Life After Sugar

It's episode 300 of the Life After Sugar podcast! Woo hoo!

To celebrate, I go back to some of the first things I ever talked about on this podcast, back in 2021, and to why the show exists in the first place. 

Sometimes we forget the basics, so I think that the 300th episode is a good place to remember them.

In this episode, you'll hear about:

• some different names for sugar, including the Cuba story that made me realize the wh...

Susan Peirce Thompson, PhD, is a former food addict and the founder of Bright Line Eating. She and I recorded Episode 125 back in June 2023.

Susan is back on the podcast to talk about her new book, Maintain, the fifth book in her series about food addiction and weight loss.

In this episode, we talk about what happens after you lose the weight and why maintaining it can be harder than people expect. 

A big part of that is learning...

In this episode, I’m talking with John about sugar cravings, hydration, and what he calls “intracellular hydration.”

John shares his story of growing up in Columbus, Ohio, becoming a sugar addict, and eventually developing a very different perspective on health and the role of sugar and especially hydration in the body.

John surprises me with his fascinating “marbles and sponges” analogy to explain intra...

Martin was a guest on the Life After Sugar podcast on Episode 110 in February 2023. He’s back to ask me some questions about sugar, to talk about his new book, and also about the concept of an "irrevocable commitment".

Martin practises intermittent fasting. But he’s continued to have something sweet after dinner, which is a habit that goes back to childhood (nothing wrong with that!).

In this episode, we talk about:

• Ma...

Heike grew up in Germany eating lots of sugar and large portions, and she was overweight by the time she was a teenager.

After moving to the United States in her early 20s, she discovered a very different food environment than the one she was expecting. She was surprised by how much fast food, fried food, burgers, French fries and starch-heavy foods there were, and how little emphasis there seemed to be on vegetables.

In this episode...

Dr. Nathan Bryan has spent years researching human health and physiology... but during his medical training, he received zero dedicated training in nutrition.

In this episode, we talk about what he learned after his medical training and through his research, and how the nutritional quality of our food has degraded over time.

Dr. Nathan and I talk about how we consumers need to educate ourselves (which is easier said than done with al...

You probably don't need another diet, another list of foods to avoid, or another reminder about what you already know you should be doing.

If you've been struggling with sugar cravings for years, the problem may not be a lack of information... or a lack of willpower.

It may be that you're trying to change a deeply ingrained pattern without the right process, support, and accountability.

In this episode, I explain why so many capable, ...

For Sharon, sugar was much more than a sweet treat.

Sugary foods were something she used to help her through all-nighters and cope with difficult times.

But eventually, she realized that sugar was was helping her cope with difficult relationships and family issues.

In this episode, Sharon shares her journey from eating brownie batter straight from the bowl to adopting a raw vegan lifestyle.

She talks about the difficult events that fue...

What does sugar have to do with heart disease? 

According to Dr. Geoffrey Boone, preventive cardiologist, much more than most people realize. 

After decades of helping people prevent heart disease, he explains how sugar contributes to inflammation, damages the lining of the arteries, and why these changes can begin years before any symptoms appear.

In this episode, we talk about why Dr. Boone believes prevention still isn't ...

You've probably tried to stop eating sugar on your own.

More than once.

And it can work for a while. 

You promise yourself you'll do better, you rely on willpower, and maybe you even have a few good days or weeks. 

But when life gets stressful or overwhelming, it's all too easy to slip back into old habits.

In this episode, I talk about why lasting freedom from sugar cravings isn't about having more knowledge or finding the pe...

Many of us turn to sugar or comfort food without really understanding why. 

In fact, most of us haven't been taught how to name or cope with our emotions.

For Lisa, emotional eating became a way of coping with life's difficult moments when she was a child. It wasn't until much later in life that she began to uncover what she really needed to do when her emotions overwhelmed her.

In this episode, Lisa shares how childhood experien...

A dramatic sugar crash during a swimming race at just 11 years old became the turning point that shaped Jodie's entire approach to health.

In this episode, Jodi shares how that early experience led her to question the role of sugar, discover the power of whole foods, and become much more aware of how food affects the body. 

We also explore inflammation, the gut and skin microbiome, why what you eat shows up on your skin, and how...

Did you know that your body already makes its own natural version of Ozempic?

In this episode, you'll hear how GLP-1 works as a natural hormone, and why drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy exist: they copy the same hormone but are designed to last much longer.

You'll hear how the GLP-1 that naturally disappears from your body in two minutes got turned into an appetite-reducing drug that lasts a full week.

You'll also hear about what happens...

In this episode, you'll hear from Dr. Jonar, an internal medicine physician and lifestyle medicine expert, about his own struggle with processed sugar.

Sugar was at the heart of Dr. Jonar's emotional eating, insulin resistance, and prediabetes. 

He explains why so many chronic diseases are driven by lifestyle, why nutrition receives so little attention in medical training, and how processed sugar affects the brain, the gut micro...

In this episode, Meg shares how she was diagnosed with anorexia at just 13 years old, and spent the next 16 years in and out of treatment before finally reaching full recovery in her late twenties.

You'll hear Meg talk candidly about what it was like to be a dangerously underweight teenager caught in a cycle of perfectionism and control.

Meg describes what treatment actually looked like for her, and the gap she found between learning...

What if the thing standing between you and your "life after sugar" isn't sugar at all? 

What if it's the way you think?

In this episode, you'll learn about a trap so many women fall into: a habit of overcomplicating things until failure feels inevitable. 

You know the pattern. 

You set an impossible rule, break it by lunchtime, throw in the towel, and reach for the sugar because... well, you already "messed up."

You'll al...

Cassandra grew up on a classic American diet, sugar included.

It wasn't until her 20s that she started noticing the connection between what she was eating and how she was feeling. As someone with ADHD, the moment she cut out sugar and experienced real mental clarity for the first time, there was no going back.

In this episode, Cassandra explains what mindful eating is: It means bringing awareness to what you eat, how you eat it, and ...

What's the connection between gut health and sugar cravings?

In this episode, ZuZu, a holistic healthcare practitioner, explains how poor gut health, candida, and SIBO can actually drive your cravings, and why healing the gut can make those cravings disappear almost entirely.

She also explains why your body only needs one teaspoon of sugar in the bloodstream at any given time, why grains and starches count as sugar, and how excess su...

If you've ever asked yourself the question: Why aren't I sugar free yet? with frustration, this episode is for you. 

In my experience, one of the most common — and most damaging — expectations around going sugar-free is that it should happen instantly, completely, and permanently. 

Spoiler: it doesn't always work that way, and it doesn't have to.

In fact, I challenge the idea that going sugar-free should be insta...