What to eat when you're CRAVING sweets?

Whenever I get a sweet attack/chocolate attack I stop before consuming anything

1- when was the last time I drank water? (cravings/hunger can be a sign of being thirsty)
2 - Have I eaten recently? (low blood sugar)
3- do I have the room in my day for something? (Calories/Macro)
4 - did I take my magnesium supplement? (this is for chocolate cravings, I have a magnesium deficiency and it manifests itself as a chocolate craving - (since chocolate (mostly dark) has magnesium in it)

If all yes then I will indulge in some tasty treats

Costco sells some granola bars from Fiber One that have some not-too-sweet chocolate in them. I know anything with the word "fiber" involved doesn't sound particularly appetizing, but they taste good and are good for you, while giving you something sweet.

I find it easiest not to eat sweets -- just intensifies my cravings, etc. Not a program for everybody but works best for me! By the way usually takes 30 days of "white knuckling" for the cravings to go away (mostly!), but so worth it! So what do I eat instead when I do have cravings? here are a few things that work for me: UMP vanilla protein smoothy with 6 or 7 frozen strawberries blended in with the protein powder or an UMP chocolate protein smoothie, with SWIIG low fat powdered peanut butter and some cold coffee blended in, almond or cashew milk: UMP protein pancakes with a little nut butter drizzled on and a cup of lovely tea (I like roobois chai); plain lowfat greek yogurt with some frozen strawberry slices and a little stevia. By doing this I quell the cravings and stick to my calorie macros; also it really helps if I eat my meals on time with sufficient protein/fat/carbs. Probably the most important thing I do to quell cravings. And I'm really working on getting enough sleep. I also time my meals to work with my intense exercise sessions (I do HIIT like crossfit and bootcamp, weightlifting which really revs me up, and some running/or cross coutry road biking or intense hiking). Eating around these activities is really important so I don't get too hungry.

If you reach for a handy protein like nuts, then you will feel full, but it still won't help until you break the addiction. It takes about 3-7 days to break the addiction. It took me 5 days. Sugar has been proven to be more addictive than cocaine. See this summary from research done by National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23719144

AnvilHead wrote: »

Chocolate protein pudding.

this. love it so much I had it for breakfast! I also like ice cream (Skinny cow) or a half serving of whatever is in the house. Last night was Ben and Jerry's Americone Dream. I eat sweets but I work it into my calories for the day.

EmmieBaby wrote: »

Whenever I get a sweet attack/chocolate attack I stop before consuming anything

1- when was the last time I drank water? (cravings/hunger can be a sign of being thirsty)
2 - Have I eaten recently? (low blood sugar)
3- do I have the room in my day for something? (Calories/Macro)
4 - did I take my magnesium supplement? (this is for chocolate cravings, I have a magnesium deficiency and it manifests itself as a chocolate craving - (since chocolate (mostly dark) has magnesium in it)

If all yes then I will indulge in some tasty treats

Love this! Mindfulness at its best

I've wanted chocolate for a couple days so this morning I actually had a couple smallish chocolate chip cookies with my coffee. I don't even really like cookies lol. They are the safe sweet I can normally have in the house and not want. I just logged it and will ease the calories out of other things.

I usually have some quality chocolate or fruit. I finally bought dates the other day. I love love love dates and they usually can satisfy my sweet tooth. I keep frozen berries for crunchy sweet tooth.

I just bought Ridgefield at Aldi. Only 40 calories and satisfies my craving for sweets.

I found that I've had to deal with this really slowly. There are these protein bars that I really, really like by Simple Truth. Still high in sugar, but not as bad as eating an entire box of oreos or something. I was doing two of those bars almost every day and this week swapped one out for fruit and I've noticed my unquenchable desire for sweets is starting to ebb away. It's getting much easier to have, say, one piece of chocolate or one cookie instead of the whole package.

Grapes - then I close my eyes and pretend they're M&Ms :-)