I have been using CICO for about four months. I’m using Loseit, and everything is OK. I’ve been desiring sweets for the past three days. Other than that, I’ve very much lost my taste for sweets. I’m pretty small, thus I eat 1000 calories per day (with plenty of vegetables, appropriate protein, home-cooked, unprocessed foods). Anyone have any idea why?
Many sugar cravings are the result of a blood sugar imbalance. When you consume sugar, your blood sugar rises and your body releases insulin to bring it down to a healthy level. If insulin causes your blood sugar level to drop too low, as it often does, your body seeks things that will raise it and give you more energy.
Sugar cravings occur in diabetics who are at risk of hypoglycemia as their bodies seek sugar. In this situation, the temptation can arise for people to consume sugar, such is the urge, yet a lot of times sugar cravings can occur out of nowhere.
If you crave sweets, especially after meals, it is an indication of insulin resistance.
Your sugar cravings could be the result of repressed emotions from the past or current stressful conditions; sugar could be a coping method to filter out unpleasant feelings; have you been depressed recently?
Sugar cravings are merely symptoms; look for the underlying cause, which could be an emotional, psychological, or bodily imbalance (liver and kidney).
The kind of meals we want speaks a lot about us. If you crave soft gooey decadent food, you could be feeling lonely; if you crave crisp hot food, your life could be kind of dull and you need more.
Sweets are addictive. The more you eat, the more you want them. Stopping cold turkey may result in a week of painful detox symptoms. The fact that you experience “sugar withdrawal” suggests that you were addicted.
Addicts and alcoholics are instructed to entirely abstain from their substance because one drink or usage will return them to their former addictive patterns and cravings.
I suppose the same is true with sweets. It is lot easier for me to avoid having sweets around than to look at them and resist indulging. The holidays are challenging. My hubby received a beautiful panettone for Christmas. I’ll have one slice each day. No more. Hopefully, I can keep to it. If not, I will have to go cold turkey off sweets again to reset and return to my abstinence.
The more sugar you consume, the more you crave.
I reduced my sugar consumption to nearly nothing.
Begin by being exceedingly picky about the sweets you eat. Remove anything containing shortening, artificial flavours, colours, or fake vanilla. Remove all artificial sweeteners.
Eat only sweets made with real butter, sugar, and vanilla.
Enjoy each bite.
I obtain hagen dasz ice cream and consume about six teaspoons per day. I buy a piece of cheesecake and it lasts three to four days.
Sugar desire is a physiologic addiction in which sugar alters your regulatory hormones. When your brain craves chocolate, it seems like a thought, but it is not. Your fat cells deliver chemical impulses to the brain, which influences your thinking. So, step one is to forgive yourself. You’re not weak-willed; you’re simply responding to chemical messages as nature intended.
If we view sugar as an addiction, similar to opiate addiction, the answer is obvious: abstinence. This is not what most people want to hear:-(.
People achieve abstinence in various ways. Some people cut back gradually, while others go cold turkey. I took the cold turkey route. The evening before, I removed everything sugary from my kitchen.
You sound like you have an addictive response to sugar.
Gradually trying to wean yourself off sweets is an exercise in futility. There is no physical dependency to manage like there is with opiates, so all you are doing is making the process of dealing with it longer, less efficient & more prone to relapse.
Pick a day. A special day if you can, like your birthday or something memorable - and stop eating sweets. Deal with the psychological cravings & break the cycle of sugar rush / crash / rush / crash.
If you fail, step back, try to understand why you failed & what you can do differently. Then try again.
How can anyone quit craving sweets? Let’s go into what sweets are and why they are a source of temptation for us. To be honest, they are very gorgeous. When you notice it’s appealing, our brain interprets the information to increase your desire to try it. Our taste senses store this information in our brains in a simple equation that says, “Sweet + Yummy item + Doesn’t hurt to try one = Happiness”.
The simple truth that our brain becomes so readily convinced of it that we feel powerless to prevent eating it and switch to a healthier option.
If these heavenly sweets are so potent? Well, there is a hack that we can apply to trick it.
The appetite on a sugar burner is excruciating, urgent and frenzied.
The appetite on a fat-burner is mild, docile, and easy to suppress.
Change from being a sugar burner to a fat burner.
When you have a sugar craving, eat some meat, fish, or poultry, along with the fat that comes with it. Drink extra water with a teaspoon of salt per pint. Expect to drop four kilogrammes of weight in roughly two weeks. Sausages, cheese, chilli, pickled herring, and sardines. Limit carbohydrate intake to 25 grammes per day and do not measure calories.
Change to a healthy, balanced diet that is low in carbs. That includes reducing your intake of sugar, sweets, bread, cake, biscuits, pastry, and snacks and replacing them with vegetables, fruit, protein, and dairy.
The reason for this is that both starch and sugar in carbs quickly raise your blood sugar, then swiftly reduce it, causing you to eat high carb foods to maintain your blood sugar stable.
If you are under the age of 18 or have a relevant health condition, check your doctor before making severe dietary changes.
Consider whether you utilise food for emotional or psychological comfort, and address any underlying concerns.
Hormonal and blood sugar abnormalities might also contribute to sweet cravings. If you’ve already tried eating well, exercising regularly, and living a healthy lifestyle, be tested for blood sugar, fasting insulin, thyroid function, and magnesium deficiency.
Consult your doctor and dietician for additional help managing cravings and symptoms.
I approached things from a more holistic perspective. I needed to address my incapacity to deal with stress initially, because I sought for sugar more at those times, as well as my overall diet and unhealthy gut flora. Bad gut flora feeds on sugar, therefore they transmit ‘craving’ signals to your brain indicating that they require it! Cutting out all sugar for a period and taking a strong probiotic helped a lot, as did keeping sugar intake limited from then on. I also use sugar replacements, such as stevia. Good luck!
You’re describing an addiction. The unfortunate truth is that engineers like myself create processed meals to be addicting. And don’t believe it’s “only” sugar. The garbage I was constructing had a variety of different elements. Any processed ‘corn’ product is simply sugar with a different name. Essentially, much of your grocery shop is a sugar store.
The answer is as bad. You realise you can’t be an alcoholic and “stop consuming too much spirits,” right? You must come to a full halt. That involves preparing your own meals from real groceries. And yeah, it is quite difficult.
What worked effectively for me was to avoid any sugary and artificially sweetened foods. I discovered that the sweet flavour is what causes me to seek sweets. After only two weeks of not eating anything sweet, the yearning for sweets was relieved for good.