Hi everyone! Today is 132 day of hardmode. Just one conclusion: when I almost completely excluded sugar, the progress became much faster! I excluded any sugar, incl fruits. I am a vegan 1,5 years, and I limited sugar consumption when I moved to this nutrition plan and remembered that every time when I start eating fruits, on next day I got depression, irritation and cognitive problems, but in some time I forgot this and started to include some berries, put lemon in my pea protein (drink it every day) and approximately two weeks ago in the evening I ate plums and apricots (around 10 pcs of each) and on next day I literally can’t control the urges, it was so tough and I opened p.site but closed my eyes and just open and closed this site. I saw there some picture, but it didn’t drill into my mind. Then I remembered that I already faced with such in a past and decided to try again and completely eliminate the sugar (just remain half lemon in protein) and in two days I started feel so much better. About me: 38 years old, more than 20 years of PMO. Nutrition plan - vegan. Swimming - minimum 4 times a week. Target is minimum 1 year of hardmode. If anyone has the same effect from sugar, pls comment here. And if somebody knows what medical tests I need to pass, also pls list it. Interesting, or I have sugar intolerance for some reason, or it influences in this way on damaged brain.
Hi, I have also been interested in the impact of sugar / sweets / junk food in general on both physical and mental health. I would say that eating junk food /refined sugar is similar to the compulsion of PMO. After many years of trying to give up junk food etc I now see that I was using it in the same way as PMO I.e. as a stress reliever / emotion regulator. I tried to do a bit of research on the effect of refined sugar etc on dopamine, and this was quite interesting. Junk food in such quantities has only been available for the last 50 approx years. The junk foods we now have available cause a larger spike in dopamine compared with anything available in the prior 10000 years of human life. This is probably why it is easy to use such foods as a PMO substitute. Your symptoms may possibly be unique to you, or perhaps it is similar to a placebo effect? I could understand the impact of refined sugar but I would hope that natural fruits are good for us, both in the mental and physical sense. That said I'm not a nutritionist so my knowledge in this area is limited. Well done on Hard Mode for so long and best of luck.
Bro i dont understand how fruit can do that to you, I understand it has natural sugar but arent we supposed to eat as much natural and whole foods as possible rather than eating crappy junk food.
Indurian, thanks for the comment! Definitely not a placebo, because I felt it many times and now i just got one more confirmation of this. It can be a candida, because any sugar it’s meal for it and symptoms similar to what I red about this disease/condition. Anyway I need to figure out it.
Hey Harvey! You are absolutely right and I just moved to plant based diet exactly to eat healthy, not processed food - every day a lot of different vegetables, also nuts, seeds, whole grains, legumes and it gave me a lot of energy, but as I start eating any sugar and in some days, it’s cumulative effect, I stat feel worse and strong urges started to attack, plus as described, cognitive, depression and etc. I need to fix it, and now it's a matter of time
It's well know phenomena with alcoholics, cigarete smokers and drug users. When they start abstaining they start eating lots of sweets. It's dopamine related. You get dopamine high from sugar (any kind of sugar not jus refined one) as you do when you PMO. You've been addicted to elevated levels of dopamine. You've stopped PMOing and you've induced dopamine deficiency (as number of D2 receptors in your brain has been reduced because of PMOing). Brain doesn't care how you get your dopamine fix. I'd say the cue goes like this. Sugar intake->dopamine rush-> brain "says" I like it, where can I get much more of this stuff? -> I'll initiate PMO cravings to get more. https://www.therecoveryvillage.com/alcohol-abuse/faq/alcoholism-sugar-addiction-related/#gref
Yeah, pretty much. Although I don't have it with sugar, I do feel the same with caffeine and even to listening to music in the car (as strange as that sounds).
Yes, it looks exactly this. Few weeks already passed how I almost completely cut the sugar and no any strong urges, some small - yes, but I can easily overcome it on my term. Today is 138 day. Thank you!!
The same. I need to listen it loudly some time, and then I get some tremor, starting to feel irritation and then urges come. I suppose that this is due to overstrain of the nervous system.
I'll throw it out there, though, I don't quite get the explicit fantasy fiending when consuming sugar/caffeine/what-have-you, that OP seemed to indicate. I could definitely see how it could happen though. Nonetheless, I'm trying to be more mindful of all of it, though.