You resolved to lose some weight — but oh, those sweets! How do you break the sugar chain?

The holidays are over. The tinsel's being put away for another year.

But for some of us, the memories include some extra pounds from All. That. Sugar.

It's easy to make a new year's resolution to lose weight, but not always so easy to keep it — especially if you have a sweet tooth.

So how do you break that sugar addiction and replace it with healthier choices?

"First, I think we need to differentiate between problematic sugar and non-problematic sugar," said Thomas Burge, an assistant professor in the Exercise Science and Health division at Hagerstown Community College.

"Let's say someone is trying to lose weight; then they want to avoid the obvious: beverages with a lot of sugar, candy, whatever … more processed food that contains a lot more sugar.

"Someone who is trying to lose weight but still wants to eat their fruit, and it has fiber, then I think that is less problematic. The way the body handles that is going to be a lot different because of the fiber.

"How much the individual wants to lose would determine how much fruit they can have in a day," he said, "but you can get low-sugar things like blueberries and blackberries to kind of fulfill that sweet tooth."

But if someone needs to put on some weight, he said, sugar in rice, potatoes and fruit, will help "pack on some muscle."

Too much sugar, however, can cause more problems than weight gain, Burge noted. It's been associated with the potential for Alzheimer's disease, he said, as "Type 3 diabetes affects the brain significantly, depending on a person's genetic background."

Sugars also speed up inflammatory processes within the body, he said.

"From a like general health perspective, if we're active, we do want to have some sugar, hopefully from more natural sources," Burge said, "and then just try to avoid some of those Cokes, Pepsi's, if we're not being very, very active.

"And then we're also going to get that little sugar hangover from Christmas and New Year's potentially; I know I ate a bunch of cookies myself, and whatever junk food we could get our hands on."

How do we get so hooked on sugar?

"I think a lot of that starts at an early age — as kids 2, 3, 4 years old," Burge said. "I think some of it's genetic; some of it's kind of a preference. I think if we're introduced to sugary stuff at a younger age, then we tend to look for that a little bit more often.

"I'm the same way; I'm not a big salty chip person, but if there's a cookie or some ice cream that's a little bit sweeter, then I'd much prefer that. I think it might have something to do with whatever the apple juice or fruit juice was early on that kind of kicks that process in."

Fruit juices, sugary drinks, sugary cereals — all the stuff of childhood culinary dreams. And old habits die hard.

Can the chain be broken?

"There's no blanket, one way to fix all that," Burge said, "Everybody's kind of different … but I think that there are some things that you can do.

"Discipline's a big one, but if you can get off of the sugar for a period of time and let the body reset. Then when you try it again, it won't be nearly as sweet and you might not crave it as much," he said.

"That's one way to do it, but it's probably the hardest way to overcome it."

If there are sweets in the house, your discipline will be more difficult, he said. So don't make them accessible.

Think about how you put food on your plate, he added, and load up on proteins and other foods before reaching for a sugary dessert.

"From my experience in the classroom and working with people, there's no real easy way to just knock it out completely," Burge said. "And we shouldn't completely restrict ourselves; I don't necessarily think that's the best way to go about it because then it puts that craving back in there.

Here's more advice: Eat real food and limit sugar consumption

Eating out: Restaurants 'constantly adapting' amid pandemic, supply chain and staffing challenges

"But if someone can go five, 10, 15 days or almost a month and then revisit it, then usually that helps curb some of that craving."

Getting enough sleep also is a "key factor," he said. "When we don't sleep, that increases the desire for that junk food that contains a lot of sugar.'

It's unfortunate, he said that sugary food is so readily available. He tells the students in his nutrition classes every semester that parents need to be educated about sugar in their children's diets and control it so the cycle doesn't start too early.

And if they play video games in the evening, the blue light from the screens will "inhibit the dopamine release — and then they get tired and stay up. And then they've got to get up early for school and then what do they have at school? It's Pop-Tarts … and cereal for breakfast and maybe it's pizza for lunch."

Adjusting your diet

While he says there's no specific diet that's necessarily "correct" for breaking the sugar habit, "paleo recipes do offer some sense of, still, sweetness. And depending on what recipe you find, that's a good alternative."

Alternative ingredients — nut flour, honey and others — can provide sweetness without some of the deficits of granulated sugar, he said.

"You're gonna actually get some decent health benefits from the honey" as long as it's natural honey, Burge added. He tells people to look for the "cloudy" honey as it has more nutrients.

If cookies are your thing, the temptation can be worse — "the way the body processes, it's too easy to eat four or five of them before you're actually catching up to it," he said.

So he suggests baking only a few at a time and keeping the rest in the freezer, particularly if you're using pre-packaged frozen or refrigerated dough.

"Then you are limited on how many you're going to eat, if you can be that disciplined," he said.

But if you really want that cookie, first indulge in some physical activity, he said. "If somebody wants to eat two cookies at night after dinner, then just make sure you are physically active throughout the day — the age-old 30 to 60 minutes.

"And I don't mean just walking from the car into work or into the house. You've got to actually do something so that your heart rate gets elevated and you've earned those cookies at the end of the day."

Make your transition easier by making better choices at the grocery store. Here are some things Burge says to watch out for while you're shopping:

• Avoid any beverage with sugar in it.

"The fructose that is associated with soda is digested absorbed and processed a little bit differently," Burge said. "And not just soda — it could be any fruit juice that is high in sugar. People may not necessarily check the orange juice label but they have products now that are have sugar in orange juice. I would look at the label on any beverage that anyone is buying."

• Beware of pre-packaged snacks — especially cookies.

"The downside to all those is that they have a significant amount of sugar, but they also have a percentage of fat in there, so it just tastes really, really good," Burge said. "If it's small and you can hold it in your hand and, you know, grab two or three at a time, you're more than likely going to eat two, three or four at a time instead of just one."

• Count the carbs — even in dried fruits.

"When you dry out the fruit you're going to lose that fiber," Burge said. So then the net (carbohydrate count) is going to change."

• Read the labels for food in cans and jars.

"There is sugar in most of those food products," Burge said. "If they can sit in a jar for an extended period of time, then they probably have some extra sugar in there."

• Just say no to baked goods at the store.

Doughnuts. Muffins. Cakes. "Just the kind of stuff you want to try to avoid," Burge said.

You're sighing right out loud now, aren't you?

But listen up: "I'm not opposed to things like ice cream because you can get some decent" natural ice creams with only six to eight ingredients, Burge said. "And it isn't just sugar; it's got some protein and fat in there. But again, you don't want to sit down with the whole container. You want to put it into a bowl."

Do you know how much sugar you consume?

"If someone really wants to change, they need to know how much they're consuming," Burge said. So how do you know how much sugar you're actually getting? Burge puts his students through a "sugar lab" that you can replicate at home. Here's how it works:

"Every student is required to track how much sugar they've eaten in a day," he said. "So using 'My Fitness Pal' or whatever app they can find, or just using food labels, you track how much sugar you eat over the course of the day.

"And then once they come up with a number in grams, then they actually have to measure it out. So using sugar or something that's kind of an equivalent, they get a measuring cup.

"They take the grams of sugar — so let's say if they consumed 120 grams at a day. Then they divide that by four and then they use a teaspoon and they measure out 32 teaspoons of sugar. Put that in a measuring cup and there you have a visual. t=They take a picture of it and turn it in.

"So if there's one way that really opens people's eyes to how much they consume, and that is going to be the best way to do it. And I've seen much success with individuals who don't realize they're taking an image sugar, they do it once and they change for an extended period of time."

Small steps add up

It will take more than a day to get where you want to be. But Burge emphasized small steps you can take each day to help break the habit.

First of all, move. "Don't just sit at a desk all day," Burge said.

Find alternatives to sugary food — eat wheat bread rather than white. Drink water rather than soda. ""Find some of the little things that you can change on a week to week basis," he said.

Replace old habits by creating new, health ones. Get up 15 minute early and walk around the house. Pack a smaller lunch and take a walk when you've finished. "Little small things that add up will take care of the bigger picture. You've got to be patient with it, too — I think that's another one that I usually run into, is people aren't patient enough to stick it out."

Eating to build immunity

It's flu season, and COVID is rampant. How can we use our diets to strengthen our immune systems?

Nutrients are key, and Vitamin D is crucial, according to Thomas Burge, an assistant professor in the Exercise Science and Health division at Hagerstown Community College.

"The primary thing is to get foods that are gonna contain as many minerals and vitamins as possible," he said. "We talk about it nutrition class all the time.

"The most nutrient-dense food item is liver from a cow. Not that everybody's gonna run out and buy liver and eat that, but it's gonna provide individuals — with only two to four ounces a week — with a significant amount of vitamins and minerals. And in order for our immune system to work properly, we need them all."

Vitamin D has been a hot topic, Burge said, and the best way to get it is from the sun. But Western Maryland winters don't always provide much of that, so supplements can help.

But most of all, "eat as many different things as you can, get as many different vitamins and minerals as possible. Vegetables, fruits; if you can, red meat, chicken, pork, anything and everything.

"And then activity — again, going back to being physically active. Some sort of strength training two to three times a week and some sort of aerobic conditioning, two to three times a week, 30 to 60 minutes, will help the immune system be prepared."

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Mail: Sugar is addictive — how do we break the chain?