shows clearly in rats and now clinical trials in humans, that it alters the brain, alters the endogenous opiates system. It has a neurophysiological impact on our bodies. It is first foremost and fundamentally a neurophysiological experience. That's what it is. And so all this other stuff wonderful to look at our issues, wonderful to do, you know, all that other good stuff but fundamentally, if we're going to deal with a neurophysiological problem, we need to keep it simple and not consume the substance that activates. You know, like the problem is clear. The solution is clear no first bite, no problem.

Speaker 1: 48:26

But the other piece then this gets into the solution piece is that the journey, the journey to where we want to wind up being the whole food man, the whole food woman, is one that Dr Evina's book is different than other books in this space because it is more harm reduction oriented. It's more for the beginner, it's more for the person who's just going. What sugar could be addictive, like why, what do I do now? Takes you very gentle. She has this wonderful quote where she says research shows that people who stick with their dietary changes long term, don't have an all or nothing approach. They're flexible. There'll be ups and downs. They acknowledge those, they allow for those, that they're on a journey is possibly a multi-year journey and to just slowly move in the direction of where we want to go, so that we're not doing this, these extreme sort of deprivation and then binging cycles that we can see in the whole diet culture.

Speaker 2: 49:24

Yeah, it's you articulated so well. I love hearing you talk about the book. It's so true, and you know, again, that's really my goal. It's like an anti-diet book, because there are plenty of diet books out there. People want to follow them. That's great. There's tons of options.

Speaker 2: 49:42

I really wanted this to be very different. It's a book about psychology and it's a book about health and neuroscience and how our food environment is laying on top of all those things. And what does that mean? And I really think that you know, even though the book is designed to help people who are struggling with a food addiction, it is beneficial to anyone who's looking to reduce their intake of added sugar.

Speaker 2: 50:12

And, let's face it, we all can stand to reduce our intake of added sugar. When we look at the statistics, you know, depending on which surveys you're looking at, between 17 to 22 teaspoons a day of added sugar is what the average American is consuming, and you know we're really supposed to be consuming much, much, much less than that. And so I think it's a great tool for anybody who's really just interested in improving their health by getting off of the dependence on added sugar, because if you have to make one change that I can guarantee you will improve your health. You start reducing your added sugar. You're going to see your health is going to go in the right direction.

Speaker 1: 50:55

Absolutely. Is there any final words you'd like to share with the audience today?

Speaker 2: 51:00

Well, I just want to thank you for this wonderful interview and really just I hope it encourages people to just keep on the journey. And you know, like you said, it's about being gentle with yourself and forgiving. And you know understanding that we're living in a food environment where people are constantly throwing sugar at us and so some is going to land on you at some time and that's okay, but we just need to work through it and I do think we need to really think about how our food environment is changing and I'm hoping that the book will inspire, you know, some serious changes that can happen so that we can really reduce our dependence on added sugar, if not for ourselves, but for the next generations to come.

Speaker 1: 51:49

Absolutely. Thank you so much for your time today and for writing your book.

Speaker 2: 51:53

Oh, thank you.

Speaker 1: 51:55

Bye, betty. Thanks for tuning in this week. If you would like more interviews, more information and more inspiration on how to break up with sugar, go to my YouTube channel KicksugarCoach or my website KicksugarCoachcom. See you next week.