The difficulties most of you experience when you try to stop sugar cravings are the number 1 obstacle to successful and sustainable weight loss.
Cravings can feel non-negociable, as if it’s your body telling you it absolutely needs them. You can’t help it, you have a “sweet tooth”.
Or they can feel like something you give in to when you are too stressed or if you didn’t have enough sleep. Both are very frequent situations in our lives nowadays.
I am Cristina, Certified Nutritional Consultant and I want to help you stop sugar cravings, without deprivation or counting on your willpower to resist temptation.
Because I know that the mechanisms that produce these cravings are not merely based on a lack of willpower or concern for one’s health.
Cravings are a result of a natural reward system which is overly stimulated by the incredible amount of ultra-processed foods available to us. These foods were specifically designed to create addictions.
The pathways for cravings formation are:
- The way your brain is wired to look for the body’s main energy currency (glucose). Sugar (chemically called sucrose) is rapidly absorbed and converted to glucose.
- Your gut-brain connection through the vagus nerve and the composition of your microbiome
Cravings predict weight gain
If you crave sweet foods, you are more likely to gain weight than those of us who don’t have cravings.
“Cues” or stimuli in your environment can generate cravings, like an ad for a cake or a chocolate. You can also have sugar cravings without any cue, in which case they are called tonic cravings.
Tonic cravings are mostly happening when you are refraining from eating a particular food. This happens often when you follow a restrictive weight loss diet. While there is no doubt that ultra-processed foods (e.g. chocolate bars, industrial milk chocolate) should be significantly reduced and be exceptions in a balanced diet, forbidding them will only increase the likelihood of giving in to them down the road.
You need to accompany the reduction of these foods with other strategies that will balance your body (nervous system, microbiome) and feed it properly in order to make cravings fade out in a natural way.
92% of those that have strong cravings for chocolate are women
Research tells us there are important genders differences in how experience urges for foods. Women are more likely to experience sugar cravings than men.
Unfortunately, this is directly linked to the fact that being female doubles the chances of becoming overweight.
While men generally crave savory foods (meat, eggs), women report cravings for sweets. The intensity of these cravings is also stronger and they happen more often.
These differences can be explained by a combination of biological (hormonal, especially the hormonal variation during the menstrual cycle), sociological and environmental factors.
Download your guide to stop sugar cravings
Your weight loss journey starts with understanding your eating patterns. Being aware of why you eat the foods that are contributing to weight gain is crucial. It’s not about your willpower or your ability to resist temptation.
You need a smarter approach than just telling yourself to stop eating or thinking about sugar.
Take a shortcut and learn how to fight your sugar cravings today by discovering 5 healthy and delicious alternatives that you can snack on. Not only are they satisfying but they also have the potential to calm down your cravings for sweets in the long run.
Studies
- Gender-related Differences in Food Craving and Obesity
- Hetherington MM, MacDiarmid JI. “Chocolate addiction”: A preliminary study of its description and its relationship to problem eating. Appetite. 1993;21(3):233–246. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
About Nutrityv
About me
I am Cristina, an ex-tech manager turned nutritional consultant following 10+ years of being passionate about nutrition and food, which I believe are among the major determinants of the quality of our lives.
I started Nutrityv with the mission to help women achieve a new way to nourish themselves they can sustain forever and lose excess weight in a natural way, in a way it won’t come back.
Certified by Canada’s leading school in holistic nutrition
I am certified by CSNN, the Canadian School of Natural Nutrition, a school recognized for its standards of excellence in regards to its curriculum, methods, instructors, and student results that raise the bar in the holistic nutrition industry.
