lirene comments on Is there a way to stop liking sugar? - Less Wrong

6 Post author: diegocaleiro 11 June 2014 08:21PM

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Comment author: lirene 12 June 2014 02:53:47PM 6 points [-]

I'd like to pitch the identity angle, which worked for me very well (your mileage may vary, of course). I ate very little processed sugar foods (chocolate, cookies, etc) at various points in my life due to what I saw myself as:

  • "I'm not the kind of person who eats processed foods, because processed foods are yucky" is part of our family lore and works to this day
  • "I'm not the kind of person to waste money on things like cookies if I can make them myself for less" arose during a low-income but savvy time. It works because when you bake cookies/cakes yourself you're free to use much less sugar.
  • "I'm the kind of person who enjoys simple foods/Sugary foods are an indulgence, so of course I don't eat a lot of them", my current one.
  • "I can get addicted to substances very easily, so better not overdo it" (also works for alcohol)
  • "I'm the kind of person who doesn't snack between meals, because it's uncultured" - trying to incorporate into my identity at the moment.

Once something is part of your identity, following it becomes a joyful, self-affirming activity rather than a willpower drain.

I also found that when I'm eating common supermarket sweets, I eat a lot because I try to satisfy a craving for flavour that these foods lack. If I substitute them with home-baked flavourful cakes or good chocolate, I tend to eat much less, since my craving is satisfied with the first bite. I'm not sure how making a calorie-rich food (that you don't eat a lot of) flavourful influences your body fat setpoint though (http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.jp/2011/04/food-reward-dominant-factor-in-obesity.html).

Comment author: niceguyanon 13 June 2014 04:29:48PM *  2 points [-]

I have a reputation for not liking sugar and thinking that most desserts are too sweet. The degree that I would have disliked sugar, sans my reputation for disliking it, has become blurry. Not sure where other people's expectations of me stop and my own preferences begin.

I also find the response from others, is generally more positive in their opinion on why you are refraining from sweets, if it is because you don't like it. There is something about people that likes to tempt others in to failure, and not maliciously. For example, if someone is having a cookie and someone else is in the room who also likes to eat cookies, but is controlling their impulses, you will might hear "come on just have one with me" or even guilting them or mock their diet. No one does this to me because they know me as a person who does not like sugar.

Comment author: lirene 14 June 2014 11:54:11AM *  1 point [-]

To address your point of

On changing your sense of identity into "I don't like sugar": I do that with other stuff, and it is very effective. I don't want it to fail with sugar and therefore cause me to trust my overall identity less, so I'm not trying it with something with such high likelihood of failure, but others who like sugar less should try.

I totally see how you don't want it to become a negative spiral. For the sake of completeness, a thinking pattern that helps me in such cases is to "try on" an identity for 2 weeks or so. This feels very non-committal, so if it fails, there is less of "I'm bad at this method/my other identities must be unstable as well" but rather "well, this identity needs tweaking at the very least, but my method is still fine" sort of feeling.

What you did with summarizing the suggestions is really cool by the way. It's not a lot of added effort for you since you make a summary for yourself anyway, and I really appreciated a short summary of all the comments.

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