 So, if your calories are high, and you're inactive, and you eat a lot of sugar, now sugar becomes inflammatory, becomes pro-cancer, and it causes a lot of problems. So, why is it so important to know? Well, it's important to know, because sugar, especially sugar in processed foods, encourages you to do what? Eat more. Hey, you're listening to the number one fitness, health, and entertainment podcast, This Is Mind Pump. Now, in today's episode, we talk about a tough subject. Sugar. Sugar causes a lot of people to overeat. It can cause health problems when it's over consumed. And they even, some people even say that there's such a thing as sugar addiction. In fact, my co-host Adam says he's been addicted to sugar since he was a kid. So, in this episode, we tackle sugar, and we give you strategies on how you can reduce and maybe even eliminate your sugar addiction or your sugar habit for better health, fat loss, and better muscle gain. Now, before the episode starts, I want to let you know that this episode is brought to you by our sponsor, Legion. Legion makes some of the best performance enhancing supplements out there, including protein powders and a pre-workout supplement that they just did with us. We actually collaborated together and made a bubblegum flavored pulse pre-workout drink, which includes beta-alanine, betaine, it's got citrulline, and of course, caffeine, and others, alpha-GPCs in there as well. Take one to two scoops before you work out if you're feeling low energy and get fired up. This is really saving my butt right now. I have a newborn at home, not getting much sleep, so my workouts just don't happen unless I have a little bit of Legion's pulse pre-workout. Anyhow, if you go to bylegion.com, B-Y-L-E-G-I-O-N.com, forward slash mind pump, and then use the code Mind Pump, you'll get 20% off your first order or double rewards points if you're a returning customer. Also, don't leave just yet, Cyber Monday is here, huge, deep discounts on all of our fitness programs. You can get 65% off all of our fitness programs. Every single one, even our newest maps programs are all 65% off with the code CyberMaps. That's the word Cyber, and then M-A-P-S. You also can get 50% off all of our bundles. Bundles are where we combine multiple maps programs together, already discount them, usually 30% off, take an additional 50% off with the code C-M-Bundles. That's the letter C, the letter M-Bundles. Again, so the code for 65% off individual programs, CyberMaps, the code for the bundles, C-M-Bundles, you can get all of them at mapsfitnessproducts.com. Hi, my name is Adam Schaefer, and I'm a sugar addict. I've been battling with sugar for the last 25 years, and I've ruined some of my most important relationships, family, friends, people that I love, have all stopped talking to me. Oh man. Welcome, Adam. We accept you. We accept you. You may be wondering why we brought you here today. Yeah. You've been great. That was real. You've been a great friend for the following reasons, and here's how you've damaged our relationship. Here's what'll happen if you don't. I got a message from my brother-in-law actually today. We're sitting here getting ready to plan for Thanksgiving week right here and record a single topic episode, and he just happened to send me this message, like, hey, have you guys ever done an episode on sugar addiction and whether you should cut it cold turkey or tapering off, and thought, man, this is actually really good timing with what's going on, right? Holiday season, right? And I don't know if we've done a topic like that specific, and that's very near and dear to me. I know. Sugar is one of the big three, right? There's three components to food that they'll label in the hyperpalatable category. It's more complex than this, but it's sugar, fat, and salt. When you put those in foods, they have some special- They enhance things. Properties, but sugar in particular for some people can be really tough, and you've talked about this a lot. Yeah, Sal, correct me too if I'm wrong. I heard some crazy stat, like, 80% of all foods in the grocery store have, like, sugar infused into something like that. It's a ridiculous stat. Okay, processed foods just- Yeah, it's in everything. Added sugar like crazy. In fact, I can't remember what it was. I think it was a documentary where somebody was trying to go and buy foods that are not typically known as high-sugar foods like candy and stuff like that, and then at the end of it, he added up the sugar content, and it was still through the roof. Normal products like ketchup and stuff like that, bread. Toothpaste. Toothpaste, yeah, sugar. It's an easy thing to add, and it does- And there's so many different names now for it. People think you go look at the label and say sugar. It's like, no, it's like some crazy- They sneak it in with some alcohol, you know, verbiage. Dehydrated coconut syrup, you know, organic. Oh, it's just good or whatever. It's supposed to be good, right? Yeah, exactly, but it's all- Monk fruit? Yeah, no, monk food's not sugar. That's something different. Oh, see, I don't know. Yeah. It changes every day. That's a better version. That's where you are. Yeah, that's an actual fruit that's got like a sweet or a plant that's got a sweet flavor to it, but sugar is, I mean, corn syrup. It could be dehydrated, cane juice or whatever. It could be, of course, regular sugar, and it does have some interesting effects on people. It actually, so here's a crazy story. I talked about this on the podcast after my son was born. So when he was born, they wanted to do a quick blood test on him because the way he was born, they wanted to make sure he had enough blood oxygen. They wanted to test them out. And, you know, taking blood from a newborn is very difficult, like to find a vein and do all that. Right. And it's heartbreaking. Very. As a parent. To watch. Did you have to see something like that, too? Oh, yeah. And Courtney actually had to step in because they kept missing the vein. And so she's a pediatric nurse by trade. And so she just kind of was like, hey, I can do it. And she did it first one. Dude, I almost stepped in and dropped it. So were you screaming? Off topic, though, but did they let that happen? Like because your wife is a nurse and she's got a baby there, like, or is that like not? Yeah, they don't normally wouldn't do that. But like, I think somebody there knew her, you know, from Valley Med. It was, it was at Kaiser. So anyways, they let it happen because they knew her. Well, here's the crazy thing. So they're doing this to my son. And before they did, they got a pacifier and then they had this syringe with like some something on it. And they said, oh, don't worry. It's just sucrose. It's called sweet something. I don't remember what it's called, but it's called, it's just a little sucrose. And they put it on the little bit of the pacifier, put it in his mouth. And while they're doing this, he's not crying at all. And I'm thinking, is there a painkiller in this? Like, what are they, are they giving a medicine or something? And yeah, and I went and researched it and no, it was literally sugar. And it, for infants, it changes their pain, how they perceive pain. It does have some pretty powerful effects in the body. Sugar is not very easily found in nature. It's actually relatively rare. So how, you know, the places you would find sugar would be like fruit, honey. It usually indicates something safe to eat. It does. Sweetness means safe, typically, right? But, you know, fruit, unless you plant, you know, fruit, like with agriculture, you don't find a whole lot of fruit just naturally growing. And natural fruit, before we started breeding it, was very low in sugar in comparison to current fruit. And an actual sugar cane is like bamboo. So like to get to like, you'd have to be like a panda bear and chew the shit out of it. Yeah. I remember I read a stat along time. I don't know if I've shared on the podcast a long time ago, but I think it's like the, what is in a soda can, right? As far as sugar is equivalent to like eight feet of like sugar cane. Yeah. And what that would take to chew that. Yeah. It would never happen. You'd have tons of fiber. It just wouldn't happen. And then honey, honey is a very concentrated form of sugar, but it's harder to find naturally and it's guarded by bees, right? So sugar was relatively hard to find. But when you did find it, it was safe and it was a good source of energy. So we developed this like strong craving and, you know, around sugar. And nowadays sugar is so readily available, so easy. We subsidize the hell out of corn. So much of our sugar comes from corn syrup. So it's everywhere. And there are some, some definite consequences, one of them being this kind of sugar habit or some people would even say addiction. In fact, if you look up sugar addiction, you'll actually find addiction facilities that deal with drug addiction that also deal with other addictions. Sugar is one of them. Well, I think the first step is, you know, like any other addiction is admitting or realizing that you even have an addiction to it. Yeah. How did you do that? How did you, how did you differentiate between, oh, I just like this, but between that and this isn't a nothing really. So many bowls of ice cream did it take. Yeah. Well, so I didn't think I did, right? So you were snorting it off the table. No, what I think, and I can't be alone here, right? So because I was athletic and moving around a lot and I did a lot of different like sports and activity and I was weight training and I was already a hard gainer, I justified the amount of consumption that I was having of sugar because I wasn't getting fat. And so because I wasn't getting fat, I'm like, it's, it's plenty healthy for me. And it does, and who cares? I'm burning it off. I'm not addicted. I never, I never even questioned if it was addiction. It was like, I like sugar. I like candy. I like ice cream. I'm not getting fat because I move all this. So I don't have a problem. And I'm sure it's very similar to alcoholics who can get by their day and perform and be great at work still, but are still drinking eight beers a night. Like just because you're getting by doesn't necessarily mean you're not addicted to it. So that's the relationship I had with it for 20 plus years. Do you remember, was there a moment where you're like, this might be an issue? So to be completely honest, it wasn't really, there's probably moments where I become a little more aware, a little more aware of it, as far as my habits and when I was starting to really dive into my diet. But it really wasn't until I completely kicked everything to compete, which wasn't that long ago. So it wasn't until- You're in your 30s. Yeah. So it wasn't until my 30s when I eliminated it, and it was the eliminating of it and realizing how good I felt without it and then allowing it to be reintroduced. And I talk about this with other things, right? To me, you kind of have to do that. Get rid of something, introduce it, get rid of something, reintroduce it before the light bulb really goes off of what's going on to where you can assess like what's going on with how you feel with your body and all that other stuff. What's interesting about sugar to me, in particular, sweet foods to me in particular, is how quickly your perception of sweetness starts to change and adapt based off of how much sugar you eat. So if you never have a lot of sugar or you barely ever eat processed sugar, one soft drink or candy, piece of candy or whatever, it could really hit you hard and you eat it and you're like, wow, that's really sweet. Powerful. Yeah, like my kids never had soda growing up and then as they got a little older, with birthday parties, they'd have a little bit of soda. And a couple times I gave them a whole can just to see what would happen. And my kids would only drink a quarter of it and then give it back to me. And I realized that they had hit their limit because they had had lots of sugar up into that point. Now, if they had sugar all the time or they had soft drinks all the time, gradually start to want more and more. I noticed this with myself. If I have a lot of sugar, sweet foods, especially naturally sweetened foods, start to taste less sweet over time. And I start to, it's like my tolerance for sweetness goes up, which is kind of a classic hallmark of an addictive property, like drugs, right? Like you take your first hit of a drug or whatever and it does everything. And then the next time you might need a little bit more, caffeine does the same thing. I definitely noticed this a lot with sugar. Yeah, it loses its potency. I've noticed the same thing with my kids too. And it's a pure reflection of the size of the portions that people eat. It's pretty alarming to me when you go to a soft serve place or an ice cream place and you see the actual cups that they offer. I'm like, I don't know how people eat all of that without just getting sick right away. But it's a process of starting with the small and working your way up to that. And you don't even realize it takes that to just have the same experience. Well, you're reminding me of the first epiphany, right? Which, and it's a little embarrassing that I went almost 30 years. So this was probably around 27, 28 of kind of starting to pay attention of how much sugar and pulling it out. I honestly, I swear to God, dude, I didn't know that fruit tasted the way fruit tastes until like almost 30. I just thought that like strawberries and grapes and blueberries and all these fruits, apples, bananas just were bland as shit. They really were bland to me. I didn't like fruit. Fruit was lame to me. It didn't taste good at all. And I think it's just because of how much sugar that I was eating for so long that, and the amount, when you get to think too, like I was consuming not only regular, you know, candy and ice cream and artificial sweeteners were in there. So my palette for the, to be able to recognize how sweet something was, had to been like, like you said, like as like an addict with drugs, it had, my tolerance had to been so high that when I have something natural, like a strawberry, I was like, this is lame. You know, I'd bite into it and be like, I didn't like it at all. It wasn't until I completely got off of everything for a while. And then I remember, I'll never forget biting into my first apple after I hadn't had any sugar, any processed sugar for a long time. And I was like, holy shit. And I, honestly, like, I thought it was- You thought it was a special apple? Yeah, I thought it was a special apple every time. And you're like, where did you get this apple? You know, it's amazing. We got to get the same apple again. Is this a hostess apple? Yeah, seriously. It was like, it was just the most amazing thing ever. And I, you know, I know I can't be alone in this. Like there's got to be people out there that don't enjoy fruit that much. And, you know, a lot of it's because you don't realize that you've ruined it for yourself. Dude, think of it this way. If you're a sugar eater, right, or you like to eat a lot of sugar, have a teaspoon of honey. If a teaspoon of honey doesn't taste like super, like, crazy sweet to you, you know you have a problem. Because in nature, honey is one of the most concentrated forms of sugar. It is almost pure sugar. And if you eat that and you think to yourself like, ah, honey's kind of, ah, you know, it's not that good, then you know that you're tolerant to it. And this is where the big problems come into play. Because here's the truth, okay? A lot of sugar and a lower calorie diet, with that otherwise you work out and you've got decent macros. If your sugar's high, you still may cause some problems. You may cause some problems with insulin resistance and that kind of stuff. But the problems become massive when your calories go up. So if your calories are high and you're inactive and you eat a lot of sugar, now sugar becomes inflammatory, becomes pro-cancer, and it causes a lot of problems. So why is it so important to know? Well, it's important to know because sugar, especially sugar in processed foods, encourages you to do what? Eat more. So it's actually quite rare. It's not common because I get this argument all the time with people in the fitness space who's like, well, in the context of low calories and high protein, it doesn't make that big a difference. I say, find me one person in the real world, not somebody that counts and measures everything every single day. A normal person in the real world who eats a high protein, low calorie, high sugar diet doesn't work that way. It's always high calorie, high sugar. People are going to always argue to keep things that they really enjoy and like, this isn't going to affect me that much. And then meanwhile, their teeth and everything else is a clear indication of, this can't be that great for us to ingest if your teeth are literally running right in front of you. That's actually a good point. It does make a big difference when it comes to tooth health. In fact, there was a study that showed that people could heal cavities. Actually, there were several studies. Yeah, reverse it. They could reverse cavities by changing their diet. Now, this was mind blowing for me because I was going through a lot of stuff with my crooked ass teeth and trying to get everything fixed. And I found that I was getting a lot of gingivitis type symptoms and all this inflammation in my mouth. And every time I would eat some kind of a candy or something with high sugar, it was only a matter of 20 minutes later where I'm just like, oh, my mouth would hurt and it gets sore. And so I just had stopped, I just lost interest in eating candy at that point. Well, there is an example, Sal, though, like a low calorie and high sugar. And that's the diet, you know, soda community and the people that are doing all the artificial sweeteners. Talk about how I think that can be dangerous. I mean, there's this side of our fitness space that hates anybody who demonizes sugar. Like, you know, how dare you do that? And they advocate for diet cokes and artificial sweeteners because there's no proof that it's- There's no sugar in those, therefore. Yeah, therefore, because it's low calorie. Therefore, it's okay. Because that was, again, another, you know, phase of me getting away from so much sugar was, okay, the first was, oh, wow, realizing how much of it I was consuming, now switching over to the diet coke and all the artificial sweeteners. And it still didn't solve the whole fruit thing and real sugar thing. In fact, artificial sweeteners are even stronger than like cane sugar. It feels like it's more sweet. The sweet signal is definitely higher. It's, I don't know how many thousands of times higher and when you look at equivalent sides, so like a teaspoon of sugar versus a teaspoon of, let's say, sucralose. Sucralose is, I don't know, how many hundreds or thousands of times sweeter. Now, here's the deal with artificial sweeteners. In a calorie-controlled, macro-controlled environment, if you cut out sugar, replace with artificial sweeteners, you do lower your calories, okay? This does happen. In the real world, though, this never happens. In fact, every study that's done on artificial sweeteners, that does not have people in a lab with everything that's controlled. In other words, they live a regular life and they say, okay, cut out your sugary soda, replace it with artificial sweeteners, and just do everything else normal, and then we'll come see you in six months and see what happened. None of them lose weight. None of them lose weight because artificial sweeteners encourage people to overeat just like the regular sugar does. It's that sweet flavor. Now, that does have different effects in the body, and we can argue as to whether or not sugar has better effects or worse effects than artificial sweeteners. Some people say artificial sweeteners are benign. I disagree. I think you perceive it. Therefore, it's not benign, just the fact that you perceive the sweetness can't possibly mean it's benign. There's something going on with artificial sweeteners. But at the end of the day, again, replacing sugar with artificial sweeteners, you still get the sweet flavor. You're not going to change your behaviors. Yeah, the behaviors don't change. The behaviors don't change, so you don't lose any weight. You don't actually lower calories. You actually increase calories by eating other things to replace the sugar. And then here's the other part, and this is one of the big issues that I have with artificial sweeteners. If you're at least somewhat health-oriented, okay, if you're at least somewhat aware of the calories and stuff and sugar that's in your food, you don't even have to be a fitness fanatic. Just somebody who's kind of a little bit aware. Sugary sodas or sugary foods have a natural barrier that you can see, and that natural barrier is calories, right? So if you're like Adam, for example, and you're a trainer, and you're somewhat aware and paying attention a little bit, you may have one soda, because like, that's 200 calories. I'll just have one soda. Well, you have an artificially sweetened soda with no sugar whatsoever in it. That barrier is gone, and so it turns into five, six, seven. Next thing you know, all you're drinking is artificially sweetened sodas and not even drinking much water. And I've seen this happen time and time again with people in the fitness space. So it's not a good substitute, really isn't, unless everything's perfectly controlled, in which case I would say you're probably not leading the best relationship long term, at least with food anyway. Okay, so let's pretend that we've all become aware, right? We've come aware, whether it be artificial sweeteners or regular sugar, we're eating too much of it, it's a problem. Where do we go from here? And that's the question that my brother-in-law was reaching for. He's like, do I just cut cold turkey and just turn it all off and eat all whole foods and get rid of all the sugar, processed and artificial? Or is there a, is it a better way to slowly wing off? What is your guys' opinion? There's, see now, here's a funny thing. It really depends on the person because there's two approaches here and you can do this with any substance. Caffeine could be sugar. So for example, if I go off caffeine cold turkey, I know I'm gonna have a shitty week. But then after that week is up, I'm back to normal, I feel okay. Or I can say to myself, I don't wanna have a shitty week, I don't wanna go through that pain. So I'm gonna slowly gradually reduce it and now it's gonna take me five weeks to come off of caffeine. It's the same thing with sugar. There's some clients I've had who are really good with the cold turkey, cutting it out, and they know they're gonna, it's gonna have cravings for the next week. But I've had other clients who are like, I don't wanna deal with those cravings, in which case I tell them to cut their sugar intake by a quarter every week. So it's usually a four week process. I think even with the cold turkey approach, it's a very short term strategy in terms of like, people like keeping that up for very long. And I do think it does work on some people. I mean, for myself, I fasted and had went through sort of an elimination diet personally and then reintroducing it made it less desirable for me. But I just don't think that that's the common person. I think that the other strategy actually to keep it in there but start lowering the actual volume of sugar, I think is a better approach. So I really think it depends on the personality, right? So, and if you're the type of person who is, you have a lot of self-discipline and you almost like relish in the challenge of things and like, you got, oh, it's hard. I'm going to push through this. I've got five days and I'll be good or whatever. I don't care that I'm miserable. I know that's one more day down, another day to go. They have that kind of mentality towards anything. They tend to do really good with the cold turkey. If you don't have that personality, it's because no matter what the five days, if you were to do like a five day or seven day type of cleanse from it where you go cold turkey, it's going to be harder. It'll be harder than someone who's stretched out for weeks. Now it's longer and it takes more consistency stretching it out slowly over four weeks, but it'll be less painful. But some people are okay with that. It's the same people who like to push, don't mind to be really sore, like whatever, get through it, push through it. I don't care if I throw up from training so hard. Like if you have that kind of mentality, then maybe the cold turkey, I think would work really well for you. And I think too, if you have like a true addiction, you know, like that's going to be something that you're constantly in the back of your mind. Like you're thinking about it. It's almost like you're taking it away from you and like you're tyrannically like saying, no, I can't have this. And so that becomes a thing that you're going to carry with you, which inevitably might lead into like a binge situation. Correct. That's why I was going to say what's more important than picking the cold turkey versus a slow approach is how you're taking that approach in sense of what's your relationship with the approach. So is it that you're restricting yourself? So are you saying yourself, I'm fat, I'm ugly, I can't believe I'm eating so much sugar. That's it. I'm not going to eat sugar anymore. Or are you saying to yourself, you know what, I need to take care of myself better. I'm going to do this because I want to take care of myself. Very different approach. One feels restrictive. The other feels empowering. One makes you say, I can't have any more sugar. The other one makes you say, I don't want any more sugar. And then the second part that I think is equally as important is the after. It's the after. How do I now maintain, let's say I do the cold turkey approach or even the slow approach afterwards. Now, how do I maintain this? Because at some point, it's going to come back at some point. I'm going to lose my motivation or my resolve. At some point, I'm going to go to a birthday party or whatever. I might find myself in a situation where I'm starting to have a little bit too much sugar again. That's an important thing to focus on. So that's why I like the slow approach better, because unless the cold turkey, like if you were planning on getting rid of sugar and then never introducing it into your diet ever again, then okay. But that's not most people. Most people are thinking they're going to do that and then eventually, sure, I'll let it intermittently into my diet. So the slow approach trains you kind of that. So if you think about the slow approach, obviously, you go week one is extreme, you're still having a lot and you're slowly tapering down. Probably where you're going to land long term is actually the last week or so, where it's still kind of in the diet every once in a while, but it's not as prevalent as it was at the week one of winging off. So to me, I like the slow approach because it kind of gets you used to what, oh, when I'm almost completely off, this is what it'll probably look like when I reintroduce it, I'll still be able to have it every once in a while. It's just not an everyday thing for me. Yeah, I think that one of the easier ways to do that, because that's me too, Adam, I'll do the same thing, would be to take out the most obvious offenders first. So soda, right? That's a very easy, big sugar bomb you could drop. Candy, right? Cake, pastries, you can reduce those first because of those more common offenders and they're just the big blocks or the big rocks, I should say. And then later on, start to move down the path. But go ahead. Well, I just, speaking of that, to me, and I know that we had laid out five steps and I don't think they're in the best order, I think really the first step is what you just alluded to right now, which is removing it from your house. Totally. Right away, you remove a barrier. Yeah, you remove the barrier. Oh, you make a barrier, you put a barrier. Yeah, right, exactly. So because that's one of the things when you're trying to, if it's easily accessible to you and you're also trying to discipline yourself to get it out of your life, boy, it's really hard when all you got to do is walk down to the cupboard and just grab it real quick. But if I have to get in my car and go drive to get it, I'm less likely to go after it. Totally, a recovering alcoholic that works in a bar probably not going to be a good idea, right? Not the greatest environment. So when you get the sugar out of the house, this is what you say to yourself. This is also very important, this is what you have to say to yourself. I'm not telling myself I can't have sugar. I'm just saying I don't want to have it in the house. If I really want to have sugar bad enough, I'll get in the car, I'll drive to the grocery store, and then I'll buy a single serving of sugar. I'll buy a single soda or a single candy. You're not making a Costco run. That's right. And now this is actually quite effective because typically for most people, these cravings or whatever tend to hit. After you're relaxed, you have dinner, you're at home already, maybe you're chilling with your family and you think, oh man, I'd really like a pie or I'd really like some ice cream. And then you gotta think to yourself, do I really want to go put my shoes on, get out of my sweatpants, drive the car, get to the grocery store, wait in line, buy it and then bring it all the way home? Do I really want to do that? And oftentimes, not every, sometimes you'll do it. Sometimes you'll actually get up and do it. But oftentimes you'll say to yourself, nah, it's not worth it. I'm too lazy to do that. And then the checker like, you know, judges you. Yeah. Yeah, it's for me. Yeah. You're in your flannel sweatpants and slippers. Yeah, every time. Three gallons of ice cream. Hey, man. Yeah. It's a weak moment. One time I went to the grocery store. Because that's what I do. I don't have sure. My wife's pregnant. That's what I say. That's a good excuse. Actually, so that's what I do, right? I don't have that stuff in my house specifically for that. But if I want to have it bad enough, I go to the grocery store and I'll never forget one time, Jessica and I were like hanging out. And she's like, yeah, do you want something sweet? And I'm like, all right, I gotta go to the store. I'm like, fine, I'll go do that. I'll go buy some candy for us. And she's like, hey, can you pick me up some tampons too? So I say, yeah, no problem. Chocolate and tampons. And I bring it up to the register. And the guy looks at me and he's like, oh boy. Oh, I see what's happening. Yeah. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, you're kidding me. Yeah, two plus two. I get it. You're getting the wrong idea. But no, get it out of the house. Because when you put barriers in between you and the thing that you really want, that's an impulse, it actually reduces the impulsivity of it. And it creates a barrier. It allows you to think about what you're doing. And it slowly trains it out of it being an impulse. So I feel like that's step one. And then step two, what you do allow in the house are things that would replace it. So this is where I like these types of substitutes. I mean, for example, we work with a sponsor like Magic Spoon where you have a, gives me that feeling of maybe I'm going to get, feel like I would be eating a bowl of ice cream, but it's a lot better for me. This is what I like to have. The substitutes are allowed to be in the house, but I'm also trying to manage that relationship. Totally. I like to have like, what is it, seltzer water or bubbly water? I don't know, carbonated. Right, with some lime. Yeah, lime, salt. If you put a little bit of salt and lime in that, for whatever reason, it kills that sugar craving for me. It's also helped my clients. Here's another thing you can do. You can get these carbonated waters that are, they have like the essence of fruit or whatever. Infused. Yeah, it's like, it's got nothing in it, right? But it tastes like it was thinking of strawberry or whatever. The fruit farted on it. Exactly. So what you do is you buy liquid stevia. Stevia is a, it's a sweetener, but there's no sugar in it, and it's natural. So it gives you a little bit of that sweet flavor. Put like a drop of that in that carbonated water that tastes kind of like strawberry, and it does taste like you're having something with a little bit of sugar. Now I wouldn't recommend it all the time, because then you'll run into similar problems like artificial sweeteners, but it is a good substitute, definitely is. Well, I've even done like the carbonated water with like regular juice. So if you have a major sweet tooth. Oh, you cut it a little bit. Yeah, you just cut it in half. So instead of having a, you know, six or eight ounce glass of juice or something, you have three ounces, and then the rest of it's the carbonated water, and then it feels like you're getting like a flavor. Yeah, I think there's a scale like that. So yeah, if you want to dilute it a bit, I think that's a good first step. You know, we do work with two ollie pops and other, like, you know, something that, if you're so addicted to soda, soda is a big one for people too, just with the half sugar addiction. So there's like ways to kind of find products that also provide, you know, way less sugar, but also gives you that kind of sweet taste too. One thing I learned from Doug is, so when we, before COVID happened, right, we would travel a few times a year, at least we'd do live events or do podcasts and stuff out of state. Doug would always travel, because whenever we would get two hotel rooms, and it was always, it's always Doug and I in a room, and then the two snoring guys in the other room, right? The polar bears, polar bear club. But yeah, Doug would, no matter where we were, he would pull out a bar of very, very dark chocolate. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like 98% cacao type stuff, right? It's just, it's, no, what is it, Doug? 85. Oh, 85. 85, 85. So it's really low in sugar, and it's got dark chocolate, which has its own health problems. So you'd eat like a piece of it, and you'd get like a few grams of sugar. It would be very low. I've done this with clients as well. Really dark chocolate can be one of those things that kind of helps with that craving, get in the way. Water, just water in general, drink a lot of water. Being hydrated helps so much, because I've been cravings a lot of times will like come up, especially when you're dehydrated. Yes, fruit, and then of course fruit, right? Berries are wonderful. They're, they taste good. They're high in fiber, and for fruit, they're relatively low in sugar. You can eat a whole bowl of berries, and not be too bad at all. And the fiber in the fruit helps it improve, or it gives it more of a satiety effect. So it kind of makes you feel like you don't want to eat anymore. I had like a cocoa whip and blueberry, and then flax seed dish thing that I used to make all the time that's absolutely amazing. So yeah, there's a lot of things out there that you can use as replacements. And again, the idea and the relationship, it's like, I remember when we first started working with Magic Spoon, people were like, you guys are advocating for cereal, and it's like, listen, there's a way for you to utilize this as a tool, and it's not something that we're advocating. Somebody has four bowls of this every day, and you replace like whole foods. No, never would we say that. But here's a great example of like, a nice transition for somebody who eats a ton of processed sugar all the time to start to wing them off of that and actually get to the place where they're not having to deal with it. Right, here's another one, and this one is just in general, will reduce your food intake in general. And that is to prioritize protein intake. Okay, so if you're hitting your protein, if you are 120 pounds and you're hitting 110 grams of protein a day, which is considered the high protein end of a diet for building muscle, it's good for building muscle, it's good for burning body fat. For most people, that works best. 110 grams of protein, 120 pound person, your appetite is going to be limited. When you hit that first- You're satisfied. Yes, when you hit that first, even if you eat sugar later on, you're going to eat far less. I weigh, you know, two out of them. These days, I don't know what I weigh, 215 or something like that. I hit 200 grams of protein a day. I'm full. It really, in studies, show this. Protein is extremely satiety producing. It reduces people's caloric intake tremendously. And protein also burns more calories per gram than fats or carbs. So hit that first, make that a priority. So literally that's the first thing you need to hit, and you can even make this deal with yourself. If I hit my protein target, then I'll allow myself- I was just going to say that I had a lot of success with this, especially during the competing days, where if I had this craving, where I really wanted sugar, maybe I haven't had in a while, and I don't like that relationship of, no, I can't have. Like, yes, I can. If I can balance this out or figure it out. And so I would make this deal with myself that, okay, if I get my 35 more grams of protein, which I need to hit my target, you can go have this thing. And nine times out of 10, after you eat that meal, you don't even have that craving anymore. It goes away completely. So I love that, like telling yourself, yeah, you can if you want, but first get what you need, and your body needs, and then see how you feel. So one of two things ends up happening almost every time for me. Either one, I don't even want it, and I pass on it, or two, if I do, the amount that I indulge in is like significantly nice. Well, it naturally weens it out without having to feel like you're punishing yourself. Right. I think the more we can move away from that mentality, the more successful and long-term this will be in your lifestyle. Well, think of it this way. I'll just give you a little scenario. Let's say you want some gummy bears, or gummy ones, that's my favorite, right? That's my favorite candy, gummy candies, right? Organic gummies. Yeah, but they gotta be organic. They gotta be organic. I want to be a healthy candy. But let's say I want to have gummy bears, really bad. And I say to myself, okay, I'll eat the gummy bears after I eat five ounces of chicken breast. Okay, now think of that in your head. You want a piece of candy, but you gotta eat five ounces of chicken breast first. You're probably not going to want too much candy. Either you're not going to eat the candy at all and not the chicken breast, or you'll eat the chicken breast and you'll have like, you know, a third or a fourth of the candy, and not want to eat anymore. Now the next thing, this one we've talked about many, many times, very important. This is important, especially in this category, which is to avoid just heavily processed foods in general. Here's the funny thing. Heavily processed foods, I said earlier in this episode, sugar, salt, and fat. What are the three things that they add to almost all processed foods to improve their palatability? All those. Yeah, talking about sodium, for example. Everybody's, you know, we've heard so many times, you don't want to eat too much sodium, it's bad for your blood pressure, bad for your heart, blah, blah, blah. Here's the truth. You cut out processed foods, you can salt the shit out of your food. You can add all the salt you want on your food, you're not going to eat a lot of sodium. People who eat too much sodium, eat a processed food diet. Just look at the back of a can of soup or processed whatever, and you'll see even stuff that you don't even think had. Anything in a box or a can, basically. Yeah, just tons of sodium. Same thing with sugar, same thing with, typically with unhealthy fats and processed oils. So when you eliminate processed foods, you reduce the food consumption and you naturally reduce your sugar intake. Now I do want to make a note on, what or at least what this looks like for me. So it doesn't, I don't go from cold turkey on this either because you know that a lot of this has got sugar already in it. This is part of the coming off process of going from, you go from no sugar and no processed food all at once going to be really difficult. So I look at like the greatest offenders. We've talked, we alluded already to like the soda thing. That soda thing would always be one of the issues that I always had. I was allowing that in the diet. So it's like, okay, I'm just going to limit that. And whatever number a week I was having, I'm going to cut it in half and then eventually a quarter and then eventually none. So same thing goes for processed foods. If you're somebody who's eating a ton of bars and you eat a lot of stuff in wrappers and packages and then all of a sudden decide you're going to get off this sugar thing and you're going to go completely cold turkey, I would look at one or two of the biggest offenders in that category and slowly and go from, whatever you do in a week to cutting it in half to cutting in a quarter to eventually none the same way. So even though it's not just, because you think sugar and we automatically think of like sugar cane or artificial sweeteners, but a lot of that is hidden in these processed foods. And so that is part of the process of coming off the sugar is also winging off that. Well, and it's actually interesting too. I've had clients and also even Courtney that like I've seen this before too where we make this like, we're definitely trying to limit our sugar intake but also that tends to open up like more chips and more like nuts and more things with salt and things and sort of like, turns our focus more on like getting those kind of snacky foods which then adds up and then the calories are still there and everything else. So in terms of like always having to have like these certain things available and snack on, like that's something that we need to address behaviorally as well. Yeah, just get rid of the, most of the processed foods, get rid of those and you can do them slowly like Adam said. You know, you brought up hidden sugars. I went to, we made burgers a couple of weeks ago with the kids and I had to get ketchup. So I'm in the ketchup aisle and I see low sugar or reduced sugar ketchup. And I think reduced sugar ketchup. Well, I don't know, ketchup had a lot of sugar. So I bought it. It tasted so weird. I did not realize how much sugar they put in ketchup. When I had reduced sugar ketchup, it tasted like tomato. Tomato paste. It was really strange. And you're right. Look at the back of processed foods and you would be surprised at the foods that you don't even think are sweet or would have sugar. How did the, have those added sugar? So get rid of those. I also think that's part of why this is so difficult for some people is they don't realize they're getting all that sugar there plus their Coke and ice cream. Right. And so the salad dressing, they're like, I mean salads, it's good. And then you try and get rid of all that all at once. It's just, it's so much. So be a, pay attention to how much of that that you're having. And again, I like to look at one or two offenders cut in half, cut in quarter, then completely. And I like to do that for like a week. So week one, I'm going for, you know, what I was, whatever it was that I was doing and I'm doing that now half of that then after that a quarter of that and then eventually none of that. So you like to go like a hundred grams, let's just hypothetical, a hundred grams of sugar down to 50, then from 50 down to like 25. Yeah. Oh, I see. And the, what I'm counting too, so I'm not counting fruit like right. I'm, I'm counting any, like through my processed foods or ice cream or sugar or sodas. Like that's the sugar I'm counting and paying attention to. I'm not paying attention to fruit because eventually I want fruit to be in my diet on a regular basis and my main source of sugar. So that's the goal is to, I'm not going to limit, I'm not counting the sugar that's coming from fruit because that's what's going to stay in my diet. I'm looking at all other sources of sugar that are in my diet that I want to start to get down and I do. I go half, quarter, none. Yeah. See, I do something similar. I'll go, if it was a hundred grams of sugar, I'd go 175, 50, 25, zero. So I would, I would do even. Yeah. You're even slower. Yeah. In three weeks time, I'm definitely. You're going on three. Yeah. See, they're, they're both very, very similar. You know what's funny? You brought up fruit. I got to say this. Dried fruit, be careful. Dried fruit is not the same as fresh fruit. It's not the same. You could eat, I could eat. It's a lot easier to consume. Oh, I could eat 10 mangoes in five minutes if they're dried mango slices. Well, they also add sugar to that. Even if you don't. Yeah. They don't like sprinkle the sugar on top. They do, but let's say they don't because I've even done this. Well, I'll buy the dried fruit, no added sugar. But it doesn't matter because it's dehydrated and it's shrunk down. I will literally eat five, I'll eat five or six mangoes in one sitting. I'll never do that with, with fresh fruit. Yeah. Not the real one. No. So be careful with the dried fruit as well. And then we talked about artificial sweeteners. I don't think that's a good strategy. The only population that I could say artificial sweeteners might help are people who are pre-contest. Yeah, bodybuilders. Bodybuilders, physique competitors, bikini competitors, people who everything is measured and dialed in and they're measuring. And even them I say, you know what, stay away from those because the rebound post-contest is going to be kind of nasty. But for the average person, artificial sweeteners don't help. Well, you were the one who got me doing this and it actually made a big difference. So back when I was, you know, trying to kick the Diet Coke, you made a comment about, you know, why don't you just allow yourself to have a regular Coke or a regular drink with sugar in it so you count it. And I actually found it was easier to do that than to, because when you have Diet Coke and it's zero calorie, right? That's as many as you want. Right. So then you end up having one. Feels free. Yeah, real quick, I'm having one with every meal. So I'm drinking two, three in a day and the cravings that I have for sugar are higher than they'd ever be. So when I went over to drinking the little Hanson root beers that I like that have like, I want to say 20 something or 30 grams of sugar in it, because I know I'm getting sugar, I count it and I'm aware of it. And I also noticed that because it's not artificial sugar, it doesn't, the cravings aren't as bad for it as from the Diet Coke. Isn't that weird? You know what I, you know what's funny? People who are addicted to or who say they're addicted to sugar-free sodas, it's hard, in my experience, it was harder to get my clients to stop drinking those than clients who drink regular soda. Yeah. This is 100% true. If I had a client who came to me and said, hey, Sal, I love having a soda every single day or two sodas every day, that was easier to work with than the person who says, oh, I have a couple, a few Diet Cokes every day. The Diet sodas were so hard for people to kick and I think it's because they're so much stronger in the way that they hit the brain. 100%. And it's very, very strange, isn't it? Right. One thing that I do with soda, because Jessica and I will have one, rarely, but if we do, this is what I do, I go to the grocery store, I buy one soda for both of us. One. And we split it. And that's it. And then we're done. And if I want more, I got to drive all the way back to the grocery store. There's that barrier thing again. Look, Mind Pump is recorded on videos as well as audio. Come check us out on YouTube, Mind Pump podcast. You can also find all of us on social media. That's Instagram. And now also on Parler, you can find Justin at Mind Pump, Justin, me at Mind Pump Sal, Adam at Mind Pump, Adam, and Doug, the producer at Mind Pump, Doug. Hold on to the memories. No, that's not any better. Come on. Really? I'm sorry. Come on. Is it that bad? It's so bad. That was so bad. Is that why my mom... I feel like there's dogs barking. My mom would never let me sing. I'd sing in church. She was like, shut the fuck up. No, she didn't. Shut the fuck up. Just listen. Did she really? Just fucking clap.