We all know sugar is bad for us and will have a negative affect on both our health and our fitness goals. Studies have shown that sugar can be more addictive than illegal drugs! Dr. Mark Hyman said, “In animal studies, they find that the rats go for the sugar and that it’s eight times as addictive as cocaine. Small amounts of sugar can be part of a normal diet, but most of us are addicted to sugar and don’t know it.”
Sugar can be very addictive, but like any addictive substance if you stop eating it for long enough it becomes much easier to resist! Even if you can only cut it out for a few days at a time, that’s better than eating sugars non stop. The best thing you can do to stop sugar cravings is have a whole bag of tricks you can use to deal with them:
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1. Allow yourself small amounts of things you crave
If you have a candy bar then just eat one square and put the rest away or if you have a cookie then only eat half of it.
2. Combine sugary treat foods with healthy foods
You can try things like melting a small amount of chocolate and dipping fruits like strawberries or bananas into it. This way you will get full more quickly and still get a chocolate fix.
3. Decide to cut out all sugars for 3 days
After this time period, your cravings will reduce dramatically! for this to work you need to cut out all sugars and anything sweet (even fruits).
4. Walk away
Whenever you start to crave something sugary, just walk away from it and occupy your mind with something else – go for a walk around the block, call up a friend for a chat or get some chores done.
5. Fill up on good foods
If you constantly feed yourself with filling foods such as avocado, peanut butter, sweet potato, milk, nuts, vegetables etc. you won’t feel like eating anything bad because there won’t be room for it – it’s better to eat a ton of healthy stuff than a ton of bad stuff!
6. Include a cheat meal every week
Allow yourself to eat whatever you want one day a week. This could be anything at all, if you’re craving cake then eat cake, if you want ice cream then have ice cream! Having this meal to look forward to will help prevent you from cheating for the rest of the week.
7. Track your diet
If you track everything you eat it can be shocking to see how much sugar and calories you are actually consuming.
8. Make healthy alternatives
There are tons of delicious recipes that you can make which don’t contain any added sugars. Below are two recipes which I use to deal with my own sweet tooth!
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Chocolate Orange Protein Ice Cream
Ingredients:
60g 74% cocoa dark chocolate
200g unflavoured whey protein ( I realise you may not have this but you can use skimmed milk powder also)
300ml Whole Milk
Zest of half an orange
Method:
Combine all ingredients in a blender then pour into small glasses, leave in the freezer for a few hours until firm then enjoy!
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Strawberry Frozen Yogurt
Ingredients:
500ml plain yogurt
1 cup of strawberries
Method:
Blend half the strawberries and roughly chop the other half. Stir all ingredients together, leave in the freezer for a few hours until firm then enjoy!
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Conclusion
If you have 8 ways to deal with sugar cravings then you should be 8 times more likely to succeed! Change doesn’t happen overnight but little by little you will find you have the willpower to resist anything!