I am considering weight loss surgery and I am a sugar addict. Anyone have any suggestions to help with sugar cravings?

You'll want to get yourself weaned off long before your surgery date. I think ripping the band-aid off all at once is the best route. If you totally eliminate sugars & refined carbs (yes, you have to do both at once), it will take about a week for the cravings to die off. And, I'm not going to lie to you, it is a rough week. But once you get past it, it will become much easier.

Sugar, my downfall. I had my ESG three weeks ago tomorrow...during my pre op diet I still had some cravings. Since my ESG so far zilch.

Before I was an all or nothing, and once I had a taste of lolly/candy I would typically go untl there was nothing left or go looking for more. If I went without for a while I was fine it didn't have a hold on me, but one taste would send me off.

I will hold off tempting myself with sugar for as long as possible, I am not sure I want to test myself. I will probably have a sweet thing or two on Christmas day and see how it goes. But sugar (all the sweet products...lollies, cake, biscuits, ice creams, etc) was one of the contributors to my obsesity so it will not feature largely in my future except for those foods that naturally contain sugar on a moderate basis.

My cravings took three weeks to die right down. It was hugely tough - it feels like a real addiction. I later quit sweetened foods too, esp drinks like Coke Zero, because I found they were keeping alive a craving for sweet taste.

Now I am in maintenance, I go through small patches where this craving returns - I don’t like it! I deal with it by having a few grapes, maybe. Of something totally non-sweet like billing. If the craving persists even though I ate, it is a good reminder it isn’t “hunger”!

There is this book called "Always Hungry Solutions" phase one is a sugar detox and it has worked well for me (and I have so far lost 24 lbs!)

Another one is the 21 day sugar detox (it's Paleoish). It worked too but it's harder, I think.

Thanks so much to everyone who answered my question. All of the answers were very helpful.

I took the step down approach, it takes 2 weeks to make or break a habit. So make a small change, and keep that change up for at least 2 weeks, then make another small change, then do that for 2 weeks, keep doing that until you are where you want to be, I've found that somethings, just stopping them ends up in a relapse or rebound. I went from 4 packets of sugar in my morning coffee down to just 1 in a little over a month pre-op. It's helped out quite a bit, I don't "require" the same amount of sweetness as I used it in all things now. Good luck!