How can you stop sugar cravings in a safe, natural way without risk to your health?

As people become more aware of diet and nutrition it is essential to get facts on the effects of sugar.  Many of us turn to sugary products for comfort yet feel guilty after eating them.

With the increase in obesity rates, the amount of sugar in our foods is of great concern.  In order to control our weight, we need to know what foods contain hidden sugar.

Once you have good information, you can make healthy choices in order to control your sugar cravings.

How To Stop Sugar Cravings

By Janice Alexander

In order to do that we have to understand why we get them and where they are coming from.

Ever wondered why you crave sugar when you are feeling a little sad or lonely or a little bit insecure, or sometimes you don’t really know the reason why you want sugar.

When I say sugar that includes things like crisps, bread, potatoes, pasta, cakes, pastries and sweet drinks because they all turn to sugar very quickly once you eat them. Sugar always makes you feel better even though it is just a quick and short-lived feeling because it stimulates serotonin a neurotransmitter in your brain that makes you feel happy, satisfied and ecstatic.

How Candida affects your sugar cravings

Candida is a yeast that is commonly found in your intestines, mouth and vagina. Everybody has candida in their system, and it is a very useful part of our micro biome that has its job to do but we don’t want too much of it because that takes us out of balance and that can create its own problems Candida is a living microbe that poo’s in your blood. The poo in your blood makes you crave sugar; that is what it feeds on.

So, it’s not really you that wants the sugar it’s the candida. The more you give the candida what it wants the more it grows and the more you have to feed it sugar. Clever really. Candidiasis is the term used when you are out of balance with too much candida.

Whenever you feel bloated, forgetful, sluggish, have low mood, joint pain, getting sick all the time and have a thick white coating on your tongue, it could possibly be candida. You may just get one or two symptoms and there are many other symptoms related to candidiasis.

Stress will activate your adrenal glands to produce cortisol which will pull sugar from your cells into your blood for energy, to run away from the stressor. You will crave sugar because you have got low levels of sugar in the cell.

When you eat food that spikes your blood sugar up, you will want more sugar when the sugar levels come back down. What goes up must come down and to stay in an optimum state of health we need a stable level of sugar in the blood.

When your blood sugar drops, you will want to eat again. If you start off at the beginning of the day with sugar or carbohydrates, you will crave it all day because of the yo-yoing of your sugar levels.

Aspartme, your sugar cravings and weight gain

Aspartame and other artificial sugars make you crave sugar and they also make you more prone to put weight on. Ever noticed how those diet drinks never help you to lose weight. They were designed to make you craven, not to mention the adverse reactions on your health and wellbeing.

Sugar cravings seem to hit more in the evenings, making it hard to resist sugar after 6pm and that is helped by the fact that ghrelin, the hormone that makes you hungry, is increased in the evening, probably to compensate for the fasting you are going to be doing during your time in bed, asleep. Stress will also have an increasing influence on your ghrelin levels.

How sleeping can help stop sugar cravings

Get good sleep. Two hormones linked to hunger are Ghrelin, which triggers the hunger sensation and Leptin, which tells you when you are full. When you don’t sleep well for prolonged periods, leptin production decreases and ghrelin increases causing hunger sensation and increased likelihood of you eating sugar.

So, what do we do about it? it’s always about preparation. Once you are prepared and you have always got a healthy alternative close by and you maintain your level of satisfaction so that you are not hungry, you will be less likely to snack on the sweet stuff.

If you know that you are more likely to reach for the sugar after you have been upset or feel down then prepare in advance for those incidents when you are more likely to be vulnerable, either by having a healthy alternative to eat or by finding another way to address your emotions like going round to your friends for some company.

About the author

Janice Alexander has been studying health since 2002. She has a healthcare degree from the British School of Osteopathy and a nutrition diploma.  Janice is a firm believer in natural remedies.