Does the craving for sweets prevent you from transforming your body? Would you like to eat healthy, but it’s hard for you to give up sweets?
I know how complicated it is to transform your body, especially if you have become accustomed to eating sugar frequently and you feel that sometimes you just can’t help it.
Many people believe that they do not have enough will or motivation and that they are not strong enough to refrain from sweet pleasures. If this is your case, you should know that this is not the real reason why you can’t give up sugar…
Although there are chances to sabotage your efforts to lose weight on your own and sometimes give up too easily in the face of temptations, I will further explain why it is difficult for you to give up sugar.
And at the end of the article, I will give you 5 tricks that you need to know if you want to give up sugar more easily.
Are you addicted to sugar?
We humans by nature are always looking for pleasure and we want to avoid pain. Just, right?
When it comes to food, we easily navigate to the most accessible and enjoyable food.
Processed, high-calorie foods are naturally for many people more “pleasant” than natural foods.
For many of us, a burger with french fries sounds much more appetizing than a broccoli soup and an arugula salad.
An ice cream is much more appetizing than a handful of cherries.
As soon as our brain associates pleasure with a certain food we are more likely to actively seek to eat it again.
Probably if you had never eaten chocolate, it would never have caught your eye, no matter how beautiful and colorful the packaging in the window was.
Processed foods contain a high concentration of gas, sugar and salt, which you do not find in foods in their natural state.
When you eat sugar, your brain releases a “cheerful chemical,” called dopamine, at the brain’s reward center, in the area called the nucleus accumbens.
These are the same areas stimulated by drug abuse as nicotine or cocaine.
Therefore, sugar, due to its strong effects on the reward system in the brain, activates reward-seeking behavior – which can make you overeat.
Your brain is wise.
The chemicals of “happiness” have directed us over time to anything that causes us pleasure and to high-calorie foods, which have helped us survive as a species at a time when food was not two steps away.
Today, however, we live in an environment where we have processed foods at hand, which contain a high concentration of sugar and fat, a concentration that is not found in the natural environment.
If when you eat an apple a certain amount of the chemicals of happiness are released, when you eat a bag of chips or M&M, the amount of dopamine released is much higher.
Your brain is not used to the massive amount of chemicals that are released when you eat processed foods and try to restore “balance.” Therefore, it begins to “eliminate” or “withdraw” dopamine receptors.
When you have fewer receptors, you need more dopamine to get the same effect – and this can cause you to eat more processed foods than before to get the same level of reward.
Therefore, sugar, due to its strong effects on the reward system in the brain, activates the reward-seeking behavior – that is, it makes you seek again to enjoy sweet pleasures.
This means that sugar gives a slight addiction. Therefore, it is difficult at first to give up sugar, not because you have no will or motivation.
5 tricks that will help you give up sweet pleasures more easily
Now here are 5 tricks to use to give up sugar more easily (or at least reduce the amount).
1) First of all, you must want to give up sugar
Maybe you tell yourself What do you mean I want? Of course I want …
Hmm … I invite you to think a little …
Usually, many people want to eat sweets with half their heart, and with the other half to enjoy a fit and slim body and to always see half a kilo less on the scale.
If this is your case, don’t be scared … we all experience this feeling of ambivalence – we would like to enjoy results, but without acting or changing anything.
Unfortunately, this is only possible in an imaginary world.
After all, eating or not eating sugar is a choice for each of us … and you have to decide in one direction or the other.
To help you make the decision that your wise mind proposes (to give up sugar), make a list of all the benefits you will have if you stop eating sweets or if you eat less often …
He no longer looked at giving up sugar as a loss, but as a gain of other benefits (health, losing weight, more energy, etc.).
It doesn’t force you to stop eating or resort to diets or other people who forbid you to do this – YOU CHOOSE THAT YOU WANT TO EAT LESS SUGAR BECAUSE YOU WANT TO TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF.
Just look in your own yard and don’t look forward to having friends who eat what they want, without gaining weight, and you just put yourself breathing next to the chocolate.
Whether you give up sugar or not, it is essential to take responsibility for your choice and be at peace with it – after all, your goal should be to feel happy and at peace with yourself.
2) Apply the 15 minute rule …
What do you think about sweet cravings? Does it last forever?
Before giving in to temptation, wait 15 minutes to see if the craving for sweets disappears or diminishes.
I know it can be hard to think of chocolate or other goodies after they come to mind, but keep one thing in mind:
The craving for sweets disappears over time. You will not have to endure the discomfort and anxiety you have when you want to eat something good and refrain.
In addition, always keep in mind before giving in to the sweet pleasures of the following:
Every time you resist temptation, you increase your confidence that you will succeed (get rid of the thoughts that sabotage you “I can’t”, “I have no will” ) and you considerably increase your chances to resist the craving for sweets and next time.
And the less often and less sugar you eat, the less frequent the temptations.
3) Do an experiment …
I suggest that in the next 48 hours you don’t eat sugar at all … not even fruit.
Then, after 48 hours ..analyze what happened and answer the following questions:
How did you feel during these two days?
How hard was it for you to resist the temptation (on a scale of 0 to 10)?
How often did you feel the craving for sweets and how long did it last?
Then, repeat the experiment whenever you want, increasing the period of sugar-free each time.
4) Do not forbid you to eat sweets …
Don’t think that you will never eat sugar again … When you think like that, sugar becomes the “forbidden fruit” and you end up wanting to eat even more sugar than before you forbade yourself.
Try for 3 minutes not to think of a pink elephant… do not imagine it in any way.
99% of people who do this exercise fail to complete the task.
The same thing happens when you tell yourself that you will never eat chocolate or other foods you like.
Your brain doesn’t like to forbid what to do and it feels like a loss.
Therefore, when you start on a diet and forbid yourself an endless list of foods, you end up thinking about food more than you thought before…
This way, you feel frustrated and sometimes wronged that you can’t eat what you want.
You have several options available:
Keep small amounts of your favorite foods in your daily diet – let’s be serious, no one has gained weight from a square of chocolate;
Think about giving up sweets only for a short time (3 days, 7 days), instead of aiming to never eat something good in your life.
Discover how you can prepare healthy, fat-free sweets . Even if they will never compete with a cream, they will help you enjoy the food, without a ton of calories coming.
5) Prepare in advance to face temptation
Now write on a piece of paper at least 7 things you could do when you have a craving for sweets.
Take into account all the situations you might find yourself in when temptation arises and think about what you can do in each of them.
I have passed some ideas, but complete the list with your favorite activities:
- call a friend;Â
- listen to your favorite song;Â
- move away from where the temptations are;Â
- eat the tangerine;
- watch your favorite show;Â
- talk to office colleagues;Â
- make yourself a hot tea;Â