Sugar Cravings

Highlights hot chocolate! 40 calories

To get some sugar without going overboard: Fruit, chocolate rice cakes, greek yogurt in flavors, etc

The more I exercise and sleep the less I crave sugar. Probably something hard to do with a newborn. Also, the more sugar I eat the more I crave it so I try to limit concentrated sugar desserts to only a few a week, never more than one a day and not in the first half of the day because then I crave all day long. No pastry for breakfast but maybe for dessert after dinner.

I make iced tea with juice of 1 lemon and lemon Stevia drops. Works wonders. Or sparkling water with lemon juice, lemon stevia, and frozen blueberries.

Blueberries. Great, not carb laden, full of goodness. Mix with some unsweetened natural organic greek yoghurt - good protein hit. Combo tastes great, very good for you, will leave you feeling satiated for a while.

Don't buy sweets. Not in the house, no problem - right? It's easier than resisting.

Second the motion on exercise and sleep. Both REALLY help.

Sula sweets- Only 8 calories and they lovely. I like the liquorice ones the best or the butter scotch flavour

I promise you, you actually can I used to eat one bar of chocolate a day, or a bag of m&m's. It helps if you don't put all of it in front of you, just a little bit on a plate for example. Or why not make a nicely filled snack bowl: some banana, some grapes, a bit of chocolate and one cookie. Makes you feel full and satisfied, but a great reduction of calories. That's one way

Wheatabix with truvia sprinkled on them or low fat Greek yoghurt with raspberries / strawberries. Eat bananas before any workouts. If you want sugar/sweet eat fruit not processed sources. Be careful of fruit juices though and most low fat yoghurt, it's full of sugar (almost chocolate bar like!)

tedboosalis7 wrote: »

Stevia rocks in my world. I use it in coffee. Doesn't induce insulin response either - since coffee and sugar have the tendency to induce a much larger insulin response for some people. Chocolate - eat dark chocolate, at least 70% and preferably 85% cacao - take that from a former chocolatier here.

It might work for some to eat "sugar free" sweets etc, with artificial sweetners, but for me it has a terrible effect. It makes me crave sugar even more. like CRAZY. and the science behind it makes sense too... as tedboosalis7 mentions above. most artificial sweetners (splenda, aspartame, candarel etc) induce an insulin response which makes your body think its recieving actual sugar, so when no real sugar enters your system, a craving response is triggered. Stevia is magical stuff which doesnt have this problem. I use it all the time and love it. There are thnigs called "Stevia sweet leaf drops" too, which come in loads of different flavours (can get from Amazon). you can put a few drops into coffee if you usually like syrup, or some drops into fizzy water (watermelon and raspberry/chocolate flavour are AMAAAAZING in sparkling water) as a sub for usual soda drinks.

For other sweet satisfying things, I have quest bars (which are also amazing for protein), protein shakes, frozen banana pieces, frozen green grapes, 70% dark chocolate, greek yogurt with PB2 (peanut butter powder). Generally also, if you try to increase your fat and protein intake, you will find your sweet cravings massively decrease. I used to be HELPLESSLY addicted, and still relapse every now and then. But only really due to stress now, not due to improper diet.

@original poster: are you breastfeeding? If yes, your sugar cravings could be hormonal. I have a 5 month old & I've been pumping & I now have the biggest sweet tooth (which I did not have before pregnancy).

I also read if you're craving sugar you could be lacking something else that your body needs (i.e. dehydrated and need more water or need to eat more protein, etc.)

Sorry I don't have food suggestions - I'm trying to figure out these cravings as well! :-)

I am hoping cleaning up my diet will help or that the cravings will go down when I wean my baby.

bc119 wrote: »

Sorry I don't have food suggestions - I'm trying to figure out these cravings as well! :-)

As stated above, sleep deprivation is very likely part of it. I know that doesn't seem to help if you can't sleep more, but sometimes recognizing that your body wants sugar because of the energizing effect can help you be more conscious about it, and when you get in a cycle of eating sugar to get that energy and crashing it can be helpful to break it. Sometimes just by drinking water and eating some carrots or some such (or maybe greek yogurt plus fruit if more calories make sense--it's good to include protein then) when you are wanting something sugary.

I found this to help a lot.

Popsicles! I always have to have something sweet after dinner, so I've started buying Yasso greek yogurt popsicles and fruit popsicles and they totally satisfy my craving.

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