How To Stop Sugar Cravings in 3 Easy Steps

Often when we are trying to lose weight, or to make healthier eating choices in general, we have to deal with cravings for certain foods…usually foods that are “not allowed” or “bad” for us.

Especially sugar, and grain-based carbs which are processed in the body like sugar.

For many of us, to succeed in making (and sustaining) healthier choices means knowing how to stop sugar cravings.

Here are 3 simple steps that will help kick those sugar cravings to the curb.

Step 1 to Stop Sugar Cravings:

Understand the Why.

The other day in my office I had a client, a sweet woman, about 38 years old, who was sobbing because she felt like something was terribly wrong with her because of her lack of willpower when it came to sugary snacks.

After handing her my big box of tissues I asked her one simple question:

Do you know that your overwhelming desire for sugar is normal and natural?

Before my very eyes that 38-year-old transformed into a wide-eyed 4-year-old right there in my office as she, disbelieving yet hopeful, slowly shook her head “no.”

You see there is a perfectly good reason our bodies crave things like sugar, processed carbs, and junk foods.

The simple truth is that is sugar sweets and carb treats are emotionally, AND chemically, comforting to eat.

Remember when Grandma soothed your skinned knee with some fresh-baked sugar cookies?

How comforting “pizza & movie night” was on the couch with the family?

The fun of elementary school parties – complete with sugary treats?

When you factor in our emotional connections to these special moments – moments that usually come hand in hand with sugar based foods – is it any wonder when we “emotionally eat” we often crave sugar?

Yes, emotions run deep…

But our Craving for Sugar Goes Even Deeper than that. It goes into our body’s chemistry.

Did you know that taste stimulates neurons in your brain? Neuron that are a part of the opioid circuitry in your body. These opioids (also known as endorphins) and the opioid circuitry in our bodies are our bodies’ main pleasure system; and the endorphin chemicals produced in our brains affect our body similar to drugs like morphine and heroin.

Stimulating this opioid circuitry with food drives us to eat more – especially when our body perceives it as a rewarding experience in the pleasure centers of our brain. Which is exactly what happens when we eat “highly palatable” foods made with lots and lots of sugar, fats, and salts.⁽¹⁾

The Chemistry of Craving – Short Version:

The opioid/endorphin release we get in our bodies when eating high-sugar, high-fat foods actually DOES relieve our stress or pain and calms us down – at least in the short-term.⁽²⁾

After days of stress, depression, or even boredom is it really a surprise that you would seek out these kinds of emotionally and chemically soothing foods to make you feel better? I hope not!

Wanting sugar is natural.

So if like my crying client you keep telling yourself something is wrong with you just because you want some chemically soothing and emotionally comforting food please stop. It’s not. Wanting it is natural.

Unfortunately, like any addiction or craving cycle, we will eventually end up needing more and more to get the same “kick of calm.”

…And so our bellies and butts grow and grow…leaving us in a worst physical and emotional state than before.

Do You Need to Give Up Sugar Completely?

At this point you may wonder if your craving for sugar is so overwhelming that you need to give up sugar completely. I don’t know. For some of us we will need to kick sugar completely. But for most of us it’s still just a sugar craving and not yet a full-blown sugar addiction.

Here’s a post with a list of Sugar Addiction Symptoms to help you decide for yourself if you are a sugar addict or not.

If you are not yet into a full sugar addiction cycle then Steps 2 and 3 are the best 2 simple “tricks” I know for managing sugar cravings. And they work great – as long as you don’t have a full-blown sugar addiction.

Step 2 to Stop Sugar Cravings:

Making the “Bad” Better.

It’s time to stop making sugar such all or nothing, black and white choice. Everyone needs a treat once in a while. At first you may even need a sweet treat once a day. And that’s fine to start.

Focusing on making BETTER choices will take you faster towards your goals than always thinking you have to make the best or perfect choice. Let’s face it, no one is perfect all the time.

Trying to be perfect will set you up for 100% failure, but working on being better is totally doable.

Are you craving something less than great?

Give in to some chocolate and remember to go for the dark stuff. Darker is better. Don’t be fooled by bars marked “Dark Chocolate.” If the package doesn’t state the actual percentage of cocoa you can trust that it’s not really “dark.”

Look for chocolate marked 72% cocoa or greater. One or two squares of the dark stuff has more of that “feel good chemical” chocolate kick than an entire pan of brownies — minus all those extra calories! (There’s about 135 calories in 2 squares of dark chocolate versus  around 2650 calories in a pan of brownies.)

Want to make it super special? Add a cup of hot peppermint tea to your dark chocolate sit down and say H-E-L-L-O to Peppermint Chocolate Love.

Craving a muffin in the morning?

Give a banana and some raw walnuts a try instead.

(This is my all time favorite “I need something sweet ‘n fatty” fixes.)

1. Place one half of a raw walnut on the banana.
2. Take a bite.
3. Repeat process until the banana is gone.

I never miss muffins anymore!

What else do you miss when you do this trick? Not much. But if you choose the Starbucks Zucchini Walnut Muffin you will gain about 135 more calories than the fresh banana and an ounce of walnuts.

Plus with the muffin you gain 44% of your fat allowance for the day, 22% of your cholesterol, and 21% of your sodium intake for the day – compared to the banana and walnuts combined numbers of 20% fat, 0% cholesterol, and 0% sodium.

How’s that for an easy sweet and yummy fix?

Step 3 to Stop Sugar Cravings:

Only a Little, Not too Often, and Only the Best

Some people will tell you that no one can just end bad behavior cold turkey and expect to actually make it through it. But as a hypnotherapist I know that’s not true.

Food does complicate matters of habit though. Unlike giving up something like smoking we still have to eat several times a day and each time we eat we face choices. Some choices keep us on track, and others might trigger our old behavior.

What’s a girl to do?

One thing a lot of diet experts will tell you goes something like this: “If you are craving cookies try eating a small 100 calorie snack pack rather than an entire bag of Oreos.”

Sounds smart, right?

Well I’m going to pick a fight with the gurus of dieting because they are 200% WRONG.

Scientific research shows that when people are given several “snack packs” they actually eat an average of twice as much as people given the same food in larger bags. ⁽³⁾

That’s right – Snack Packs make you 2-times fat(ter).

One huge difference I have noticed between a skinny person and an overweight person is that the skinny person gives into the cravings just a little, not too often, and makes it only the best.

So instead of eating a box of cookies on the couch every day they have one damn-fine cookie, every once in a while, and slowly savor each bite of that sweet treat.

Heck, sometimes just one bite will suffice.

That may sound shockingly impossible to many people reading this now, but every weight loss hypnosis class I have ever taught has shocked people just like you when they discovered that hypnosis made it true.

Want some Subconscious Support to help you Stop Sugar Cravings?

Taking my hypnosis audio “Losing Your Taste for Sugar” for a relaxing ride will help your subconscious mind (where all those driving feelings and habits live) to get more in line with your wish to be free from sugar cravings.

Even if you decide you don’t need any hypnotic help consciously practicing these 3 steps will go a long way to helping you stop your sugar cravings each time they come up.

Once you get both parts of your brain working together to stop your sugar cravings you too will see that oftentimes when it comes to sweets more than one bite just doesn’t feel right.

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footnotes:

^{(1) E. Blass, E. Fitzgerald, and P. Kehoe, “Interactions between Sucrose, Pain and Isolation Distress,”Pharmacology, Biochemistry and Behavior 26, no. 3 (1987): 483-9    (2) E.M. Blass, and D.J. Shide, “Some Comparisons among the Calming and Pain-Relieving Effects of Sucrose, Glucose, Fructose and Lactose in Infant Rats,” Chemical Senses 19, no, 3 (1994): 239-49    (3) Coelho do Vale, R., Pieters, R., & Zeelenberg, M. (2008). Flying under the radar: Perverse package size effects on consumption self-regulation. Journal of Consumer Research, 35(3), 380-390}