Does Sugar Influence Hair Pulling Urges? Here’s a Way to Find Out!

Does Sugar Make Me Pull My Hair More?

I have been limiting my sugar intake and carbs since before Christmas.

But I slipped up for a few days and immediately noticed a change in my mood and hair pulling urges.

I have been tracking my diet and things in my trich journal and I had a pretty good idea that it was the sugar making everything worse.

I was anxious, worried and stressed out – crying!!

I was eating sugar like a teenager whose parents were out of town.

I ate so much sugary crap and it made me feel like crap.

But what did I do?

I kept eating it of course. 😔

I am pretty sure I have an addiction to sugar. 

It’s like I open the floodgate and I don’t stop crap until I hate myself.

My parents we’re in town and mom was baking me all sorts of delicious cookies and things.

My mom is the type that if you tell her you’re on a diet (for any reason) she will sabotage it.

I’m not necessarily sure she means to do me harm – but she’s just not happy when she can’t feed you stuff, its how she loves you.

It’s like you’re denying her love when you don’t eat sugar.

My grandma is the same way.

I’m so glad the baking & cooking gene stopped with my mom because it would be the death of me if I could actually make the stuff they can.

Nevertheless, I consumed a ton of sugar and I felt like total shit.

I told myself it would be okay because it was Christmas but the truth is I wish I hadn’t done it.  

I Was On A Month Long NO PULL Streak Til The Sugar Came In!

My hair pulling urges are SO MUCH WORSE when I consume sweets!

If I wasn’t convinced before this that my diet influenced my hair pulling urges – I am now.

A lot of people with Trichotillomania have reported a reduction in hair pulling urges with a change in diet.

I actually knew for awhile before I started reducing carbs that I needed to make a change but like everyone else with flesh, I love sugar and carbs.

I grew up eating junk and when I grew up, that cycle never stopped and I’m sure it’s influenced a lot of hair pulling as well as other harmful behaviors.

Back To No Sugar!

Sugar totally make my hair pulling urges unbearably harder to control.

I’m back to limiting sweets as much as possible and I’m going to do my best to not indulge. (I’m not perfect but I do try).

The urges are definitely reduced and I feel more focused and less anxious and depressed when I eliminate sugar.

I’m able to naturally stop Trichotillomania in its tracks when I’m cautious of sugar and carb intake.

One resource reported that their research showed that Trich is stress related (which it totally is for me) and that sugar triggers it worse because of the crash associated with the rise in glucose levels:

Sugar is Known As “The White Death”

No seriously, there’s all sorts of reasons why it’s called the white death, it’s linked to cancer and all sorts of terrible breakdowns of the body in general.

I was reading that in the 1700’s the average person only had 4 lbs of sugar per year, today, the average person consumes a half a pound of sugar per day!! (source)

That HAS TO BE AFFECTING US!!

Have you ever wondered why people have crooked teeth?

In general I mean, when did people start getting crooked teeth?

God didn’t make Adam and Eve with a crooked set of teeth, so what happened over time?

It’s believed that sugar and flour are the reason that we have so many deformed jaw lines and messed up, crooked teeth on earth.

One man, Weston A. Price, a dentist from Cleveland who practiced in the 1930’s had a hypothesis.

“Crooked teeth, he theorized, were actually a skeletal deformity resulting from poor diet.” (source)

Sugar causes all sorts of issues so really it’s not a shocker to me that it’s a trigger for my hair pulling urges.

What sucks is I really like sugar so this diet isn’t that easy for me.

I’ve been making the best of it, but really, I would like to eat donuts at anytime. 🍩🍩

Here’s How to Find Out if Your Diet Is Working Against You!

I think diet is one of the first places I probably should have explored looking back in hindsight but I wasn’t really even sure where to start.

If I was someone just starting to explore this in their own lives, I would start tracking my diet and hair pulling first.

Ever since adding my diet to my Trichotillomania journal, I’ve been able to see patterns in my pulling associated with poor diet.

 Exploring diet, sleep patterns and tracking pulling patterns has helped me so much.

I keep all the information in my Trich journal and I can look back and see what changes I needed to make.

It’s definitely I think something more people with Trich should do – track your diet and pulling and it will allow you to see so many things you didn’t even realize.

For me, sugar is a definitely trigger for hair pulling and I am going to try to stick with the Keto diet the best I can.

I Can Still Eat Certain Sweet Things Though…

There are options for me to still have sweets, I’ve been really into making these things called “Fat Bombs” – I found a free recipe book on Amazon and there’s a ton of recipes online too.

There are other sweets you can make besides fat bombs that don’t have the carbs too, so I’m not totally assed-out of treats.

The other day I made some pancakes out of egg and coconut flour and then dropped butter all over them and some sugar free syrup.

So there’s options, you just have to look for them and they’re not as handy as just unwrapping a Little Debbie Ho Ho that’s for sure.

I’ll keep you posted.

Related Article: How Apple Cider Vinegar Helps Hair Pulling Anxiety