Potatoes Not Prozac: Solutions for Sugar Sensitivity Paperback – January 1, 2008

"Potatoes not Prozac" is a cutesy name for a truly wonderful book that will help millions of people heal their bodies and their lives. Her concept of "sugar sensitivity" and her 7-step treatment plan will enable readers to understand and recover from addiction to foods, drugs, alcohol, and cigarettes. People who have failed repeatedly at sobriety or weight loss can succeed with this plan, as thousands have already.Kathleen des Maisons learned about the importance of sugar through her work as a drug and alcohol treatment counselor. She was having the usual low success rate in helping people stay off alcohol. Then she discovered how certain foods lead to addiction to alcohol and drugs, as well as being addictive themselves.She found that nearly all alcoholics lived largely on pasta, white breads and sweet things. She knew what they were suffering. Her own father drank himself to death at age 51, and she herself weighed 240 pounds and had had problems with drinking. When she discovered the benefits of a diet high in protein and vegetables for herself, she started using it with her clients. Her success rates soared, even with the hardest cases.She realized that addictive behavior has a lot to do with food, and that sugar was the primary culprit. She believes that some people are born "sugar-sensitive," which means they don't have enough serotonin or beta-endorphin in their brains. Serotonin and beta-endorphin make us feel secure, stable, confident, cheerful. If you have low levels of these chemicals, you are likely to feel badly.Sugar and alcohol raise your serotonin and beta-endorphin levels. So they make you feel better and more energetic, especially if your levels were low to start with. Unfortunately, eating concentrated sugars or refined carbohydrates causes a rebound effect. Your sugars levels drop quickly, you feel worse than before, and you need more sugar, caffeine or alcohol to pick back up.Pretty soon you're addicted. You feel alternately great and miserable. The sugar swings stress your adrenal glands. You blame yourself for being out of control and unfocused, for putting on weight or drinking, but actually it's the sugar. It's a physical problem, although emotions do play a part.Getting off sugar is difficult. Our food supply is awash in sugars and simple carbs. They can't be avoided. Des Maisons gives us a practical strategy based on 12-step recovery programs. Her seven steps are1. Keep a food journal every day2. Eat three meals a day at regular intervals3. Take Vitamin C, B complex, and zinc4. Eat enough protein at each meal5. Move from simple to complex carbohydrates, or from "white foods" to "brown" and "green" foods. "Brown" refers to things like whole grains and beans. "Green" means vegetables, of whatever color.6. Reduce or eliminate sugars (including alcohol)7. Create a plan for maintenance.She doesn't spell out a diet or recommend a lot of supplements or medications. She says that, using her steps, each person can figure out for herself what is best for her body to eat. She wants you to go through the 7 steps slowly, not to get impatient and rush ahead. The idea is to build a better relationship with your body and with food, to learn how food relates to your physical and emotional feelings.Des Maisons writes with a compassion that comes from living with sugar addiction herself. Chapter 3 is called, "It's Not Your Fault." (I also use that title in my book, "The Art of Getting Well: Maximizing Health When You Have a Chronic Illness.") Her plan is based on "abundance, not deprivation." This means you focus more on adding good things (foods, exercise, prayer, pleasure etc), rather than giving things up. She keeps telling us to be gentle with ourselves, to focus on "progress, not perfection." She also has a great sense of humor and an apparent affection for potatoes."Potatoes not Prozac" also gives a very clear explanation of the biochemistry of addiction. She explains how serotonin and beta-endorphin are produced, get to the brain, and are regulated there, and how our food affects all those processes. She cites more than 50 studies in support of her ideas, although most of them are animal studies.I disagree with Des Maisons on a couple of points. I don't think sugar-sensitivity is all in your genes. Your early environment, including the environment in your mother's uterus, makes a big difference. Also, I'm pretty sure that too much stress or too sugary a diet at any time in your life can create sugar-sensitivity or something very much like it.I would have liked to see more on why, where, and how to get help. She mentions the need for support several times, but doesn't give much specific advice on finding it or asking for it. Reading The Art of Getting Well or Cheri Register's "The Chronic Illness Experience" will give you those skills. I also would have liked to see more on exercise. Des Maisons pretty much just says, "go do it!" Hopefully, that will be good enough for you, because physical activity is just as important as diet change, in my experience.But these are small complaints. The author's brilliant insights into sugar and addiction, her clear explanations of difficult concepts, her simple but effective treatment plan, and her generous and positive spirit make this book a treasure that can help with a wide variety of health and life issues. It's wonderful.David Spero RN wwwdotdavidsperoRNdotcom

This woman has done extensive research. I found her at age 50 and at 73 am still working the program. It works, if you want it to. Just remember no one is perfect, BUT your life can be better. I call it getting the sugar monkey off my back. Sugar is addicting and this is why we crave it. Binge it. Do you want to be free?I'm not talking about losing weight. I'm talking about being free.

I loved how the author explained in simple terms the science of what is happening in the sugar sensitive brain with depression. I felt as if she was my friend and knew me. I have already figured out sugar and all grains (doesn’t matter white or brown) feed my sugar addiction. I can’t do her program to a T cause I can’t eat grains, but I will implement the potato before bed and sugar free diet. I have already been doing it off and on for years (minus the potato before bed) but still struggle with relapse. After a few weeks off refined sugar and following nothing else my depression is always Much better, but then when I fall off wagon it comes back. I’m am grateful for this author and the knowledge she shared and I feel everyone needs to read this who has depression and sugar addiction. Even if they don’t follow “rules” to a T it’s helpful to understand your brain chemistry. The only reason I did not give it five stars there’s many people who can also not eat grains and I do not feel like the book addresses that.

This book changed me. It's invokes a lot of emotion to think about me finding this book and learning about a part of myself I was struggling with for decades. I had no idea that fighting to get up in the morning, rushing around to get ready for work, and running out the door were part of my sugar addiction. I had no idea that skipping meals helped tap into my adrenaline responses to keep me "high" and further fuel my addictive behaviors. I knew food could get me high, and I knew I was using it like a drug, but I knew these things in secret. After reading this book, I started on a road to recovery. I can now talk to others about foods that cause me to go "off the wagon" or how I am trying to medicate myself with food. I can discuss my addiction as an ADDICTION similar to drug addiction and ask for help for myself - both from myself and from others. I no longer live in secret shame because I finally accept and understand these behaviors are part of addiction; they aren't inherent in who I am.As for the "diet", it works if you work it. Understanding and learning how to eat meals like a non-addict adult is life transforming, and that is where you will begin. I'm fiercely independent, so I added in potatoes much earlier than the diet called for, and I don't regret it. Though Kathleen (the author) recognizes that type of behavior and reminds you not to "skip around". I agree about the intent of that recommendation because you shouldn't push yourself through the steps, shouldn't rush RECOVERY, and you shouldn't try to game the system. But, I still feel like adding in potatoes early just helped me when I really needed that boost of neurotransmitters. One thing you should know is that while she will ask you to give up your crazy sugar obsessions, she won't ask it of you until you're already ready to do it. I did end up losing weight when I did this diet, though I was more floored by the fact that I was calm, collected, and in control of myself for the first time in my life.I go back to the roots of this book when I fall off the wagon... because addiction is for life. Don't fool yourself into believing one diet will fix this. Know you will need to work at it and you will need tools. Get this book and add it to your lifelong toolbox. You won't regret it.

My family has loved this book for decades. It finally helped my son understand how sugar was undermining his mood in high school. Now that he is grown, we ordered another copy to help him pinpoint some mood disturbances and know how to get back on track.

Die Psychologin ist die Tochter eines Alkoholikers und hat eine These aufgestellt über Menschen die eine bestimmte Genetik haben und anfälliger sind für gewisse Substanzen und dadurch auch für Zucker, das ist eine sehr sehr vereinfachte These. Sie erklärt tiefgehend sie Systematik und das Zusammenspiel von Hormonen und macht auch konkrete Empfehlungen. Ich kann das Buch jedem empfehlen. Ich habe in der Zeit auch zusätzlich Glutamin gegen Heißhunger genommen, was ich hier auf Amazon gekauft habe, nur so nebenbei.Sehr interessant finde ich den Satz im Vorwort wo es heißt "Wir denken Zucker ist ein Lebensmittel, aber es ist eigentlich eine Droge..."

Finally I have found a way of eating where I lose the weight that hangs around and it stays off with out so much exercise.I have energy for the whole day without having to rest throughout the day.I sleep better and my modes are more naturally positive.The potatoes really help I do feel satisfied after them and I'm so glad to be able to eat potatoes again with butter!I can easily pass on bad foods I never thought that was possible.I never would have guessed I was sugar sensitive and I never new about sugar sensitivity before but I am sugar sensitive.I also found that chlorella and spirulina between meals help with sustaining my blood sugar levels.I have read about that somewhere on google and it works for me.I have also cut back on so many supplements and vitamins thinking they would help with weight loss and more energy and be healthy but I have now learned what and how we eat and when is the way to have all that.Thank you Kathleen DesMaisons for sharing this information.

I have learnt so much about serotonin, dopamine and beta endorphins and how they relate to the food that we eat from this book, as well as the bad effects of eating sugar and being sugar sensitive of which I definitely fall into that category as I suffer from PCOS which makes me highly sensitive to sugar. This book reads in a way that is supportive, inspiring and easy to follow. The only negative that I have is that they are no recipes at all so you have to make your own choices as far as dinners are concerned but if you stick to the principles of significantly reducing sugar intake, increasing protein intake and eating a potato before bedtime you can't go far wrong. I've only been following the guidelines for a week and I've already lost 1lb without even really trying so it definitely works. Not for the faint hearted there's lots of science in this book but I found it incredibly interesting and its turned the way I think about food on it's head particularly with regard to why we comfort eat and what we can do instead. Great ideas, great factual information and well written.

Absolutely life changing. As a newly diagnosed diabetic with a HUGE love of confectionery, this book has become my Bible as to how to live the rest of my life. Cannot recommend highly enough.

For me this book made me understand the sugar impact on my life! I made some posotive changes after reading the book.