How do you know if you are addicted to sugar? Many of us have grown up with sugar all our lives. Sugar is all around us, not only in the form of candy bars, cakes, and cookies; most everything we purchase is loaded down with sugar. Our kids will choose the sweet cereals. My favorite cereal growing up was Lucky Charms. Now, I can’t stand the overbearing sweetness of the kiddy cereals.
If you have to have a sugar fix during the day, you might be addicted to sugar. The problem with sugar is that it lifts you up temporarily, while the sugar is peaking in your blood stream, but when your blood glucose starts to plummet, you can feel like you need to take a nap. If you can imagine a Christmas tree, it is triangle shaped; you see that is rises up to a point and falls back down to its base. The values of your blood glucose level fluctuates, and when you eat concentrated sweets your numbers will spike and after a few minutes the glucose level will fall again.
When you are craving sugar, it is better to go for more complex forms of carbohydrate, rather than simple carbs, as those found in sweets, and other processed food items. You can beat a craving for sugar by eating a little bit of peanut butter on a slice of 100 percent whole grain bread. The fat and protein in the peanut butter and the fiber in the bread will help satisfy your hunger and take away the sugar cravings. As a result of making better choices to do away with the sugar craving, you will keep your blood glucose level on an even keel, so your sugar level won’t spike and stimulate another craving.
How to Avoid a Sugar Addiction
There is one sure fire way to avoid becoming addicted to sugar; don’t purchase the snack bars, candy bars and cookies. In fact, don’t foods with simple carbs period, or limit the amount you purchase. We are most vulnerable to slip up and buy junk food at the grocery store when we are hungry, so, the solution is not to go to the store when you are hungry. Before you go to the grocery store be sure that you have eaten a meal first, or that you have had a healthy snack. You might consider taking an apple with you to eat in your car should you feel hungry before going into the store to buy groceries.
Go to the grocery store with a grocery list in hand. Stick to the list. Most of the time when we buy sugar laden foods is when we don’t have a list, or a plan in mind. If you don’t buy any sugary foods, you won’t have it in the house to eat. This sounds trite, but if you don’t keep unhealthy foods around the house you won’t eat them, which is what I say about cigarettes. If you don’t buy them, and don’t bum them off from someone else you can’t put a cigarette to your mouth. If you don’t put a cigarette to your lips, you won’t remain in bondage. The same reasoning goes for sugar addictions. Set yourself up for success, and stop setting yourself up for failure.
If you have ever quit smoking, or if you have conquered any other addiction you know that you have to avoid the substance. A sugar addiction is no different than a cigarette addiction, or a drug addiction. I was once addicted to the caffeine in coffee. I had to have real coffee. My heart would race out of my chest, but I had to have it just the same. When I developed high blood pressure my doctor said to either stop drinking coffee or change to decaffeinated. The first couple of weeks my withdrawal from caffeine was wicked. My head ached terribly. I remained constant, and refrained from drinking coffee. After a couple weeks my headaches weren’t present anymore. I have no idea when my headaches stopped, or how they stopped; I just noticed one day that my head didn’t hurt anymore. My heart rate is now between 56 and 62 most all the time.
If you are addicted to sugar, you may have some symptoms of withdrawal for awhile. It’s normal, so don’t try to fight it. Don’t feed your addiction with more sugar, but just hang tight. During this period of adjustment, I would suggest that you not use sugar substitutes, because your body will think it is sugar and make your cravings for sugar stronger. I use artificial sweeteners regularly, but when I was coming off from a sugar addiction I stayed away from it, because your body can’t tell sugar from an artificial sweetener, when it comes to cravings and addiction.
You may think that you can’t live without sugar in your everyday diet. If you think you can’t, you are mistaken. Ask any person that has diabetes. They have to control their intake of carbohydrates, in order to maintain a healthy blood glucose level. For a diabetic it is a fact of life; they have to learn to live without complex sugars in their diets. If they can do it, so can we.
Once you get over your cravings for sugar, you will once again to be able to enjoy moderate amounts of sweets. You might want a bit of chocolate every day. You can purchase the bags of bite-sized chocolate bars; the trick is to be in control of what you put into your mouth. My sweet is my caramel flavored calcium chews. They are a generic form of Viactive. I also have found a great form of healthy cereal, made by Kashi. My sweet of the day is an ice cream sundae glass with Kashi cereal on the bottom, then I fill it with yogurt, and top it with more Kashi. It tastes great, is filling and satisfying.
In summary, you can cut out a lot of different foods that have unhealthy amounts of processed sugar. Don’t forget about corn syrup. When you see the words “corn syrup” on a food label, it says sugar. There are a lot of other names for sugar, such as dextrose, maltose, sucrose, and corn syrup. Simple sugars, candy bars, cakes, and cookies, are monosaccharides, and disaccharides, and complex sugars are polysaccharides, which are found in breads, vegetables, fruits, noodles and rice. Keep your eyes peeled for hidden sugar, and you will soon see a reduction in your sugar cravings, and you will no longer be held captive by a sugar addiction.
You may think it is impossible to beat a sugar addiction, because almost everything we eat has some amount of sugar in it, except for meats. You can beat it. A good way to avoid sugar is to avoid drinking soda pop. Don’t even drink the diet ones, because as I said earlier in this article, your body doesn’t know artificial sweetener from sugar. Your taste buds get excited when you drink a nice cool soft drink, even the diet ones. While you are going through a sort of detoxification, you will need to stay away from soft drinks.
When you have a craving, you don’t have to white knuckle it. Just reach for an apple, orange, or some other piece of fruit. When you eat bread, make it 100 percent whole wheat, rather than white bread. When white bread breaks down in your digestive system, you might as well could have eaten cake, because the starches from the bread break down into glucose. You can overcome a sugar addiction if you make wise choices. Our habits are learned over time. Our children learn from us, so doesn’t it make more sense to set a good example for our children, before they grow up having the same problems with sugar cravings and addictions that we do?
