How to get rid of sweet tooth

KM0692

I have a huge sweet tooth and I'm beginning to wonder if I should just get rid of all the junk in the house and try and quit "cold turkey". I can't have "just one cookie" or "just a bite or two of cake" and be happy. I tend to keep going until I feel sick. I don't do this with other foods (meals, salty foods, etc)...just sweets. I want to stop.

KM0692

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Mangopickle

I had to do this with processed wheat, rice, potato and processed corn. I have a 34 yr history of being unable to portion control them. They are my trigger foods. I finally just stopped eating them. I make my own wraps/crepes from chickpea flour, I make summer squash pizza crust. I eat bean and lentil chips. Quinoa instead of rice, Shirataki instead of pasta. Hominy and sweet potato instead of white potato. This has been the most successful decision I have made for my health. When I get blowback from people about my decision I remind them that we don't tell someone with COPD to portion control his cigarettes.

livvy22890

I have an awful sweet tooth! I totally understand. Instead of going cold-turkey, I replaced my sugary snacks with healthier, sweet options: fruit leather, almonds dusted in dark chocolate, low-cal greek yogurt pops - you get the picture.

Sure, I was having a sweet fix but it wasn't ruining what I was trying to do. I found that I'm only super addicted to sugary snacks that are bad for me. When I'm eating something that isn't awful but still sweet I can remind myself why I'm having a chocolate covered pretzel instead of a bag of mini snickers and why I only want to have a few instead of all. Perhaps its the conscious choice that I'm making? I don't know.

Hopefully that helps!

dekadai

I have lots of fruit in my lunch bag. Every time I start craving processed sugar I eat some fruit. It's worked so far. Still indulging in the occasional ice cream though, but not as often.

SusanL222

......have the dentist pull it?

jstavix

I do too! I went and got kroger fruit bars with no sugar added. I also got popcorn called "boom chicka pop" lightly sweetened. 37 calories per cup so not too shabby on the portion and it satisfies my craving. I have also eliminated all the trigger foods in my house. My hubby has some candy stashed, out of sight, out of mind.

SusanL222

Sorry, couldn't resist my knee-jerk response to your topic question! However, I do empathize with you. I marvel that ppl can be satisfied with one chocolate chip cookie, for instance. What has worked for me is to eliminate all sweets for awhile and then add a really good, high percentage chocolate (80-85%) so that I don't feel completely deprived. Once you have not had sugary foods for awhile, the 80% chocolate will taste sweet, but doesn't trigger the 'I need more' response.....at least for me.

I wish you well with finding the solution that works for you!

rachelrb85

Just one cookie or a couple bites of a cake definitely won't satisfy your sweet tooth. Why can't you work in a couple cookies or a piece of cake into your daily intake? I have a huge sweet tooth, but I always work some kind of sweets in my day. Some of my usual "healthy" sweets are greek yogurt, fiber one 90 cal cinnamon bar, cinnamon hazelnut protein cereal, fruit, dark chocolate. But I usually work in some kind of real sweets like cookies, cake, and ice cream. If not daily, at least multiple days during the week. I personally think moderation is key, this is a lifestyle change not a diet. I would not be a happy person if I deprived myself of sweets. So this way I'm happy and I'm still losing weight, win win.

WitchesGuildMaster

"One cookie"? "One bite of cake"? GOOD GRIEF. If I want cookies I eat the whole bag in one sitting! And I don't even skimp on the milk either. And yes, I MAKE it fit.

Meerataila

I acknowledged that there are certain foods I only ate to stimulate the pleasure centers in my brain, and that they are foods with zero nutritional value. And then I forced myself to admit that I don't have a high enough calorie allotment to meet my daily nutritional needs when I eat those foods. Most important, I started categorizing foods as either making me less hungry after eating them or making me more hungry. And I got rid of the ones that make me more hungry. Because it ain't natural, ya'll! Food shouldn't make you hungry!

kgeyser

Have you spoken to a doctor about this? Overindulging in certain foods is one thing, eating until you are physically ill is another. You say this only happens with sweets and not other foods - have sweets always been a comfort food for you? Sometimes our emotional connections to certain foods can get in the way of our success with weight loss. If you find yourself turning to sweets for emotional eating - stress, sadness, boredom, etc - then the solution might be to work with someone who can help you change that behavior and figure out why you are eating to the point where you feel sick. No shame in figuring out why you're standing in front of the cupboard and working to change that so you can still enjoy your sweets without going overboard, lots of MFPers have been in that situation and been successful after getting the root causes under control.

Desifreckle

hard candies do it for me, they last a long time so I feel like i'm getting a lot of sweets and they are low calorie. Sugar free hard candies are even lower calorie (3 at 35 calories and that would last me an entire day for sure) -- my favorites are butterscotch, life savers, and cinnamon discs.. but others are mints, tic tacs, or jolly ranchers.

another trick is jello with a small amount of cool whip, pretty tasty. Yogurt is a good one, as well as popsicles. I like weight watchers strawberry yogurt pops too!

I don't keep cake or cookies in the house, it makes it harder to get the stuff you crave -- if you have to drive to a store to get it you have more time to talk yourself out of eating it rather than if it was sitting in your kitchen a few feet away all day.

I know it's frowned upon, but sometimes a diet dr. pepper really keeps me from reaching for a cookie or ice cream. It doesn't make me crave more at all like some people claim it does. I don't drink it that often because the carbonation is almost too much for me since I stopped drinking it daily. lol

TiffieLand

Probably best to get rid of most of the sweet foods, leave 1 type in small size for sometimes snacking since it literally impossible to complete cut out sweet in the long term. I'm the type of eat a bit of everything that I have so it's bad to have so many sweet foods in the house.

aedreana

I am a fat-craver, not a sugar-craver. But I cannot even imagine eating enough of ANYTHING to feel overfull. I only know what it feels like to be COMFORTABLY full. If you don't know to quit eating when you reach that point then, yes definitely you need to quit eating sweets completely!

chadya07

i have one too. as bad as you describe. i have almost beaten it by staying away. and replacing it with sweet raw vegetables like pod peas and bell peppers and cherry tomatoes (luckily i have always loved them) the longer i go without them the less i want them. but when i buy them... i have to admit i ate a pound of taffy last week because i made a mistake of buying more than i needed. . i think twice before buying large quantities of anything i would want to eat all at once. i can protion out a lot of things in individual bags... but not sweets.

i dont drink diet soda or eat diet candies...

i have occasional treats but i buy only one serving.

just say no.

RunMyOregonBunsOff

When mine got really bad one time I went cold turkey but only for 7 days (that was the plan) and I did a great job of sticking to that and then by the end of the 7 days I felt like I could control how much I ate and I could have even my favorite treat in the house and not just eat it because it was there and must be eaten. I may need to do this again sometime soon. lol

Snow3y

I used to love sweets and sugar until 1 day in my teen years I broke out with acne, and I believed it was caused by the sugar.. So I tried eating less and less sugar, and eventually I got put off of it... These days the only sugars I eat are natural fruit sugars and Xylitol.. In the end, this decision was for the best because it allowed me to focus better in class (I have ADD) and I rarely find myself craving sugar, and I also hardly ever have 'sugar crashes' simply because i don't eat it often.

illbeing

I'm with you there, I'm still trying to deal with my terrible sweet tooth. But it does get easier!
I used to drink about 5 cups of tea a day, each with two teaspoons of sugar in it, I always hated the taste of artificial sweeteners but I shopped around and eventually found one that actually tastes nice in my tea (Canderel sweetener tablets) I made the switch and that's one sweet problem solved. I'm no longer drinking 10 teaspoons of sugar in a day.
I think the key is to find your biggest sugar problem areas and address them one at a time, try to replace each thing with something that can satisfy the sweet tooth to some extent.
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Drinking things that taste sweet with no sugar is the best thing I can recommend. Every time I had a sweet craving I drank a can of Pepsi Max, it has no sugar in it and yet it tastes really sweet (how do they do that?) it helps so much.

pbbagel

Do you eat enough carbs with your meals? Sometimes I find if I eat less carbs at lunch or dinner it makes me crave sweet food more afterwards.

Snip8241

I eat peanut butter on an apple and log it in my diary.

martyqueen52

I'm a cake / pastry *kitten*, bad.... and the fact I live next to 3 pastry shops within 10 miles doesn't help.

I don't keep a lot of sweets in my home other than fiber one bars, quest bars, and cereal bars.

But on Saturdays I get some pastries from one of the shops. One day won't hurt you to enjoy yourself.

MzNeecie

I can identify with you, I haven't met a cookie I didn't enjoy:) hence the profile pic! I am like some of the others i try to work out a way to have something if i really want it. on a good note i have reduced my cookie intake and use fiber one brownies, and 90 calorie snacks to try and satisfy my sweet tooth.

EdwinaB50

At the moment my little snack is cherries... I got rid of all temptation in our house. However, I do have my "Sweet Wednesdays" when I hook up with the girls I know its probably not good, but still losing weight at an expectable pace. No way I would be able to go cold turkey :noway:

DataSeven

I used to drink massive amounts of sugar-sweetened coffee. I switched to tea, and I choose fruit or mint varieties which I am able to drink without any sugar or milk. It makes a big difference in training my taste buds to like naturally sweet rather than demanding additional sugar.

JennyBilyeu

I have a sweet tooth, however...it's now more under control than not in control. I made myself some fluff...yes I said fluff...lol. It's a 1oz box of sugar free fat free chocolate pudding and 1 8oz container of cool whip free. I made the pudding with unsweetened vanilla soymilk. Once the pudding is made, fold in the cool whip. I tried a newbie last night and froze it....OMG...NOM NOM NOM!!! You can have a cup of it and not feel guilty!! It helps TONS!!!! Like some of the others...no more sweets in my house. One lady said her husband has candy that is out of sight out of mind. So does mine, as well as my boys. I'm finding that "sugary" stuff is too sugary. I haven't had a soda in over a month and took a sip of one just yesterday. YUCK!!!!! I was ill! Try looking at HungryGirl.com. She has some EXCELLENT recipes that are very low sugar and very low cal that might also help with the sweet tooth.

Francl27

Find a genie and use it as one of your 3 wishes

Seriously, it doesn't go away. Just have some sweet things... make sweet oatmeal, have some Greek yogurt with fruit or peanut butter etc... I still have sweets pretty much every day.

Laurayinz

^^ find other ways to get sweets. fruits, yogurts... keep the cookies & cake junk to an occasional thing, but you can't totally rid yourself of cravings so easily. you'll go nuts. Just need to control it better. easier said than done, I know, but if it's important enough to you, and if you track it all to see where your calories are going, you can do it. When you do have some, take it slowly and savor, rather than speed stuffing yourself just because it's there. It's not going anywhere. My house was like that with ice cream. We ate a lot of it pretty frequently, it was crazy for a while, so we tried not to buy it that often. Now we've had the same 5 cartons in the freezers for months. it's there, and we only have some when we want a treat. it's not an every night requirement anymore.

TheWorstHorse

Trying to power your way through craving is a tough way to go; very few people are successful at cold-turkey-style abstinence. But it can be done. Better though, might be to replace the way you satisfy the craving. That seems to work for a lot of people. So... get rid of all the food that triggers the craving so you don't fall back on it. Replace it with something that has satisfies your sweet craving. Couple that with something that leaves you feeling satiated. Have a fixed portion of whatever that combo is when you have a sweet tooth. Gradually you will replace the old reward with the new one.

For me, it was fruit and almonds. I could have five cherries and ten almonds and that would do it. Or just an apple. Or some water sweetened with flavoring. After a couple of months, I am much more likely to let it pass or reach for a piece of fruit.

Here's the bad news: there is a lot of evidence that cravings never really disappear. We just learn to replace one way of rewarding it with another or overlay it with a different habit. But it will still bite you in the butt if you give it the original reward. Just ask almost anyone who has given up cigarettes or alcohol.

stevegietz

This works for some, not others. I hope it'll help you kickstart your diet change. Make a grocery list for healthy meals/snacks. Pick a date, any date ... a Sunday, Monday, 1st of the month; whatever helps you get your head in the game. Then, the day before that one, eat whatever you want. When you're stuffed, throw the rest away!! ... and then go grocery shopping.

When you feel a craving wait for it to pass ... drink some water, eat an apple, etc. If it doesn't go away, get ONE small donut, or ONE SMALL candybar, or SMALL whatever, but NOT every day! Stick to 80% healthy, 20% guilty pleasures. Pick one day (for me it's Saturday) and flip it 20/80 just to stay sane. It's totally a mind game and you won't always make it, but keep the goal in mind. It gets easier and after a while sweet things will start tasting too sweet and you'll crave less. Good luck!

sweetpea03b

It helps me. I just don't keep the stuff around.... when I go see my parents its always a terrible weekend because they have all kinds of yummy goodies around. I find its easy to make good choices when its the only choice you have