Outrage
Internet and screens in general.
Sugar
Yeah, came to say the same. I’m different though, I know I’m addicted to it.
I’ve lost over 150lbs, and can easily say sugar intake is closely tied to metabolism and brain activity. The habits formed around sugar intake are the hardest to control. It can be a major tax on mental agility and sharpness if a person is in the habit of using sugar to supplement their diet constantly. They can really struggle to find a different balance with healthy foods. There are a range of other factors that come into play that make it difficult. Chiefly, American budget food is typically very low quality, and most people have several minor food allergies. This makes people rely on junk food, likely unaware of issues like lactose intolerance that makes them unable to access healthy calories. Dairy is in EVERYTHING in American food. Like stupid stuff too. There is milk in most chips now. Like who the F puts milk in chips. It took me nearly a decade to fix how I eat, and realize we were all pretty much raised to be stupid consumers of whatever garbage is placed in front of us as Americans. Fixing the sugar addiction usually means fixing a bunch of other problems too.
Yeah, I hear you - I have an intense sugar addiction, and eat an absolutely disgusting amount of chocolate (see username). At least otherwise I eat pretty healthy.
By the way, the reason milk is in so much is because of how much cheese we eat. When they make cheese, they separate out the whey, which they used to throw away, but now they use in stuff. It has a lot of names: whey, lactose, milk solids, and others. If you’re lactose intolerant, you have to watch for that for the same reason you don’t have to worry much about hard cheeses: the lactose is mostly in the whey, which comes out of the cheese.
In the same vein, salt.
Try to stay under the daily recommended amount of 2500mg of sodium and see how limited your food options are.
Everything is loaded with salt now. Especially fast food. For example, my previous go-to meal at Zaxby’s (the boneless wings and things plate) is over 4000mg of sodium for one meal. Add on a 1300mg sausage, egg, and cheese mcgriddle and a fried rice with soy sauce for dinner and I had several days worth of sodium without totally blowing my calorie budget.
Reminds me of my favorite food, the KFC Double Down. That bad boy had so much sodium they had to take it off the permanent menu (much to my salt-loving dismay) due to the number of warnings about its salt and fat content.
Still pissed that my local KFC shut down and that I missed the month that it was brought back for (only saw the commercial for it 3 days before it ended when the nearest KFC was like an hour or so away).
That isn’t addiction though, that’s lack of options. If you cut out sugar or sodium from your diet you probably aren’t going to go through withdrawal. Unless you’re meaning more of a psychological addiction.
You’re not supposed to eat any of those things on any regular basis. Those are def cheat meals to eat sparingly when you’ve planned to go a little crazy with your diet
Fried rice is not a cheat meal and a lot of people in the world eat it daily.
2500mg is also just not a lot of sodium. 2000 calories is also a recommended daily amount but it’s far too low for a lot of people.
2000 Cal is probably within 30% of what most people should have daily. But your typical American food is going to be 100-200% higher than the daily recommended amount. A Panera Bread French Onion soup in a bread bowl is literally 90% of the daily sodium, but not even half of the daily calories. Remove the bread bowl and it’s still more than 1200mg of sodium for less than 400 calories.
The biggest thing I look at now when picking out meals is the sodium to calorie ratio. Anything over 1.2 is probably not good.
I’m a filthy vegan and former tobacco smoker that doesn’t indulge in sweets. I’m scared to actually calculate my salt intake as I over season everything I eat. For a while I thought I was being healthy not using table salt on anything, until I realized hot sauce and tamari are essentially liquid sodium.
Yep. My favorite hot sauce has 1200mg of sodium per two tablespoons… And I would drench my food in that shit.
Same with soy sauce. Each of those little packets you get from your favorite Chinese place is probably at least 300mg of sodium.
Coffee
Oh I am very aware that I am addicted to coffee haha. Just doesn’t seem to do anything but help me wake up, and I enjoy the taste and the ritual, so I figure what’s the harm?
Caffeine, people think they aren’t addicted to caffeine and can stop any time but watch them be miserable and go right back when they try. And in the same vein adderall for those college kids who are cramming before tests
Headaches?! Yes, the first evening, after that, nothing. No flu like symptoms, no nothing. It’s just a habit for me but doesn’t fuck me up if I don’t do it.
I’ll happiely drink 4-6 red bull a day and another 1-4 coffee on top, but I don’t care if there is none.
Weeks of headaches? Flu like symptoms? You guys sure you don’t just have a placebo effect when quitting?
I’ve had to quit temporarily due to an injury and while it does suck at first, it’s not as hard as something like nicotine. Doable if you have the motivation to quit but I eventually went back to drinking a few cups a day because the pros outweigh the cons for me.
Well, I was still using nicotine at the time and coffee and smoking/vaping is just a powerful combination that made it harder to quit either. Despite quitting the former because nicotine addiction and putting stuff in your lungs is not good in general, I still like the buzz of coffee. Also, being able to power through a workday on very little sleep comes in handy a lot for me.
If I go 2 days without coffee, my head starts to kill me. Definitely an addiction.
I tried cutting it out for a while to see if it was causing some anxiety (it wasn’t, it was just the world and lockdowns) but went from 2-3 large cups of chemex a day to 0 for about 8 weeks and it was frankly…. fine? I didn’t even get headaches. I count myself lucky, esp so since I am back to drinking coffee haha
Same for me. Had to quit cold turkey because of gastritis and later an operation and it was fine. Headache for a day and obviously the ritual of morning coffee was gone, but that’s it.
The odd thing is I didn’t even have headache first day, though I have experienced that another time (like when travelling and not having coffee). But this time I was having no caffeine (no tea, soda, etc either) and I did t experience any change. It gave me quite a surprise
Oh man. I get to experience all the addict tropes with caffeine. Slurping spilled coffee from the kitchen counter (less hygienic than vodka), panic-crying when were out of beans, snarling at my love ones until they take me to Peets or Starbucks.
Every once in a while (like every 18 months) I’ll taper back down to sobriety (16 oz a day for two days, then 8 ozs then 4 or zero) and wow there’s a level of giving zero fucks even below the iceberg. Maybe it’s negative fucks or microfractional fuck-giving. But when I’m drying out, no goth, no cynic, no edge lord can stand a chance matching the degree of fuck non-giving I manage.
I drink several cups a day but even if I don’t I still feel the same. I’m not one of those “don’t talk to me before I’ve had my coffee” -guys. I just drink it out of habit and because I like the taste. I don’t feel like it effects me in almost any way. I can even drink a cup few hours before sleep. I guess you could say it’s an addiction since I do it every day and don’t want to stop but I’d still rather just consider it a habit in my case.
I had that as well. Didn’t feel any real benefits/effects from it and also no abstinence symptoms but drank coffee occasionally because of taste.
Then my high blood pressure was discovered, I was put on medication and since then I feel the rush of caffeine and unfortunately the headache after withdrawal as well.
@Thorny_Thicket @qooqie
I could be wrong but this sounds surprisingly like the “I don’t actually need it, I can quit at any time, I just don’t want to” trope.
Just put of curiosity if you switched to decaff for a month or something would you notice or feel any difference?
I’m not a coffee drinker so I don’t really know what it’s like. (I’ll do tea every now and again but nothing daily or multiple times a day)
I have the same coffee drinking habits, and someone challenged me to give it up for a week to prove I’m not addicted. I didn’t have any symptoms but I was surprised to find I genuinely craved a hot drink several times a day. Hot water with lemon filled the gap until the week was over.
