Do you always want to eat sweet food? Are you craving drinks with sweet tastes? However, too much intake of sugar is risky for people to suffer from Type 2 diabetes or heart diseases. At least, eating too much sugar leads to weight gain, adding extra trouble to those who expect for ideal body shape. However, using simple tips introduced in this article below will help you easily stop your sugar cravings.
Tip 1. Face up to your sugar addiction.
The first step to quitting sugar is to face up to your sugar addiction. It often occurs that people never realize their sugar addiction unless they’re told.
When a person eats sweets or carbohydrates, both dopamine and insulin respond simultaneously, and with the change of time, sugar addiction comes into being. At the very least, the effects of excess sugar on human being are obesity and aging. Worse still, in severe cases, too much intake of sugar leads to a high risk of contracting various diseases and shortening life expectancy. In order to quit sugar, the first thing you need to do is to admit that you are indeed addicted to sugar, understand the possible dangers of sugar addiction, and actively face it.
Consult with your doctor and provide your daily meals to guarantee whether you’re a sugar addict. After all, not all the sugar you’ve consumed comes from candies, cakes, or lollipops that you believe contain high levels of sugar. Some foods also contain high sugar like refined grains.
Tip 2. Make up your mind to quit sugar.
Although sugar is not a drug, it is more charming than drugs. It has been scientifically proven that sugar is more addictive than cocaine. Once having faced up sugar addiction, you should be determined to give it up and prepared to face withdrawal effects (reaction to withdrawal or reduction of an addictive substance). At the beginning of sugar withdrawal, fatigue, irritability, dizziness, cold sweat, lacking energy and other symptoms may occur, but basically, after the adaptation period of 3 to 7 days, it will gradually improve. So, if you want to give up sugar, you have to be determined to get through the initial rough patch.
Tip 3. Eat healthy fats and low carbon.
Based on long-term eating habits, rice, refined flour, and noodles are basically the essential staples on the table. But when it comes to cutting out sugar, you need to consider adjusting your diet and replace your staples with healthy alternatives. Those who have succeeded in giving up sugar must have learned to “pick and choose”. Switching to a healthy-fat and low-carbon mode will help you not only lose weight but kick your sugar addiction and get healthy again. Instead of eating nothing at all, try to choose prototypical foods, stay away from highly processed foods, eat more healthy meats, vegetables, fats and treat your stomach well.
Tip 4. Reward yourself.
If one cuts out 100% of carbs and sweeteners in order to give up sugar, they will probably find life boring and joyless. The fact is when you really cannot resist a sweet craving, consider rewarding yourself once or twice with healthy sweeteners like stevia and erythritol. If you really cannot resist refined carbs, choose your favorite, most desired, mindful diet, and enjoy the process. Gradually, you will find the first mouthful is very sweet, and then very greasy. Refined carbs have a memorable taste, but they do not seem to be as satisfying as eating big chunks of meat, so you will skim them next time.
Tip 5. Relieve stress.
Stress can be a deadly enemy of sugar addiction, as the sympathetic nervous system takes over your body, you feel like everything is going wrong, thus sending you back into the cycle of sugar addiction. Stress, bad mood, wanting to eat sugar, feeling guilty after eating it, and bad mood again, these parts form a pressure loop. Breaking this cycle can be as simple as learning other ways to relieve stress. It’s one of the best ideas to relieve stress is listening to music or reading a book, doing some housework, going out for a walk with your dog, or just lying in and sleeping all day. Keep it in mind, you can feel good without candy consumed.
Tip 6. Take it easy.
Eating habits do not start overnight, and sugar addiction is also based on long-term exposure, so it is certainly impossible to take a day or two, or even longer time to quit sugar. On the other hand, sugar addiction is a habit, and it is really hard to break it, but every time you break it, you are one step closer to success. Good news: as long as you work hard and persevere, you can make it.
References:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570677X19301364
https://www.newhallhospital.co.uk/news/is-sugar-more-addictive-than-cocaine
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0149763418308613
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