Any situation can be turned for the better. For example, you haven’t had time to buy sugar. That’s great! Let’s take this chance in order to end once and for all one of the most powerful addictions – cravings for sweets.
Is there a sugar addiction?
According to recent data, about 30% of the entire world population suffers from sugar addiction. Doctors consider a diet high in added sugar to be an addiction: the craving for sweets by a person who overeats it (the conditional norm is 30 grams a day) is quite comparable to that caused by drugs.
Even to the owners of strong health, the abuse of sweets is not good. Alas, but the rush of dopamine, the “reward hormone” that the brains of sweet eaters hunt for, comes with extra pounds, a high risk of diabetes and cardiovascular disease. And the main paradox of refined sugar is that despite its reputation as an “energizer,” it can literally “suck” the energy out of us.
One of the most caloric products on the planet is burned in our body within half an hour maximum, and except for glucose it does not saturate the body with any nutrients, but causes a sharp deficit of thiamine or vitamin B1, which is responsible for energy production during metabolism, and stores the stored energy – glycogen – in the tissues. As a result, the higher the single dose of sugar, the weaker we feel afterwards. And people who regularly plunge into a “sugar coma” involuntarily fall into a vicious circle of chronic fatigue.
How to stop? Five Steps
But the good news is that anyone can become independent of sugar. The hardest thing is to go three weeks in a row without an overdose. And after that, you won’t notice how the craving for sweets will disappear. There remains one question – how not to fail and endure such “unsweet” life? Nutritionists and neurobiologists recommend several correct ways.
1. The first step to the rejection of “white poison” – make a habit of reading the labels on all products that you buy. You will have to make an unpleasant discovery: You will find sugar in a large number of supermarket products. And we are not talking about cakes and candy, and not about sodas and breakfast cereals. But about foods that, at first glance, have nothing to do with sweets: processed meat, yoghurt, plain bread, mayonnaise and other sauces – even soy! What to say about fruit juices and nectars, in which the content of sugar syrup sometimes reaches 40%! You may at first find it tedious, but after a week you will certainly know the sugar “potential” of most products.
2. Abruptly eliminating from the menu a familiar, though questionable food – almost always a stress for the body. So do not go to extremes, completely banning yourself sweet foods. This is a direct way to fall off sooner or later, and to return to a vicious circle. If you, God forbid, after a strict abstinence immediately pounce on, for example, chocolates, the body may even respond to allergic shock.
Just make sure not to exceed your legal 30 grams (that’s if you need 2000 kcal per day, and the exact figure can be deduced by calculating 5% of your personal caloric intake). And choose their source with care. Let it be a spoonful of honey, a small piece of dark chocolate or a natural marshmallow.
Whatever you choose, try to savor the sweet taste, as if sucking sweets in your mouth: so the brain has time to reach the signals of satiety and you do not eat too much. Add unrefined cane or coconut sugar to your tea and coffee, as they don’t cause the same insulin spike as refined beet sugar. In addition the price tag of such sugar is an excellent incentive for not getting carried away with tea drinking (don’t forget that 30 grams is only 6 spoonfuls of sugar, which means that you can have no more than 3 cups a day, provided that all other products do not contain a single gram of sugar).
3. Your goal for the duration of the marathon is to try to suppress sugar hunger. Fast carbohydrates – white bread, white flour pasta, French fries – inevitably cause it, so give preference to slow ones and combine them with proteins: together they are more resistant to glycemic “blow. Whole-grain bread sandwiches with tuna, chicken or eggs, whole-grain pasta or a portion of yams (sweet potatoes with a lower glycemic index than regular potatoes) will do. Sugar-containing sauces can be successfully replaced with mustard. Just again, read the package carefully.
4. Do not leave yourself even a chance to snap. For the time of the anti-sugar marathon, nutritionists advise to eat crunchy vegetables for the craving for sweets. These can be cucumbers, bell peppers, carrots and celery.
5. Outsmart your brain with spices and spices! Nutmeg, ginger and cinnamon added to porridge or sugar-free yogurt will not only make them more flavorful and delicious. The spices speed up your metabolism.
A Different Life
Of course, after just three weeks, you won’t yet feel a major change. But it will make a difference. Your skin will get better, and the numbers on the scales will probably go down at least a little bit. But most importantly, you’ll feel a rush of energy, and you’ll get better sleep and memory. Keep it up if you don’t want to be overweight all the time, age prematurely, experience heart failure, and be treated for a host of other ailments.