How Do Sugar Cravings Develop?

I have found from experience that individuals who eat haphazardly, eat very fast and eat a narrower range of uninteresting foods tend to develop food addictions. Sugar cravings are almost a form of compensation for an uninteresting palate.

Chronic dieters are particularly susceptible to erratic and uncontrollable sugar cravings. Do you put yourself on punishing diets and eat like a bird in the attempt to get to your goal weight by tomorrow? You may want to take a cold hard look at yourself to ascertain what it is that you are subjecting yourself to that is causing these addictions.

I postulate that it could be due to a lack of balance. Balance is key in the taste sensations we get from our foods. There should be a mix of sour, sweet, hot, cold, bitter, salty, spicy taste sensations in our palate. These myriad of tastes sensations, food textures and mouth feels contribute to the enjoyment of food. If we enjoy each meal slowly, feel fully satisfied and stop just before we are full, we are less likely to develop sugar addictions.

Why Do I Have Sugar Cravings?

Cravings can be linked to a drop in blood sugar levels. If your last meal was more than 6 hours ago, it is reasonable to expect hunger pangs to initial sugar cravings. After all, your body needs sugar to produce energy quickly. Particularly the brain – the only form of fuel the brain uses is sugar, not fat or protein. Consequently, it is natural for you to crave sugar when famished!

Food cravings can also arise from hormonal changes. Many women report that they crave sugar when they are pre-menstrual. Our emotional state is also largely responsible for our sugar cravings. Some people, when angry or under stress, find themselves polishing off an entire block of chocolate, half a cake and a whole pack of sweet biscuits. If you are one of those people, try to keep those emotions in check by taking time out to calm down before reaching for the bag of jelly beans. Some breathing exercises to relax could be useful!

How To Stop Sugar Cravings

Are you in the habit of eating something sweet after dinner? Do you like a bowl of ice cream after dinner? If you break this habit, you are on the perfect path to stop your sugar cravings for good.

Stop sugar cravings in-between meals

To prevent cravings, simply have a snack between your 3 main meals. Reach for some fruits, nuts or yoghurt.

Brush Your Teeth

Brushing your teeth at the end of the meal can readily stop sugar cravings. The toothpaste leaves a fresh minty flavour in your mouth and this makes you less likely to reach for something sweet.

Have Some Water

Often thirst is mistaken for hunger. We confuse the body’s messages. Tune in to your body’s cues and get a big glass of water instead of starting on that bar of chocolate.

Do Something Different

Are you bored after spending hours at your desk? Get up and go for a walk instead of giving in to the urge to eat something sweet. Craving something sweet could just be a habit. The best way to stop the craving is to stop the habit altogether. Distract yourself another way, call a friend, go for a walk, take a long hot bath, listen to some music and start grooving or do some yoga.

If you can just delay satisfying your immediate food cravings, you can drastically reduce the amount of times you actually give in to them. They are called “moments” of weakness for that reason. If you can extend the “moment”, the weakness may well pass, too. This is a very powerful method to stop sugar cravings.

Do anything but eat something sweet and break the habit. You might actually like yourself more for being stronger than your cravings!

Clear Your Pantry

Another way to stop sugar cravings is to clear your pantry. Eliminate or store sweet foods in opaque jars so that they are “Out of sight and out of mind.”

Control the Quantities

If having coffee with friends or dining out, share the piece of cake or dessert. That way you cut down on half the sugar intake and get to enjoy exactly what you want. You are less likely to feel deprived and resentful of missing out on the sweet.

Stop sugar cravings at home by giving yourself a bit of chocolate and keep the rest of the bar in a hard to reach place, like the rear of the top kitchen shelf. Then walk out of the kitchen and settle down somewhere else before you start eating.

When Shopping

Never shop when you are dangerously hungry. You will reach for the sweet treats unconsciously when you blood sugar levels are low. Eat something like a piece of fruit and a yoghurt before you commence shopping. Take a list with you and buy only what is on the list, nothing more!

Hypnosis to Stop Sugar Cravings

You might also want to give hypnosis a go as another complementary tool in your quest to stop sugar cravings. I have purchased a number of hypnosis mp3 recordings from the following site myself, and found them to be surprisingly effective. They are very reasonably priced and come with a risk-free 90-day money back guarantee – more than enough time to see if this works for you:

• Stop Sugar Cravings Hypnosis

You might also like to try the more general Perfect Health hypnosis session:

• Perfect Health Hypnosis

Sugar addiction is like any other addiction, only it is socially acceptable and therefore harder to incriminate.

100 Days of Empowerment – Stop Sugar Cravings and Beyond

When you are completely stuck, it usually helps to attack a problem from a completely different angle. Have a look at the following video – it’s quite fun and so true!

A friend sent this to me last year, and I signed up for the program myself. Having been through the entire 100 days program, I can whole-heartedly recommend it. Yeah sure, I do not need to stop sugar cravings in my life, but I am still human with plenty of other issues. And I can tell you, this program is full of positive, empowering messages that truly propel you each day to live a life you love! Create your own breakthroughs, go for your dreams – and walk down a different street!
In fact, the program was so good that my entire family (husband and two kids) shared the journey, too, and had their own breakthroughs.

UPDATE (28-June): The 100 Day Challenge used to be available only around the start of the year, but now you don’t have to wait. What would you like your life to look 100 days from now? Stop those cravings for good and replace them with pride. Check it out here: The 100 Day Challenge.

 
Do you find this article useful? What are your breakdowns and breakthroughs in dealing with your sugar cravings? What’s your plan of attack? I’d love to hear from you, and I will keep updating this post with the latest tips on how to stop sugar cravings!

Foods containing pungent flavour are often rich in sulphur content. These foods not only are great mould deterrents, they also play vital roles in DNA repairs. Cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, garlic and onions are sulphur rich and powerful inducers of protective enzymes like superoxide dismutase and glutathione peroxidase. They are also high in indoles and can inhibit colorectal, bladder, lung, mouth, throat, stomach and breast cancers.

Cruciferous vegetable are particularly rich in isothiocynates.  Isothiocyanates have amazing anti-aging properties; this is because they are potent inhibitors of enzymes that promote glycation.  Glycation occurs when oxidation of sugars coating the surface of proteins like collagen result in the formation of Advanced Glycated Endproducts – AGEs. As the name implies, AGEs literally cause premature aging with the formation of saggy, wrinkly skin.  Note that any external signs of aging are accompanied by the aging of  internal organs as well.  The external and internal are never mutually exclusive. 

This aging process is even more pronounced in diabetics as AGEs form more quickly with elevated blood sugar levels.  It is not uncommon for a diabetic diagnosed at the age of 30 to have a physiological age of 75 by the time they reach the chronological age of 60.  It is a well-known fact that accelerated aging comes with poorly controlled blood sugar levels.  Hence, to reduce age-related cell damage, diabetics should tuck into large quantities of these vegetables to decelerate the glycation process and its accompanying premature aging.
In conclusion, these vegetables protect you from DNA damage, stimulate cancer cell death (cell apoptosis) and keep you looking and feeling young. Why would you not eat heaps more of them daily?

Diabetes is a chronic disease.  This means it is progressive and people who have it generally have it for life.  Initially, when a person is pre-diabetic, lifestyle changes involving appropriate diet and exercise are enough to keep blood glucose levels in the healthy range.  But as the disease progress, medication will be prescribed to keep sugar levels down.  In time, even this will fail to achieve normal blood sugar levels and insulin injections (up to 6 a day) will be prescribed.

In this article,  I will discuss the 5 classes of tablets commonly prescribed for diabetics and their side effects. I hope after reading this article, you will have a better understanding of what options are available to you, how appropriate your medication is for you and the alternatives you could choose from if your current medication is inappropriate.

Essentially the 5 classes of diabetic tablets can be categorised as follow:
1. Biguanides
2. Sulphonylureas
3. Thiazolidinediones
4. Meglitinides
5. Alpha glucosidase inhibitor

Most newly diagnosed diabetics are prescribed biguanides. Biguanides are also called metformin. Metformin acts by reducing the release of sugar from your liver, slowing down absorption of sugar from you intestine and making your body more sensitive to the hormone insulin. Metformin tablets are taken with meals and may present side effects like nausea, diarrhoea and metallic taste in the mouth. You will not gain weight with this medication but may lose some weight which is a real bonus! Long term usage of metformin can cause vitamin B12 deficiency so you will need to remind your doctor to test you B12 levels regularly to make sure that you are not deficient. If you are, you will need supplements or B12 injections on a regular basis.

The second class of drugs is the sulphonylureas. Sulphonylureas are taken before meals and can cause hypoglycaemia or low blood sugar levels making you feel faint so you must have lollies or sweet drinks available for when you experience a ‘hypo’. These drugs can cause weight gain. Not such a good thing as most diabetics are also overweight. Diabetics with poorer sugar control are often prescribed sulphonylureas in combination with the biguanides (expect to take more and more drugs if you sugar control is poor).

Thiazolidinediones act by lowering your blood sugar and increasing the effect of insulin on your muscles and fat cells. They increase your body’s sensitivity to insulin. These drugs can be taken any time of the day and may cause small weight gain but they seem to have the added bonus of redistributing fat from you tummy to your thighs! Good for trimming your waist!

Meglitinides act by stimulating the pancreas to release more insulin. They are taken just before meals and are quick acting. Possible side effects are hypoglycaemia, gastric upset and abnormal liver function tests. Regularly stimulating the pancreas to release more insulin can place a ‘strain’ on the beta-cells cause negative health outcomes. Meglitinides are great for individuals with erratic eating patterns like shift working nurses and factory workers.

Arcabose (alpha glucosidase inhibitor) are taken before meals and act by slowing down carbohydrate digestion and absorption. The side effects like bloating, diarrhoea and flatulence are quite unpleasant. However, with all these unpleasant side effects, weight loss is natural. A good bonus!

I hope this article demystifies the commonly prescribed drugs for your health condition. If you are experiencing any unpleasant side effects, it might be wise to change your medication. Please do not hesitate to ask if you have any questions or wish to post a comment below.