Coping with sugar cravings

MyAlpaca

How do you cope with your sugar cravings. I look at chocolate labels and promptly put them down when I see the calories. The only thing I have found are pink and white wafers. What is your sugar beater?

BTW I am just starting on my journey and at the moment I am just making sure I do not over eat. Once I have that under control, then I can concentrate on healthier options 😉

AnnPT77

FWIW, I found my cravings for simpler sugary foods (candy, baked goods) decreased after I started making it a point to get at least 3 servings of fruit daily. This doesn't help everyone, but I've seen others here report it being successful for them, too, so it's not just me.

For the first couple weeks or so, I had to work at it. Then the fruit consumption became pretty automatic, and the cravings for other stuff decreased. Eventually, I was able to be less structured about the amount of fruit, without the other cravings coming back. I still eat the occasional rich dessert or good chocolate, but many of the things I used to eat (and crave) aren't even appealing now (like grocery store baked goods): They just taste too simple - only sicky-sweet, no interesting flavors, totally not worth the calories.

Used to be if I had that stuff in the house, it would call to me. Now, it's more likely to get stale, if I even end up with some here from people giving it to me, or something.

YMMV.

Unicorn_Bacon

Ann's got a great suggestion above, but where I dont like fruit, I had to try another way.

I've had 60 fudgsicles in my deep freezer for months and I'm barely through the first box.

When cravings for sweets hit for me, I make different choices. I do the same practice for when my binge eating disorder is strong.

If my brain is screaming food, food, food, because honestly, everything and anything for me is a binge food, at night, I acknowledge it rather then fight it because often times fighting something can make it worse.

I choose foods that wouldnt be my first go to choice when I have multiple options. Yeah.. there is 60 fudgsicles in my freezer and I could easily power through those.

So, if I'm gonna engage in a binge or a craving, I'm going to choose the foods I'd probably pick last.

One night, i was feeling the urge to eat...I started with carrots. I did eat quite a big bowl of them. When I was done, I waited a bit to see what my brain was gonna do, would it be more calmer? Or still screamy?
I still felt the urge, so when I went upstairs I saw the loaf of bread there. I made 4 slices but I didnt put anything on it. No butter no nothing. Just dry old toast. Because I have acknowledged that I am giving into my brain screaming at me, so I'm not here to make it taste good. I ate those 4 slices and waited.

I tracked all the calories as I was eating and as I was just hitting the top of my maintenance calories, the combination of eating what was least enjoyable to me and seeing the number of calories increase really made me stop and think about if I wanted to keep going. Which is what I need to practice, making it an acknowledged choice, rather then brain screaming and me just getting up and eating whatever.

I stopped myself from choosing fudgsicles first and having that sweetness be the one grabbing my hand and reaching in for another and another and another. Mostly because I decided to fill the calories between my deficit and maintenance with something else.

To me that's like picking up the cookies and putting them back on the shelf. I didnt wanna keep going past my maintenance, and since I didn't actually taste the fudgsicles, it was easier to also decide against them, reinforced by my desire not to go over maintenance.

Also, by the time I ate all those carrots and choked down 4 slices of dry toast, enough time had passed also and the screaming had quieted down more and made it much easier to manage.

I choose to have a fudgsicle on the days that I'm not struggling. When I know that I have the mental capacity to eat 1 and that's it.

I did it last night. I ate one and never went back for another.

I would much rather hit maintenance, and potentially achieving the goal of acknowledged choice and then being able to stop, rather then hit maintenance without acknowledging and tracking and falling into my same loop of eating and letting the screaming always win.

It may not always work, but the goal is to lessen my binges and the out of control that they can get.

And eventually once i can get used to that, i want to take that new found strength and move away from eating the carrots and the toast and be able to replace it with something non food related. With an eating disorder i know it will take time..

In the end it's all about practice tho. Be it cravings or binge eating or emotional eating.

Lol i rambled on quite a bit there sorry..i hope i made sense

yirara

I have a proper dessert every day after dinner. Might be a tiramisu, a flan, at the moment it's fresh strawberries with quark because I have both en masse at home. If I want something sweet over lunch then I have a slice of bread less and have a small wafer bar or something similar. If I really want something else, like a pack of crisps or liquorice ( ) then I know I'll eat it all and go over my calories. But then the urge is gone for a while. Nothing wrong with that.

mike3582

Salted caramel Kit Kat chunkies keep jumping in my hand in shops. It doesn’t matter what I do I just can’t help myself.

If I can’t resist then I try to go for light snack bars like 99 calorie kinds. As long as I’ve had something that tastes sweet I’m happy.

Unknown

This content has been removed.

conniewilkins56

I keep Hershey kisses at 22 calories each and York reg size peppermint patties at 150 calories in my goodie box....when the sugar urge hits I know I have a sweet treat I can handle....I have lost 75 lbs in 11 months!

lemurcat2

I'm with Ann (I wasn't always, in the past I was skeptical that fruit consumption would make a difference, as I ate fruit in season and not at other times of the year and hadn't noticed a difference). When I was losing I included sugary treats (mostly ice cream) in my diet but kept it controlled by eating it only after dinner (I didn't otherwise snack) and only if it fit within my cals. Hard and fast rules. Not snacking during the day usually meant I didn't think about food between meals, even when tempting things arrived in the office break room.

However, around the beginning of last year I made an effort to eat more fruit throughout the year, and every day 2-3 servings, as part of going more plant-based and somewhat higher carb than I'd been (still not especially high carb, I just naturally ate kind of lower carb before), and since then I have lost all interest in any sugary treats with rare exception. It's weird, and it hasn't actually led to me eating lower cals or finding it easier to maintain -- my favorite high cal foods aren't sweet -- but it is another data point that suggests it could help. Since I stopped eating dessert for the most part I don't think about it or miss it even on days I don't have fruit, but I suspect that's habit. Or it's nothing to do with the fruit, but getting old! ;-)

cesse47

I'm not at the point where I can have sweets, treats, or desserts in the house. If I'm desperate for a dessert, I'll plan for it and get one serving of it. When I decided to start back again, I examined what I did in the past. While I lost weight, I was not successful at keeping it off ... and, I quit long before I reached my goal. I decided I needed to approach this a bit differently. I started at the end of March so this is my 4th week. I have decided to focus on 4 things. 1. log everything that passes my lips; totally and honestly. 2. Drink a minimum of 8 glasses of water a day. 3. begin to exercise and increase over time. and, 4. focus on choosing lower carb value items to keep carbs in check.

I've noticed two things thus far. First, when I feel a craving the first thing I do is go to the kitchen and drink a large glass of water and leave the kitchen. Second, if the water doesn't satisfy me, then I put on a walking tape and exercise. I'm 72 and have compromised lungs so walking to the pace of most videos can exhaust me pretty quickly. Both of these have helped to distract me from cravings.

One other thing I've noticed. I don't really get a craving for sweets, per se. I get a "craving". I think a big share of it is that I get bored and my old "go-to" was the kitchen for a treat. I'm now trying to channel that into a more healthy response.

My granddaughter purchased a bag of Hershey miniatures for me during her last grocery order ... thinking it was a nice treat for me. Not an overwhelming success. I tried to keep them in a remote room ... but could hear them whispering to me in the dark in the middle of night. I've since portioned them out into snack baggies and put them in the freezer. If that doesn't work; I'll be giving them to a neighbor.

radi0rah33m

If ull eat for example...
5cookies = 50g

U need to cut the 50g of carbs out of your daily carb limit...

So if ur carb limit is 100, and u are 50g of carbs with cookies... that means u have 50g of carbs left to eat till the day ends
Its all about evening things out... cheating will make u pay...

Although bare in mind, 50g of carbs from cookies vs 50g of carbs from fruits ( calms cravings ) are a WHOLE different story

A cookie or two wont kill u ...just set a limit for urself...

When i get sweet cravings i eat 2 cookies...and im done for the day.....works well for me..... its all about will and determination!

Cheers🙄

Unicorn_Bacon

radi0rah33m wrote: »

If ull eat for example...
5cookies = 50g

U need to cut the 50g of carbs out of your daily carb limit...

So if ur carb limit is 100, and u are 50g of carbs with cookies... that means u have 50g of carbs left to eat till the day ends
Its all about evening things out... cheating will make u pay...

Although bare in mind, 50g of carbs from cookies vs 50g of carbs from fruits ( calms cravings ) are a WHOLE different story

A cookie or two wont kill u ...just set a limit for urself...

When i get sweet cravings i eat 2 cookies...and im done for the day.....works well for me..... its all about will and determination!

Cheers🙄

Sorry but if I have the calories for 50g of cookies, I'm going to eat both, you dont have to give up carbs in exchange for other carbs.

sashimimaniac

i agree with yirara on dessert. i tell myself that it is ok to have some sugar in my life because otherwise you will always crave the forbidden. the trick is timing your sugar intake. i usually have maybe half a muffin, some fruit, a small chunk of really good dark chocolate or even a small cup of chocolate milk after lunch (not everything listed here at one go of course 😅) i agree with AnnPT77 that fruit is a good choice. try intermittent fasting because that really helps with cravings. ultimately, it’s all calories in and calories out, no matter which diet you are on