How To Break Your Sugar Addiction in Only 4 Days

On the GreenSmoothieGirl lecture tour of 450 U.S. cities, I was asked one question, over and over:

How do I break my sugar addiction?

And I suspect that far more of us want to ask this question, relative to the few brave enough to say it out loud.

Because we all have Shame about our food addictions. We’d all love to get off sugar.

I’m going to talk about how the Shame Monster is your worst enemy, if you’re addicted to sugar. Worse than the chemical addiction, maybe. And then I’m going to tell you the somewhat triumphant, somewhat humiliating story of my Year of No Sugar.

In this post:

• 6 Things You Need to Break a Sugar Addiction
• Shame Feeds Sugar Addiction
• How I Broke My Sugar Addiction with a Bet
• A Four-Day Sugar Challenge Even Kids Can Do
• What You Can Expect When You Go Off Sugar

6 Things You Need to Break a Sugar Addiction

But first, here’s what you need to get off sugar once and for all (I eat it occasionally now, but it doesn’t own me as it used to):

• An accountability buddy. Someone who is truly willing to do something difficult. Someone as motivated as you are to break the grip of sugar in their life.

• A serious, hardcore bet. One where the reward or punishment is bigger than your cravings and your fear of failure.

• Four days with no sugar at all, not even natural sugar from fruit. This will knock down 90% of your craving.

• Some positive, loving self-talk. For one, a commitment to shifting thought patterns and self-talk, loving yourself instead, when Shame starts to creep in. (More on that next.) And two, daily affirmations that life is sweet, even without the “nice girl’s crack cocaine.”

• Some touchstones to come back to daily and, later, weekly. Journaling how you’re doing, texting your "accountbilibuddy," posting on social media. Be accountable. Don’t be silent for weeks, because then it’s too easy, in a moment of weakness, to drop out. Write down the gains in your energy, health, cravings, control of your life.

• Celebrate your wins. When it’s been a week. When it’s been a month. When it’s been a year (if you feel ambitious). Celebrate with something that isn’t, you know, sugary.

When you set yourself up for success, state your intentions to the world (social media is great for that), and hold yourself and your buddy accountable, you’re going to win.

You’ll have to brace yourself for the first few days, when your cravings will feel like they’re going to kick your butt. They won’t last. And we really have to talk about Shame.

Shame Feeds Sugar Addiction

The most toxic and negatively charged human emotion is Shame.

Why am I capitalizing it? Because we have a lot of it, wrapped around the foods we vow, in the morning, to quit forever—the same food we secretly stuff in our mouths in the afternoon and evening.

You’ve likely heard the story about the dopamine cycle created by addictive foods, so I’ll spare you. Knowing that you’re in the grip of a chemical, every day, every week, every year—that knowledge doesn’t really help.

You’re also aware of the way sugar adds inches to your belly, causes your energy to crash right when you need the most productivity, and puts you at risk for cancer.

And blah, blah, blah.

It’s the Shame I’m more concerned about. Let’s just own it, shall we?

If we don’t have a sugar addiction, we have a salt addiction. (Some of us are unlucky enough to be obsessed with both sugary and salty foods.)

[Related: 90 Seconds to Reframe And Release Any Negative Emotion]

Both kinds of junk food come with high risks to our health—and even though we know all that, we’ve got a bag of Peanut M&M’s in the bottom drawer at work, or a box of powdered-sugar mini-donuts in our underwear drawer at home.

Where we put them says it all. They’re hidden. More often than not, we eat our sugary junk food when no one’s looking.

And as if the toxic food isn’t bad enough, then we emotionally beat ourselves up about it.

“I’m so self-disciplined about other things—I work out, I have a successful career, I got a master’s degree, for crying out loud—why does sugar own me?”

And the self-loathing keeps the cycle going, with the Shame driving the sugar binge habit underground.

And we wake up the next morning, vowing to do better. I’m going to tell you how I beat my sugar addiction for good. It started with a big, bold move.

Break Your Sugar Addiction: My Sugar Bet

Years ago, my dear friend Matthew and I took on a one-year Sugar Bet. It was a vow of sugar celibacy.

If one of us failed, we owed $10,000 to the other. (Plus, the loser had to eat a silkworm, which is apparently the worst thing you’ve ever eaten--or a dead tarantula, and other humiliations and horrors.)

Before I tell you the outcome, I’ll share my ugly, humiliating moment–then later, I’ll share his.

(And ask his forgiveness after this post is published. Or just hope he doesn’t read it.)

We jointly set some rules that naturally sweet foods, like fruits, were legal.

But no birthday cake, donuts at the office, soda, no chemical sweeteners (like what’s in diet soda) were allowed—not even ketchup.

(Yep, ketchup is chock full of the worst kind of sugar, corn syrup.)

Six months into my year, feeling great, I was in Hawaii on a lecture tour, and my friend, Debbie, and I were doing a little window shopping in town. We stopped for lunch and both had a salad.

Then, the waiter asked if we wanted dessert, and Debbie ordered a brownie with hot fudge and ice cream. I declined, and had a moment of panic.

Here’s the problem: the only temptation trigger worse than a brownie, for this girl, is a brownie with hot fudge and vanilla ice cream.

My instinct told me to run. Debbie wouldn’t have minded. But my ego said, “Nah, you got this.”

As she began eating her dessert, Debbie, who had momentarily forgotten my vow, asked me if I wanted a bite.

A strange thing happened in my mind. This Big Fat Lie seemed completely rational, for as long as it took for me to grab a spoon:

“We’re in Hawaii. Coconuts are fruit. I mean, that’s probably coconut ice cream right there, right? The brownie could be sweetened with coconut sugar … which is kind of like fruit. I mean, I don’t know they AREN’T, so … I could plead ignorant?”

I picked up the extra spoon on the side of the plate, and took one delicious, gooey bite.

A sick feeling settled over me felt like a faraway memory I couldn’t quite place.

The next morning, I went for a run on the beach, and my guilt (and the panic that I really owed Matthew $10,000) swallowed me—unavoidable now–and I actually started crying, while I ran. To be honest, my shame, guilt, and dread at the conversation I had to have, when I got home, ruined the rest of my trip.

I realized that the déjà vu I had as I ate that one illegal bite reminded me of when I was five years old. I put a roll of Lifesavers in my pocket, shopping at a department store with my Dad.

In the car, I tried to eat one, but my guilty feelings wouldn’t let me swallow, and I literally choked, as the candy dissolved in my mouth.

My dad finally asked me what was wrong with me, why my face was red and I couldn’t speak, and was coughing.

And the confession came out, with a flood of tears. My dad took me into the store, to confess to the manager.

Now, at 42 years old, I had no excuse. I went home and gave Matthew $1,000 in cash, and asked him for mercy.

I asked him: Is there was any way I could continue the contest, giving him 10% of the big money I really owed, and I’ll pay the rest if I messed up again?

Days later, he came over to my house, told me he agreed to “mercy” me, and tried to give me the cash back. I refused to take it.

I was grateful for the do-over, and I won’t defend that I talked my way back into the bet. I really wanted to finish. And save face.

(I know, I suck. Followers of my blog told me so. You can comment and tell me so, AGAIN, if you want to. But that’s the story. That’s what happened.)

The year ended, both of us successful, and I was pretty proud. By that point in my life, I was a certifiable “health nut,” but my sugar addiction had dogged me since my earliest memory.

(After all, I was stealing Life Savers at five.)

The night after our bet ended, Matthew showed up on my porch to pick me up for Zumba. And showed me the four King Sized candy bar wrappers he had just eaten.

We’ve had a lot of laughs about that year and the videos we made periodically, which are probably still on YouTube.

An interesting thing happened during those 12 months.

I can’t say I don’t ever eat sugar. Sometimes I do. But not very often. I can go days, and weeks, without it—and I don’t overdo, any more.

That year taught me that life is still sweet, without rewarding myself constantly with sugar.

But it doesn’t have to take you a year or even a month to break your sugar addiction. You can beat a sugar addiction in as little as four days.

A Four-Day Sugar Challenge Even Kids Can Do

My children’s book, The Adventures of Junk Food Dude, is a story about two kids who come from very different homes. I’d like to read you a few pages.

The Green Smoothie Guy is a 2nd Grader who plays sports and eats greens, vegetables, fruits—all the good stuff.

Junk Food Dude (whose real name is revealed later in the story) is his classmate who faces an all-too-common self-esteem-wrecker: childhood obesity.

This is the story of one-third of America’s children now.

Junk Food Dude is routinely picked last for dodge ball, but Green Smoothie Guy is kind, befriends him, and invites him to walk home with him after school.

They make some snacks, and Green Smoothie Guy proposes something interesting.

In this video, which you’re welcome to share with your kids, I read a few pages of the book and explain a very hopeful and true principle.

Your body doesn’t actually want to be addicted to chemical substances. (Sugar resembles a chemical in every way, and evokes the same cascade of responses from the human body.)

And when given a period of time as short as four days, sugar loses its chokehold.

On my lecture tour, I talked to many people who have never, in their lives, gone four whole days without processed sugar. I used to ask for a show of hands. And many had never done that.

But when I challenge you to ditch it for four days—remember, My Name is Robyn and I’m a Sugar Addict—you may be completely astonished that, for the first time in your life, you simply do not crave it, after that four days.

What You Can Expect When You Go Off Sugar

It’s a simple science experiment that will prove something interesting to you: that you are stronger than you think.

You are actually innately drawn to the colors, textures, and flavors of real food. That is your genetic programming, and those natural, whole foods are what your ancestors ate for thousands of years.

You can’t discover this UNLESS you quit sugar for four days.

I know you can do it. My first four days off sugar were much, much harder than the subsequent 361. (Well, except that one day in Hawaii.)

Choose the days of the week you face the fewest temptations, and plan ahead with delicious, flavorful, whole-food meals that will fill you and satisfy your taste buds.

Now, if you don’t find the sugar cravings completely disappearing after four days?

Whatever you do, don’t let Shame grab you by the throat. It serves no one. Behaviors driven underground flourish in the darkness. Say no to Shame!

You’re no different from me—and I make a living telling people how to eat healthy.

It takes some people a little bit longer, often because they have candida yeast overgrowth or they eat higher-than-average amounts of sugar or soda.

Sugar is more addictive than crack cocaine. Multiple studies have proven it.

But it’s actually quite amazing what four days off the “nice girl’s crack” will do for your confidence level. Sugar does not own you, and you CAN break your sugar addiction.

So, take a listen to a few pages of a children’s book, and see if you’re up for the challenge. You’ve got this. Let me know how it went. I’m rooting for you.

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