Starling Fitness: Daily writings on Fitness, Diet, and Health

I’ve just discovered Sean Croxton and Underground Wellness. His videos are entertaining and have demonstrated exactly what has been brewing in my mind. For example, here is his video from April 2009 called, “Sugar Is A Drug.”

At the 3:30 mark, he talks about how crappy you feel when you first start eating low carb. It’s true. My energy level dropped. I wanted to binge on any kind of food I saw and many more that I could imagine. I snapped at Mike, the dog and even my sick cat. I felt tired and I just didn’t want to do anything except nap and eat. After it passed, however, I felt MUCH better.

I had experienced that effect before. I had tried the Atkins diet several times and quit before I got past that sugar withdrawal stage. There were other times when I tried Atkins and never got past that stage because I was eating the Atkins Nutritional Bars. I don’t care what they say on the package, those bars acted like pure sugar in my body and I never got past the bonking stage when I ate them.

The reason I liked Sean and this video so much is because at the 3:55 mark, he explains why it’s not a good idea to eat a little sugar when you get to that stage:

You’re going to have MAJOR sugar cravings, but think about this: If you had a friend, who’s addicted to heroin, or crack, or somethin’ like that, and they wanna get off it. You send ’em to rehab, and, you know, a day or two into it, they start jonesin’ for crack. You don’t go, well, “Alright, man. Imma take care o’ this. Here’s a little crack.” NO YOU DON’T SAY THAT! So you have to DEAL with it! You gotta DEAL with those sugar cravings because THEY WILL PASS!

I felt like standing up and shouting, “Amen!” at him when he said that. I don’t know about the other things he says about the supplement and the other causes of sugar cravings. I have NO idea if that is based on science or not, but I DO know that the withdrawal symptoms go away and I felt MUCH better after they did.

If you’re feeling like you couldn’t possibly cut your carbohydrates down to 20g a day, don’t give up hope. If you think it’s crazy talk to excise sugar, flour, potatoes and even some fruit out of your diet because we all have been told that moderation is the key, don’t disregard it. There is no such thing as moderation when it comes to poison. You wouldn’t recommend moderation when it comes to electrical shocks, either. Sometimes moderation is NOT the key and carbohydrates are a glaring example of that.