Member-only story
What Sugar Addicts Can Learn from Athletes
Being nonreactive puts a space around athletics, sugar, memories and more
Athletic performance brings up conflict: discomfort, anxiety, self-defeating thoughts, doubts about what’s possible and what’s not.
In athletics, you do what’s necessary to stay with the event. You have the thoughts but learn to be nonreactive to those distractions — and to pain.
Giving up sugar can also bring up discomfort — withdrawal symptoms and cravings — along with anxiety, self-defeating thoughts and doubts. None of these is permanent.
You do what’s necessary to stay with the plan. And you become nonreactive.
But Here’s an Important Difference
In athletics, it helps not to derive an identity from your performance. Identifying with your performance, my coach said, is just ego.
When it comes to sugar, however, I say the shift in your identity is what’s good about going through the process of quitting. You develop a new identity.
You become The Person Who Doesn’t Eat Sugar, and things change.
• You no longer find sugary foods tempting. You know they’re Not Food.
