Can you really kick sugar cravings to the curb?
I’d like to start today’s post off by running through a quick scenario with you. It might even hit close to home and sound pretty familiar for most of us. Let’s get to it shall we…
You’ve just finished supper, you feel full and satisfied and maybe even claim to be so full you couldn’t eat another bite, however, moments later you find yourself lurking around the kitchen looking for that little something something to “finish off the meal”.
My wife claims that dessert for her just seems right. She believes it finishes her meal. She says it’s a French thing…Meh! What I believe is that she has convinced herself that she NEEDS a dessert in order to finish her meal, when in fact she is simply craving SUGAR!
If this sounds like you and you’re finally ready to kick sugar cravings to the curb for good, then finding today’s post could be the answers you’ve been searching for, especially if you’re looking at losing weight.
Sugar addiction can be serious, and long-term addiction can cause levels of dopamine to decrease which starts the sugar craving process. Sugar can cause weight gain, inflammation and cause your mood to become erratic.
In order to understand why sugar is so detrimental to our overall health, we first need to understand what happens in our bodies when we consume sugar.
Sugar In The Body
Once we have consumed a food with sugar in it, our body converts it in one of two ways.
- It either burns it for energy or
- Converts it to fat and stores it.
In moderate amounts, our bodies are capable of using fiber to convert the sugar into energy and not having any significant amounts of sugar left over to convert to fat.
However, when you consume sugar in excess, your pancreas detects it and releases a hormone called insulin to deal with the excess sugars. Insulin is responsible for helping regulate the level of sugars in our bloodstream, so the more sugar there is in the blood, the more insulin the pancreas releases. Insulin is responsible for lowering our blood sugars.
Insulin helps our bodies to store the sugar as glucose, or energy, in the liver and as glycogen in the fat cells. Glycogen is triglycerides, which are fatty deposits in the blood that are created by your liver to build and repair your body’s tissues.
When your liver is hit with high doses of sugar and insulin, the liver responds by sending out more triglycerides. This increase in triglycerides is a signal to your body that it’s time to store abdominal fat for use later on.
What this means is that when we consume high amounts of sugar, especially fructose, our bodies store it as fat around our waistline.
The process of high amounts of insulin being produced on a regular basis to combat sugar leads to your cells becoming numb to insulin; this is what leads to type 2 diabetes.
When your body becomes resistant to insulin, your metabolism goes haywire and no longer functions the way it should, which also results in weight gain.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the average American consumes, on average, about 32 teaspoons of added sugars every day, that’s equivalent to 108 pounds of sugar each year, and that doesn’t even include the carbohydrates that are converted into sugars, or the sugars that occur naturally in our foods.
Sugar is a huge part of the reason there is such an epidemic of obesity among North Americans.
Cravings are controlled by your blood-sugar, hormones, and bacteria.
If you don’t address these issues, head on, quitting sugar will feel like a never-ending war. You’ll need more than just your will power to end the addiction.
Below are several ways to help you finally kick sugar cravings to the Curb and rid yourself of this horrible addiction for good.
1. Start By Eliminating Processed Food
By eating clean and staying away from processed food, you won’t be starving yourself or counting calories but rather being more mindful of the type of foods you eat. You’ll be eating food that has more color to it which helps you avoid processed food altogether.
If you eliminate processed foods and practice clean eating for a few weeks, you will soon notice that you’re able to kick sugar cravings as you’re body is getting the right amount of nutrients from real food.
2. If You Fail To Plan, Then You Plan To Fail!
One of the biggest mistakes a person can make if your goal is to kick sugar cravings and achieve weight loss or to become fit is a failure to plan properly.
Here’s the long and the short of it! Simple easy peazy…If you don’t plan, you’ll fail miserably.
Losing weight and getting back into shape requires planning. I mean let’s be real for a sec…if losing weight and getting in shape was easy and we could all just “wing it” we’d all be chiseled stone gods and goddesses right?
How many times have you found yourself at the end of a busy hectic day standing in front of a full fridge wondering what to make for supper…I know I myself have muttered the phrase
What’s the easiest quickest thing you can make right now?
Now, I don’t know about you, but my answer was usually take out! By not preparing ahead, time and time again I found myself standing in front of my fridge eating eating a chocolate doughnut or a handful of chips, while I tried to figure out what to make. Like I said earlier, if your goal is to kick sugar cravings or weight loss or to become fit, you have to have a plan A and plan B in place should the uncertainties happen.
The simplest solution is Meal prepping!
Preparing meals in advance has worked for countless people to help kick sugar cravings. You may not have time now, but when you do start to meal prep, you’ll quickly find that you have more time on your hands to do other things you love.
Just imagine getting home at 6:30-7:00 pm and instead of trying to figure out what you’re going to make for supper, you simply grab a pre prepared meal out of your fridge and all you’ve got to do is reheat it! Within 20-30 minutes you’re eating and the best part…very little clean up.
Simply planning out your meals and doing a bit of prep work at the beginning of the week will really help you kick sugar cravings. The result will be a hand full of ready made meals, that are super convenient and easy to either take with you for a lunch or heat up when you get home from that CRAZY day at the office! Making fresh healthy meals will allow you to control the amount of sugar in each meal.
One of the biggest factors that’ll make it almost impossible to kick sugar cravings is processed foods
3. The Quest For Healthy Bacteria Starts With L-Glutamine
Another tip to kick sugar cravings is L-glutamine. Let me drop a bit of science here for ya.
L-glutamine is an amino acid which breaks protein down. It also boosts your metabolism and aligns your gut with healthy bacteria. Having a healthy gut full of healthy bacteria is super important for your overall health and assisting you in your quest to kick sugar cravings.
Through my research I’ve found that L-glutamine is safe to use as it’s an amino acid, however, if you’re not sure, remember, I am not a doctor and if your unsure about anything here on my blog, I’d suggest always checking in with your medical expert.
4. What About Supplements Like Magnesium?
Google defines magnesium as:
Magnesium is a cofactor in more than 300 enzyme systems that regulate diverse biochemical reactions in the body, including protein synthesis, muscle and nerve function, blood glucose control, and blood pressure regulation [1-3]. Magnesium is required for energy production, oxidative phosphorylation, and glycolysis.
Adding supplements like Magnesium is quite important and is an inexpensive way to kick sugar cravings, help you sleep and also balances your blood sugar levels. If you have high insulin levels then taking magnesium supplements will help you remedy that. You can get magnesium supplements from any health store.
5. Good Bacteria Vs Bad Bacteria
Eating fermented food like yogurt helps you produce more good bacteria to get rid of the bad bacteria. If you’re eating enough fermented food it will reduce the bad bacteria which is the main cause of sugar cravings.
If you find that you’re feeling quite hungry late at night, it’s usually a sign that you need to bring your gut back to balance. Fermented foods are a quick way to kick sugar cravings and can be part of your current diet.
6. Water, Water, Water!
It’s one of those, can’t live without it type things. Like it or not it’s what keeps us alive and kicking and it’s usually as easy to find as venturing into your kitchen and turning the faucet. And while it might be last on my list of 6 things to help you kick sugar cravings, it’s just as important as the rest. It might actually be one of the most helpful of the 6 tips it’s that important.
Yes, that’s right water is essential to maintaining your body’s proper chemistry. According to H.H. Mitchell, Journal of Biological Chemistry 158, up to 60% of the human adult body is water. The brain and heart are composed of 73% water, and the lungs are about 83% water. The skin contains 64% water, muscles and kidneys are 79%, and even the bones are watery: 31%.
When you take into consideration how interconnected and dependent upon one another our internal organs are, and how much water content is in each of the above mentioned, you can easily see why our bodies require about 3 liters (3.2 quarts) per day if you’re a male and about 2.2 liters (2.3 quarts) per day if you’re a female, to keep it running at it’s best.
Helpful Tip
For those of you out there who have a hard time keeping up with your daily water intake, I’ve created a water drinking challenge.
If you’re interested in learning more about it…(or at the very least download my free drinking water pintables to keep yourself on track), then simply click on over to
Did you know you lose quite a bit of water during sleep? If the first thing you have when you wake up is a hot beverage, then chances are you won’t be as hydrated as you should be.
By drinking a large glass of water first thing in the morning, It’ll give your metabolism the kick start it needs which allows your brain to function correctly and gets your gut moving.