Life After Sugar

It's November, and the holiday season is upon us. So is it really possible to enjoy the holidays with less sugar? You'll find the answer (well, MY answer) in this short excerpt from a recent online workshop I gave on November 16, 2024, called "The Key to Getting Rid of Cravings so that You Can Feel in Control Around Sugar… Without Feeling Deprived or Restricted" . Need guidance...

Vanessa has traveled all over the world. And she came to the conclusion that sugar is literally everywhere! That's not good news for anyone... but especially for her, because as she freely admits, Vanessa is a sugar addict. So how did she go from being completely obsessed about food (or rather, ultra-processed foods) to feeling peace around food, especially sugar? You'll hear about Vanes...

It's the 200th episode of the Life After Sugar podcast! Woo hoo!! I started this podcast in January 2021, and it's become a passion for me, and an inspiration to thousands of people. So thank you for listening!! In this episode, I tell my own personal story of my struggles with cravings and sugar. And how I got to my "life after sugar". You'll also hear why I created this...

Carol didn't really have a problem with sugar until later in life. After each of her 4 pregnancies, she put on weight. Despite challenges like a divorce when her children were still young, Carol was a fighter. But she did overeat... especially sweet and salty foods. And it just got out of control. Her weight climbed, and eventually her nurse practitioner suggested the drug Ozempic, which cost...

Sarah grew up with a mother who was very intentional with feeding her family healthy food. She cooked everything from scratch. As a child, Sarah didn't have any exposure to sugar whatsoever. And because there was no option for sugar in her life, Sarah says that she was neutral around food. Until her late thirties, when she decided to do a popular elimination diet. She had no weight to lose at...

Acquanda grew up eating what she calls "semi-healthy foods", like flavoured yogurts. Then when she moved close to her sister, who's a great cook and dessert maker, Acquanda started eating sweets more often... and craving them! That's when she realized that she had a problem with sugar. She felt powerless. Acquanda was doing research on African American women in the southern sta...

Whole foods... processed foods... and ultra-processed foods (UPFs)... What's the difference? I'm not the first to ask this question. In fact, the NOVA system assigns foods to one of four groups, based on how much processing they have been through: Group 1 - Unprocessed or minimally processed foods Group 2 - Processed culinary ingredients Group 3 - Processed foods Group 4 - Ultra-processe...

Barry is 62 years old. He's a 4-time world juggling champion. He spent 34 years touring around the world doing shows, corporate events, TV shows, and being on TED stages. 2012 was a leap year. On February 29, Barry's 8-year-old son challenged him to "leap" something. So Barry decided to "leap" sugar for 24 hours. Barry went to sleep that night and couldn't believ...

Ellen was a food addict from the age of about 7, she says, with a history of obesity. Doctors and dietitians had put her on many diets as she was growing up, to the point of her doctor suggesting bariatric surgery. She spent a lot of time alone in her bedroom eating ultra processed foods like crisps and chocolate, with the radio on so that nobody would know. And thinking about how to end it all be...

Maybe you believe that a meal isn't complete without dessert. I mean, you can't have a meal without finishing it off with something sweet. Right? It's just not done. Or maybe you feel that if you don't have sweet treats, you'll feel deprived.  And you don't want to feel like you're missing out. Maybe you're wondering how you can get through the summer withou...

Judi came from a home with a lot of trauma. Growing up, there was always sugar around. Her mother baked a lot, and that was Judi's go-to whenever she felt any kind of emotional need. As she started to grow older, she felt like she didn't belong. She just didn't fit in. She felt so different - like an outcast, not connected with people and not connected with herself, but she didn&apo...

In this episode, I'll be answering a few common questions that I often get from listeners, including:  how do you know if a product has naturally occurring sugars or added sugars?  and  are natural sugars okay? and I've reduced my sugar intake. Why am I still getting cravings? Even if the questions and answers were recorded a year or two ago, they're still relevant today.   Need gui...

When Lisa was around 20 years old, she was diagnosed with hypothyroidism. One of the main side effects was weight gain. And that set her down a path of obsession with food and exercise because she didn't want to gain weight. Previous to that, she had digestive issues. So to try to find a solution, Lisa did everything to the extreme. For example, massive elimination diets. She cut all starchy,...

When Lori was growing up in Los Angeles, she loved all cookies, deserts, and ice cream. Every week when she got her allowance, she spent it on candy and ice cream. Before she knew it she was getting chubby, she says. And she reached 200lbs and started suffering from depression.  Her mom tried to help her to lose weight and baked her Atkin’s low carb bread, and Lori was able to get her weight down...

Want some simple sugar free recipes? You'll find several in this episode! You'll also find my general tips to avoid refined sugar and starches.  And also ideas and recipes for: breakfast foods my yummy chia jam salad dressings alternatives to pasta condiments like ketchup and mayonnaise flour free Hollandaise sauce Eating real, whole foods that don't contain added sugar doesn't...

Dana stopped sugar - more specifically, white sugar and flour - in December of 2021.  In this episode, Dana tells how she was very addicted to sugar for 40 some years. Today, she recognizes that for her, it's better not to have any than to try to have a little. It was when she was in the hospital in 2021 after an accident that Dana remembered that her grandmother had lost both her legs to dia...

Beck signed up for the Freedom from Cravings Formula 5-step program in the spring of 2024 because although she knew all about the negative effects of sugar, she was still struggling with sugar cravings. Especially for chocolate. Chocolate with nuts, to be precise. In fact, Step 2 of the program is designed to be a deep dive into learning to make sustainable habit changes. One example is that inste...

In this episode, I talk about what I ate on my recent trip to visit my family in the UK. Yes, you can travel and still choose to eat real, whole foods! But it may not always be possible to make the best choices... Do the best you can with the options available. I didn't eat sugar, but I did eat foods that I wasn't used to. Listen to how the temporary change of routine in my diet affected...

This episode is Part 2 of my chat with Siobhan Harris, who struggled with sugar addiction her whole life. Listen to Part 1 (Episode 179) here . In this episode, Siobhan shares the 5 tools that she uses in her recovery from sugar addiction. These tools are helping Siobhan to remain happily committed to living a sugar-free, flour-free lifestyle for life. These tools may surprise you... and they coul...

This is a crossover episode with my friend Michelle from the Fast and Fabulous podcast . We talk about: how I fought against cutting sugar for the longest time  how I fell into intermittent fasting  how eating more often can make you feel more hungry, and eating less often can make you feel less hungry building our relationship up with food how the idea of not eating any sugar and flour/grains see...

Dr. Michael Mosley is the author of several books, including The Fast 800, The 8-Week Blood Sugar Diet, and The Clever Guts Diet. Sadly, he passed away in June 2024 while on holiday in Greece. In this episode, I want to share with you a book report that I made a couple of years ago for the members of the After Sugar Club private community (find us here) . This episode is my summary of his book The...

My guest this week is Nikki, who's a fellow mom with 3 boys at home.  In this episode, we talk about whole foods, how she feeds her family, and how she helps other moms find more energy in the sometimes overwhelming life that we live as moms. Nikki grew up with pretty healthy meals, usually some sort of meat or fish and  vegetables. Rarely desserts, she says - they were just for special occas...

From November 2023 to June 2024, we had an Italian student staying with us. Not exactly an exchange student, more like a big brother for our daughter. And during those months of his stay with us, I learned quite a few things about food, especially carbs like pasta and flour. For example:  teenage boys eat a LOT! he doesn't eat between meals he doesn't often eat desserts he didn't gr...

From early childhood, Siobhan remembers sneaking cookies before anyone else woke up in the morning. Even as a toddler, she was never able to eat sugar in moderation. Once she hit puberty, this addiction caused her to gain weight and so she started dieting, which led to a diet/binge cycle that lasted decades. After college, Siobhan struggled more and more with weight control and grew increasingly m...

Claire grew up in New England with European parents. She enjoyed a whole foods diet and loved fresh seasonal foods, including fruit, vegetables, and cheeses. Processed foods didn't hold much attraction for her. She grew up loving to cook. So she didn't eat foods with added sugars. So she didn't feel like she was missing out. But with the stress from her job and the breakdown of her...