I think you are not the only one. I gave up alcohol over 10 years ago and that was easier than giving up sugar. I can give it up for months at a time and then wham the sugar monster is back! Just keep trying.

I used to follow him with my mom. Loved him.

Sugar and simple starches quickly break down into sugar in the bloodstream. This causes a spike in insulin levels, but, over a long period of sugar consumption, your body becomes resistant to insulin, leading to various problems related to sugar in your bloodstream, such as diabetes.

Okay. You know that. But there's another hormone, leptin, which is constantly secreted by your fat cells. This hormone, when it reaches the brain, causes your brain to tell you that you're no longer hungry. Except that this hormone needs to cross the blood-brain barrier between your circulatory system to your brain, and high levels of triglycerides -- as found in overweight people -- block the hormone from reaching the brain. This spike in triglycerides can also happen very quickly.

It's positive feedback of the worst kind. You eat simple carbohydrates, your body produces insulin, you produce triglyercides, you block leptin, you become hungry, you become hungry again, and you eat *more* simple carbohydrates. Low carb diets stop this cycle, and, for those who are successful on this diet, most weight loss is caused by reduced appetite. I've only mentioned an overview, so you can find more by searching on "carbohydrates leptin".

That is a good explanation of this Cedric.

Thanks -- sorry, I should have written "This spike in triglycerides can also happen very quickly when you consume simple carbohydrates."

BTW, Dr. Jason Fung's "Aetiology of Obesity" is a good series of videos to watch to understand why there's sugar everywhere. Essentially, in the 1970's we were told that saturated fats are bad for you (which has been shown not to be that simplistic, since some saturated fats are good, and they keep you satiated). So food manufacturers took out the fat, but this lost the flavor. They replaced it with, you guessed it, carbohydrates. I suspect *yogurt* is an example, with full-fat (?) yogurt disappearing off the shelves (I can't find it at Safeway, even!) and replaced by yogurt with sugar-added. And, after this recommendation, American rates of obesity *increased*.

Yep!

My guess is that our behavior with simple carbohydrates stems from our bodies which haven't evolved since agriculture. That is, before agriculture, fruit was only available for a short amount of time wherever it could be found. So we evolved to eat as much of it as soon as possible to obtain its energy. After agriculture, fruit was plentiful, but our bodies didn't change. But we didn't just eat more fruit. We ate sugar, to the point where we didn't eat the fruit anymore. It's an oversimplification, but an explanation for our drive for sugar.

I get to eat fruit next week.

Interesting -- fwiw, your Least list of fruits has overlap with Atkins 20 Phase II fruits (and none of the Most are on the list). Good lists!