The number one cause of cellular inflammation and the diseases and symptoms associated with it is refined sugar. Sadly today sugar is added to—and hidden in—about 75% of all foods.
Sugar in all forms acts like an opiate in the body. Eating foods that quickly turn to sugar quite literally medicates pain—both emotional and physical.
If you regularly use sugar (including white foods, alcohol and candy) to boost your mood or improve your tolerance for physical pain, you’ll could end up finding yourself in a vicious cycle that makes it very difficult to stop eating sugar.
This is not about willpower or your being “bad.” In fact, sugar is 8 times more addictive than heroin in susceptible individuals! The good news is, once you understand the chemistry that fuels your sugar cravings you can do something about it.
How to Quell Your Sugar Cravings
In order to recover from sugar addiction, you need to eat a low glycemic diet that will not spike your blood sugar. This is what I recommend in my Hormone Balancing Food Plan, which I discuss in my New York Times best-selling book, The Wisdom of Menopause. AND no matter what fad diets (Keto, Paleo, Carnivore, etc.) you decide to try, you MUST stay away from low fat diets!
The main reason many women are hungry is that most of the “healthy” low-fat diets we have been sold are laden with sugar. These sugars are sold to us as healthy in the form of highly processed carbohydrates including pasta, grains, bread, cereal, white potatoes, even “health” bars. But beware! These foods trigger a rapid increase in insulin and cause weight gain.
Replacing sugar-laden foods with those that are low on the glycemic index and healthy fats such as olive oil, nuts and dark chocolate will keep your blood sugar stable. This can help you recover from sugar addiction and finally lose weight. When you eat vegetables, protein and healthy fats, you feel full longer. The best part is you don’t have to count calories! This is because your fat cells determine how much weight you gain or lose.
When you eat a low-fat diet, you are actually triggering your fat cells to hoard more calories for themselves, leaving too few for the rest of your body. When this happens, you remain hungry and often overeat. And if you reduce calories to try to stave off weight gain, your fat cells will continue to hoard more calories and you will get fatter.
Eating healthy fats turns off your body’s starvation response, so you are able eat whenever you’re hungry and until you are fully satisfied. In addition, these fats help to lower your insulin levels and decrease inflammation so you can more fully enjoy the activities you love, get better sleep and quell that sugar addiction once and for all.
4 Easy Ways to Stop the Sugar Cravings
In order to make this sustainable, you also need to engage in activities that raise your nitric oxide levels and create “happy” neurotransmitter levels in your brain and body. Think about the last time you were madly and deeply in love. Were you craving sugar or other illicit means to boost your self-esteem? I bet you felt high on life—emotionally full—and probably thought very little about food, unless it was to plan a romantic dinner.
So I want you to try replacing your sugar habit with something you enjoy even more. This will keep you from craving sugar or whatever other addiction is undermining your low glycemic diet and your health.
One thing I truly enjoy is eating with good friends and family. Whether it’s in nice restaurant or cooking with others at home, who you eat with and how you eat affects your health on many levels. People who regularly sit down to eat dinner with others are far healthier than those who eat standing up or in their cars. I also know that I just don’t feel as satisfied when I eat alone—even if I eat the exact same food! Finally, when I have to eat food that is not particularly healthy such as when I’m traveling, I pray over it before eating. This elevates the entire experience.
Here are 4 activities that can raise help you break your sugar addiction—and in my opinion they are much more enjoyable than even the gooiest chocolate brownie.
- Enjoy Sex. If you don’t have a partner, be your own partner! Set the stage for self-pleasuring starting with a luxuriating activity like stretching followed by a bubble bath, reading a steamy novel, or creating a sexy playlist. If you struggle to enjoy sex, I suggest you read my book Goddesses Never Age for more tips on removing obstacles to pleasurable sex and my 11 tips for for experiencing the best sex of your life regardless of your age.
- Exercise. Moving your body for 30-45 minutes a day, 4-5 days per week is not only great for your heart, studies show moderate aerobic exercise can decrease depression by 50%. This can be as simple as taking a walk!
- Meditate. A stressful lifestyle in which you are working too hard, worrying too much, and sleeping too little results in high levels of the stress hormones cortisol and epinephrine. And these stress hormones cause us to crave sugar and put on weight. Like exercise, meditation is an excellent way to lower stress hormones.
- Engage in pleasurable activities. Doing what you love on a regular basis is the key to living the sweet life from sugar addiction. So I want you to have lots of contact with humans or pets. Dance. Hold potluck suppers. Celebrate your friends and yourself. Take a trip. Find a new social group to do it with. Live life to the fullest.
Now, I am not suggesting that you use these activities as a way to ignore your body’s signals. Hunger is an important feedback message, and you want to honor your body by giving it what it needs.
So here’s what I recommend: Start adding regular, pleasurable activities to bring sweetness to your life. And also feed your body with a healthy low carb diet. If you’re not ready to give up sweets entirely—or if you’re someone who is satisfied with just one bite—then eat sweets, but only with others as a celebration. Savor sweets slowly like you are dancing in the moonlight with a lover. Eat sensually and joyously.
You can also plan a “cheat” meal or day. Look at your calendar in advance, choose the day of the week or month and eat whatever you want. When you deliberately pursue healthy and sustainable pleasure, you can savor the real sweet life!
You have the power to create a sweet life—while also keeping your blood sugar stable and losing weight.
What do you do to manage your sugar cravings?
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