Need help cutting out the sweets!!

maxit wrote: »

Leave room for "sweets" in your calorie intake every day, and if you are wanting to have sweet stuff that has helpful nutrients, try fresh cherries or strawberries.

Yep this^^^

Yeah, sounds like you're pretty convinced that "cutting out" stuff is an integral part of weight loss, but it isn't - in fact it's counterproductive. If you tell yourself sweets are "naughty" or "bad" or "forbidden", you are setting yourself up for cravings and internal battles, and just making things far harder than they should be.

I would buy a cake and every night have a small slice with a tea or coffee as a snack before you go to bed. WEIGH that slice, otherwise it will get gradually bigger (!) but have it and enjoy it. It's your daily treat. MUCH better to do this than restrict yourself and rely on "cheat days", which sets up a mentality of restriction and craving. If you're having trouble fitting your cake into your calories, have a smaller slice.

Simples.

I like Dannon's Light and Fit Greek Yogurt. 80 calories and only 6-7 grams of sugar per cup container which isn't a lot considering most yogurts have upwards of 18 grams of sugar. Plus it has about 12 grams of protein! That's my go-to bedtime snack because I too do really well with my diet & exercise all day, every day - until the time between dinner and bedtime. Instead of telling myself I 'cannot' have something, I build it into my calorie budget for the day. Sometimes I'll skip the yogurt two days and have a nice glass of wine instead on one day. It's all about balance.

If you're like I was, and would crawl on your knees and hands to the corner shop just to get something sweet when a craving hits, and have no self-control to mention around sugar, you might need some time to get things into a healthier perspective. I had to get over what felt like an addiction to get to the place where I can make room in my calorie count for it. It meant replacing pure sugar type sweets with, for example, honey over berries and coconut milk, and dark chocolate in place of milk chocolate. It was Hard for a while, and then for a while I stayed away from sugar sweets like the plague, but somewhere along the line I found I no longer craved sweet things, and when I had a mild yen, the berries or dark chocolate totally floated my boat. I can have sweet things in moderation now, and mentally be able to cope with eating some without falling apart and it being the beginning of a slippery slope to diet hell.
If you are like I was, I'd approach it like a withdrawal of a kind, and plan ahead for it - stock up with alternatives, plan happy activities to keep your mind distracted, don't attempt it on a week which is likely to be stressful, and bunker down for a week or so until the worst is over. Then be sensible.

Are you able to go three or four days without sweets? Because after that, the cravings disappear. It's hard at first, but a better option in the long run than some of the suggestions mentioned here. Except for the fruit...I think that's a good one. Fruit tastes even better after you've been off refined sugars for a bit.

kendahlj wrote: »

Are you able to go three or four days without sweets? Because after that, the cravings disappear. It's hard at first, but a better option in the long run than some of the suggestions mentioned here. Except for the fruit...I think that's a good one. Fruit tastes even better after you've been off refined sugars for a bit.

Hahaha. I wish.

hailz1991 wrote: »

Hi everyone,
First time poster, and in need of some advice!! I have been trying very hard for several months (almost a year now!) to eat three meals every five hours while incorporating a snack in between one or both meals depending on how busy I am that day. I do pretty well when it comes to eating healthy during the day. But when it gets late at night, my sweet tooth can't help but THROB! No matter how much I try to convince myself I don't want it, I more then likely end up giving in! Being in a body that I an comfortable in and like to look at is important to me! I have worked very hard to get where I am at now and still have work ahead of me! Please help me guys! Give me some advice as to how to say goodbye to these pesky sweets for GOOD!!
Ik a cheat day every once in awhile is a good thing, but this is turning into a serious problem for me!

Obviously everyone will have done different things. I since i can remeber have always had dessert after dinner. So when i started working out and eating right the first thing i had to cut out was the late night sweets. So my trainer told me to try any kind of berries instead if i felt like i needed a snack. They are sweet enough to give me what i was looking for. For the 1st week i ate them every night just out of habit and after that i didnt feel i needed to have a snack after dinner all the time. Now i would say maybe once a week i might either have some berries or 1 piece of 72% dark chocolate. Thats what worked for me.

one trick i learned is to stir your favorite chocolate protein powder in as little milk as possible (i use 1/2 cup) thus making it super chocolatey, and its sooooo good! (make sure no clumps). Then use a spoon to savor every chocolatey drop over a period of 10 mins while youre browsing the internet or something. Kills your sweet tooth, gets your protein in for satiation so you eat less throughout the day in general. i do this almost everyday bc i could not find a way to kill the sweet tooth and would always over eat on regular chocolatey snacks

I too had a wicked sweet tooth. I got to the point where I was eating a candu or soda every day. Not good. Iwould try to cut it back but I would eventually cave, and always in the evenings when I was tired and worn down.

I evetually switched to a very low carb high fat diet and was happily surprised when that cut my appetite and sweet cravings WAY down. In the past, I would cut out the sweets but still eat a plate of noodles at dinner which resulted in craving sweets again a couple of hours later. It was hard to fight that.

When I cut carbs below 20g per day, my appetite dropped and I didn't "need" more food or carbs. I wasn't always thinking about food, or getting jittery and light headed a couple of hours after eating.

... I still like my food in the evenings though so I tend to skip breakfast and eat something like nuts or cheese after dinner.

It's not for everyone, but many find that a LCHF diet helps with conquering issues with sweets. Good luck.

I just did it cold turkey. Stopped buying junk food, problem solved for me. If I don't have it around, I am not likely to go out and get it, tbh. I've tried cutting back but if it's in front of me, I can't stop.

Hi! I know I'm a bit late on this post. I have THE biggest sweet tooth ever. I mean, I pretty much need sweets for every meal. I have been slowly cutting them out by drinking dessert teas. My favorite is the Chocolate Macaroon tea from Davids Tea. Add some honey and splash of milk and it's the low-calorie alternative to cookies or sweet Starbucks drink. It's great for a nice boost during the day or as a night time "treat". I also keep a bag of Werthers hard caramel candies at my desk at work so I can suck on one for a while until my craving goes away. It really helps a lot!

My blood sugar was too high so I cut out all processed foods, like flour, sugar, etc. I do each fiber full carbs like beans though. I plan on doing so for 90 days, going to PARIS on vacation and drinking some wine and eating one pastry daily, and then following up with my doctor.

What's this damned deception about chocolate not being a good group?!

jenilla1 wrote: »

I didn't cut OUT my favorite foods. I just cut DOWN on them. I want to be able to sustain this lifestyle for eternity, so it makes no sense to me to deny myself the good things. I just need to make sure I don't consume too much of them.

This. So much this!!!

Late night eating is my downfall. I agree with the others who say to leave calories for it. I find that I will skip eating something during the day just so I will have extra calories at night. I find it easier to save calories than not to eat then. I used to try not to eat after 7pm. It felt like torture.

Skinny Cow ice cream is awesome. I like the Dannan Fit and Light yogurt too. If I have the calories I mix in a little dark chocolate. Not sweet but I like popcorn at night too.

Not sure why but dark chocolate is much easier for me to moderate than milk chocolate.