I think at some point in our lives, almost all of us have had an addiction to sugar. In fact, I never really liked sugar until a couple of years ago. My husband has been a sugar addict most of his life though and I’ve watched him and his family struggle through the sugar cravings and every now and then, the awful pains they go through as the quit sugar cold turkey. My husband has come home from work with miserable headaches because he went all workday without sugar.
Here I’d like to suggest 3 ways to slow your sugar addiction. These are just suggestions and you really should consult your dietitian before making big life-changing decisions about your diet.
1. Start slowly. It may or may not be because I hate doing things cold turkey or without much thought, but going cold turkey is hard. Sometimes it’s because after a day or so, you think about it so much that you end up doing a binge of sugar or because of the headaches that come from going cold turkey, but it’s hard. Make a goal to your consumption to a lower amount each day. Not that you have to lower yourself to my amount, but on a normal week, I only eat 1 or 2 desserts of some sort.
2. Decide to not eat after a certain time in the evening. A lot of people stop eating after 7 pm but my limit is usually 9 pm. It gives me enough time to eat a snack if I want to (we eat dinner around 5:30 pm) and it allows us to go out to eat for date nights. But setting a time to stop makes sure that you don’t snack on goodies while watching movies at night or when those late-night hunger pains start taking over, you’ve already decided not to eat. And if you’re like me, I tend to eat when I’m tired to keep myself awake so if I’ve already decided to not eat after a certain time when I’ll obviously be tired, I won’t eat that sugar.
3. Exercise more. When I’m treating my body well and exercising, I don’t crave sugar. Instead I tend to want fruits and vegetables. Plus, when I do exercise and do eat that sugar, I don’t feel quite as bad about eating it.
What are ways you curb your sugar cravings?