As I approach the end of Week 3 of a nutritional and lifestyle program called WILDFIT, I find myself face to face with something deeper than food: subconscious patterns, emotional triggers, and the way my body responds to sugar—both in the biochemistry of my system and in its psychology.

When the Morning Starts with Fruit

Part of the WILDFIT program involves eating fruit first thing in the morning.

Initially, I chose not to follow this suggestion—because I already knew that consuming sugar on an empty stomach tends to give me glucose spikes throughout the day.

But because I’m fully committed to this journey, I decided to play along. For a week, I gave the fruit mornings a try and had two servings of fruit on an empty stomach.

Here’s what happened.

• I experienced sugar spikes—those sharp rises in blood glucose that knock the body out of balance.

• I found myself craving more food throughout the day, especially sugar and starch.

• I felt ungrounded, light-headed, and disconnected from my inner stability.

• Anxiety began to surface—even around simple daily tasks. Emotionally, I felt like my teenage self: confused, reactive, fragile.

• Sugar spikes hijacked the positive effects of my regular meditation and grounding practices.

As a result, it became crystal clear that what I eat shapes how I think and feel, and that what I allow into my blood shapes my mind.

Because my prime focus is the mind, I tended to see external factors—like food or physical habits—as secondary to how the mind interprets reality.

But this experience taught me something humbling: yes, the mind is incredibly powerful in shaping our experience, but we simply cannot neglect our environment, and especially not the substances we invite into our bodies. Everything is part of the equation.

Everyone Is Different

Another thing I’ve noticed during this experiment is that, while I was riding a full emotional rollercoaster triggered by glucose spikes, my friends and colleagues going through the same WILDFIT program seemed perfectly fine with fruit in the morning. They were energized, even joyful, and didn't experience the same emotional turbulence I did.

That showed me something important: Everybody is different.

Maybe I’ve developed some level of insulin resistance over time. Maybe my nervous system is more reactive. Maybe I’ve simply become more attuned to subtle imbalances in my body after years of inner work. Whatever the reason, what matters most is this: Our body speaks, and all we need to do is listen.

When Sugar Leaves the Room

While during the first two weeks of the program, we were instructed to give in to anything our body craved—without judgment or restriction— in Week 3 we began removing refined sugars. This is when the hardest truth came to the surface for me.

I had known for a long time that my relationship with sugar was complex and somewhat messy, but this experience revealed a much harder truth: My body is addicted to sugar.

During those early weeks, my body craved sugar every single day—most often in the form of ice cream, but also cakes and sweet treats. And the more I allowed myself to have those foods, the more I wanted them.

Then, the moment I took those foods away—thinking I could do so without much resistance—I experienced full-on withdrawal. The cravings were sharp, intense, sometimes overwhelming. I felt miserable, sad, frustrated, and easily irritable. It became painfully clear that to my body and mind, sugar is like a drug.

When refined sugar was no longer available, my body quickly shifted toward craving starches—something I’ve also been sensitive to, and that I’ve mostly avoided in recent years. It felt like my system was trying to adapt to the loss by grabbing onto the next best thing.

Suddenly, I found myself longing for pizza, bread, and anything carb-heavy—foods I hadn’t even thought about for a long time. And when I didn’t allow myself those either, my body went into what I can only describe as a depression. It felt like a part of me was shutting down.

It wasn’t just mental—it was physical, chemical, real. No more sugar meant no more fuel for a part of me that started to die.

Layers of Realization

It’s one thing to realize you have an addiction. It’s another to realize that your addiction is to a substance that is everywhere—one that’s not only normalized but actively encouraged by the food industry and by society.

You walk through the world, and sugar is offered to you at every turn. Not just as a treat, but as a form of love, celebration, reward. And so this addiction isn't just chemical—it’s cultural, emotional, and harder to step away from.

Sugar may not be as immediately addictive as cocaine or alcohol on a chemical level, but because it’s so present, socially accepted, and interwoven with human connection, it can be even more insidious.

Words for Those on the Same Path

If you’re like me—sensitive, self-aware, and trying to navigate a complicated relationship with sugar—here are a few things I want to say:

1. You are not broken. You are sensitive, and that is your strength.

2. It’s okay to be strict with your food boundaries. Zero tolerance isn’t extremism—it’s protection.

3. You don’t have to explain or defend your choices.

4. Other people's approaches to food do not define yours.

Inner Clarity Requires Outer Cleanliness

This journey is showing me—more than ever—that junk, whether mental or physical, affects us in similar ways. Even when we’ve done the deep work to clean the mind, substances in the body can sneak in and hijack our inner peace.

A clean inner world requires alignment between thought and biology.

And for me, that means walking a path of honesty—not only with my thoughts, but also with the foods I allow into my body, especially when what I eat begins to speak louder than my mind.