If you can’t stop eating sugar or other simple carbs (like potato chips or bread) once you start, or if one bite of sugar makes you crave more, you may be sugar sensitive. According to Kathleen des Maisons, author of Potatoes not Prozac, and one of the leading researchers on sugar sensitivity, when your body is biochemically sensitive to sugar, eating sugar in moderation is next to impossible.

I’m sugar sensitive. I was a life long sugar binger. From childhood on, I ate massive amounts of cookies, candy, sodas, cakes, pizza, bread, crackers, pretzels, potato chips, ice cream, Cheetos, french fries, and tortilla chips. My sugar addiction caused me tremendous pain and suffering – eating disorders, yo yoing weight, shame and self loathing. It worsened over time, becoming out of control in my 20s.

I finally reached a point of surrender in my early 30s, when I chose to give up sugar to heal my addiction. Giving up sugar and simple carbs completely changed my relationship with food. It was like I had turned off a switch that made me gorge on sugar and other processed foods like bread, crackers, potato chips, and tortilla chips.

As I found wholeness, I wanted to help others find healing. I wrote my ebook, Overcome Sugar Addiction, and created my sugar detox support program, Control Your Sugar Cravings, to help you get off the sugar roller coaster.

Here’s how they work together. You need four things to heal from sugar addiction:

1. You need to find your sugar abstinence.

If you’re sugar sensitive, and you want to stop bingeing on sugar, you probably need to eliminate sugar from your diet in order to heal. This step, combined with eating regular meals of whole, healthy foods, is what heals your brain chemistry so that you aren’t eating sugar compulsively.

Use my book to learn how to unhook from sugar. In my book, I outline exactly how I did it. This will help you find your abstinence.

In conjunction with my book, you can use supplements to help you unhook from sugar – especially in the first week when the sugar cravings are very strong. I used the supplements that Dr. Julia Ross recommends in her books The Mood Cure and The Diet Cure.

2. You need to soothe yourself without turning to food.

And yet abstinence is not enough to stay off sugar for good. Even though you’ve fixed the biochemical craving for sugar, you haven’t healed the emotional craving. You still have an ingrained pattern of turning to sugar or food for comfort when you’re stressed, anxious, have an unmet need or have blocked feelings.

You need to create a new pattern of soothing yourself without turning to food. Period. Without this new pattern in place, you will go eventually go back to the sugar when life gets stressful or when your circumstances change. I know – I spent 10 years going back and forth with sugar until I finally found lasting abstinence. I couldn’t understand why I kept going back to sugar, especially when I knew better. But I hadn’t changed the underlying pattern in my brain of turning to food to cope.

This is what I teach in the sugar support program and the overeating support program. I use mind-body-spirit practices to help you retrain your brain so you don’t need or want to go back to the sugar to cope.

Here’s what Kaitlin, a member of our support forums, said:  “Today, I’m celebrating 90 days sugar free!  I’m unbelievably fortunate and grateful to have been able to learn so much from you and for this AMAZING community of women.  You speak the truth that is within me – so thank you so very much for your voice.”

3. You need support.

I know that the thought of giving up sugar feels terrifying and impossible – overwhelming, too, as our culture is surrounded by sugar. That’s why you need support. You need the voice of someone who’s been there, as well as the voice of someone who’s traveling the same path, so you can feel reassured when you’re feeling discouraged or afraid.

When you buy the Control My Sugar Cravings program, you get access to our private forums. You’ll get crucial support from others who are going through the same thing. It’s very, very hard to get off sugar on your own – especially when your friends and family don’t understand why you’re doing this. The other people in the support program will know exactly how you feel.

4. You need to embrace this for life.

To stay sugar free, you need to be mindful about what you’re eating. This doesn’t mean that you have to be obsessive about what you eat or a rigid food cop. It does mean that you need to pay attention. If you find yourself justifying why you can indulge in a sugar treat now and then because you’re “fixed,” stop and question this thinking.

If you find yourself craving sugar, look at your diet. Are you sneaking in hidden sugars? Simple carbs? Are you skipping meals? Where are you not taking care of your body?

Then look to your mind and spirit. Are you committed to your healing? Are you willing to stick with these lifestyle changes?

Healing from sugar means that you have to keep doing the things that keep you sugar free – those things that honor your sugar sensitive brain chemistry and keep it healthy and whole. In my life, if I don’t eat regularly, if I start eating simple carbs, if I skip meals, I am going to crave sugar – which can lead me right back into it.

Think of healing more akin to putting gas in your car – something you do over and over again – rather than fixing a broken muffler – something you do once and then it’s done. You need to put gas in your car over and over and over – you need to stick with eating whole foods that are free of sugar and refined carbs, you need to feed those new patterns that don’t rely on food for comfort, you need to care for your physical, emotional, and spiritual needs. It’s the only way I know how to do this long term.

How you approach this is up to you. You can loathe it and begrudge it and feel that it’s not fair and resist it and whine about it and try and sneak around it. We all have those moments. Or you can embrace it as love in action, as a way to honor and love and care for yourself – as a way to grow yourself into the woman or man that you want to be.

That’s how I stay motivated over the long haul:  by tying my sugar abstinence to my deepest purpose – using my gifts to serve the world with love. What is your deepest purpose? How can you tie your sugar abstinence to that calling? Use your purpose as inspiration to stick with this when the road feels winding, tiring, and long.