Sonia Jones ND from The Haven Spa and Health Clinic

Don’t skip this article, you may think because you don’t take recreational drugs or don’t smoke cigarettes or drink too much alcohol that addiction doesn’t apply to you. However, I am talking about the everyday substances you find on the supermarket shelves!

Do addictions and cravings keep sabotaging your good intentions? Sabotage your good intentions for getting healthy and helping for arthritis.

Changing your habits of a life time, habits that speed up your aging and degeneration process is extremely difficult for people. Being addicted or having powerful cravings is a real problem for many people, adding to inflammation and pain. You might be one of a vast number of people who are hooked. It’s a viscous circle. You know the situation, you are not really hungry, but eat anyway.

Here are some of the typical foods and drinks you might be addicted to?

Chocolate - some people think the chocolate they eat is good for them, that it is healthy. There is some chocolate on the market that could be classed as healthy, but most people eat the standard chocolate that certainly isn’t going to contribute to their health quite the opposite in fact. The average chocolate on the supermarket shelves is 70% sugar and fat.

White flour – covers a vast amount of different foods, from bread, cookies, crackers, pastry and so on. This substance is destructive and highly addictive for some people.

Sugar – is found in so many foods these days. A couple of hundred years ago sugar was worth its weight in silver and was kept under lock and key, because it was then recognised for how addictive it was. For many decades sugar has been subsidised making it very cheap, hence why it is found in such abundance. This is another highly addictive and totally destructive substance that will encourage aging and degeneration.

High Fructose Corn Syrup – HFCS is found in so many processed products today, especially sodas. For the food industry is has some advantages over sugar, it is cheaper than sugar and has a quality that gives baked products an extended shelf life. It has been reported that HFCS is more addictive than sugar.

Caffeine – found in tea, coffee, and more soft drinks (sodas) than you may realise, even in soft drinks where you wouldn’t expect to find caffeine, like in orange flavoured soft drinks. Caffeine keeps you wanting more.

Artificial Sweeteners – much research has made it clear that products with artificial sweeteners will encourage a craving for sweet and fatty foods. Besides, these sweeteners are artificial chemical sweeteners. Do not be fooled with the advertising hype about these substances.

Processed, highly refined fats – these are also found on our supermarket shelves in abundance. Found in so many products, it takes studying the labels to uncover them. They can cause deficiencies in essential fatty acids – encouraging cravings.

Alcohol, we already know that alcohol can be addictive. The latest figures from the health department show we are drinking too much and it’s on the increase.

Salt – some people crave salt and salty foods – changing the taste bud and displacing other minerals in the body. The more you have the more you want.

Over the years at the clinic we have seen many people with quite serious chronic conditions who would rather suffer than give up their favourite foods and drinks. However, after the initial panic has subsided – most people want to change, want a better quality of life.

The first step is to write down in a daily journal everything you eat and drink. Plus your symptoms especially related to your arthritis. Most people are surprised when they see it all written down in black and white. It’s the first time some people actually fully appreciate what they are doing, what they are eating and drinking in the course of a week.

Some people have really little idea what they eat and how much they eat, until they see it written down.

We all know some foods are so more-ish – some people open up a packet of chocolate cookies, and some they want another and another, before long two thirds of the packet has gone and they weren’t even hungry.

Most people wouldn’t consider gorging on foods like apples somehow they just don’t have the same appeal or fill the same need. Back to our chocolate cookies, for some people just knowing that a third of a packet is left is enough to drive them crazy, needing to finish the packet, hungry or not. Then the feelings of being bloated, sleepy and guilty set in.

Good intentions sabotaged again. Maybe your situation is not as extreme. Maybe you are one of many people who just need something fatty and starchy with sugar or salty at around 3 or 4 in the afternoon. Around this time consciously or subconsciously your concentration begins to fail, maybe you start getting a headache, irritable or maybe just plain tired. You may think this is just stress. You convince yourself you need something to give you energy to get you through the rest of the day. You might also be like this around 11 in the morning too.

By the very things you choose to consume you are messing around with your blood sugar levels. Once again you are on this trend-mill and it really does take a concerted effort to get off it.

These fluctuating blood sugar levels are certainly sabotaging your plans for less inflammation and pain associated with arthritis, and a healthy long life. The though the body has a built-in safety mechanism that protects us to a degree from ourselves, there is only so much it can do before it becomes compromised.