What to do if you want sweets, what is missing in your body, and how to deal with it?

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Many sweet tooth lovers probably sometimes wonder why they so desperately want to finish a hearty lunch with dessert, or what is the reason for nightly trips to the refrigerator for the last piece of cake? At the same time, those with a sweet tooth understand and are aware of the harm of excess sugar consumption, but they cannot deny themselves this pleasure. Most often, the desire to eat sweets lies in habit; behind tasty food there are pleasant feelings of pleasure and peace. But representatives of a healthy lifestyle, excluding sweets from their diet, also succumb to the temptation to treat themselves to harmful glucose. Are there internal reasons for this desire, is it worth fighting against?

Reasons for wanting to eat sweets

The answer to the question should be sought both at the physiological and psychological levels.

Physiological reasons are due to:

• Impaired blood supply. This pathology leads to a lack of glucose in the brain, which begins to sound the alarm and demand an increase in sugar levels; the causes of this phenomenon may be a concussion, hypotension or osteochondrosis.
• Lack of adequate nutrition. When you are very busy at work, there is no talk of three nutritious and varied meals a day; the brain tries to get energy faster, forcing the body to eat something sweet - a source of fast carbohydrates.
• Lack of microelements. An uncontrollable desire to eat sweets indicates a lack of substances such as chromium and magnesium. Chromium simultaneously helps control blood sugar levels, transport glucose to the body's cells and promotes their rapid absorption. Repeated consumption of sweets washes away this microelement, it becomes less, and the desire to eat candy increases even more. Chromium deficiency is also indicated by chronic fatigue, profuse sweating and a constant feeling of hunger. A lack of magnesium can be judged by a special craving for chocolates, as well as constant fatigue, nervousness, headaches and sleep disturbances.

You don't sleep enough

If a person does not get enough sleep S. Frank, K. Gonzalez, L. Lee-Ang, MC Young, M. Tamez, J. Mattei. Diet and Sleep Physiology: Public Health and Clinical Implications / Frontiers in Neurology, it, like stress, increases ghrelin levels. At the same time, the concentration of leptin decreases, which increases the risk of developing obesity.

What to do

Need to get enough sleep. If that doesn't work, try these Sleep tips: 6 steps to better sleep / Mayo Clinic:

• Go to bed at the same time every day. This will reinforce the sleep-wake cycle.
• Don't sleep during the day. Otherwise, it will be more difficult to fall asleep in the evening. If you really want to lie down after lunch, limit yourself to 30 minutes.
• Exercise regularly. This way you will release energy.
• Fall asleep in a calm environment. The room should be dark, quiet and slightly cool. Maybe a bath or other method of relaxation will help someone relax before bed.
• Don't use 5 ways to sleep more soundly / Mayo Clinic gadgets in the evening. They make it difficult to relax.
• Don't go to bed feeling hungry or with a full stomach. This is additional discomfort.

Psychological factor of craving for sweets

The reason lies in the lack of serotonin (the hormone of joy), which is especially evident in stressful situations for a person. During stress, cortisol is released, opposite neurotransmitters that reduce the stress hormone are dopamine and serotonin. Eating tasty food, especially sweet food, increases the level of happiness hormones, thereby helping to relieve stress. The subconscious begins to actively dream about a piece of sweet delicacy.

But eating stress with sweets is not the way to improve your condition. Frequent consumption of sweets when you want to relax and calm down in the future simply creates a habit, and the body begins to react accordingly: stress provokes the desire to eat it. However, the state of euphoria and calm does not last long, the effect decreases within a few hours.

Are you depressed?

In people with depression RJ Wurtman, JJ Wurtman, MM Regan, JM McDermott, RH Tsay, JJ Breu. Effects of normal meals rich in carbohydrates or proteins on plasma tryptophan and tyrosine ratios / The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition cravings for sweets and high-calorie foods appear for the same reason - decreased serotonin production.

What to do

In this case, you need to fight Depression (major depressive disorder) / Mayo Clinic with a nervous disorder. For this purpose, medications, psychotherapy are used, and in severe cases they are admitted to the hospital.

The way to get rid of sweet addiction

Many nutritionists agree that it is quite possible to overcome sugar addiction; to do this, you need to clearly define your motivation and be patient. It is quite possible that the first time will be difficult, since giving up sweets can manifest itself in decreased performance, irritability and drowsiness. However, if you follow certain rules, the result will not take long to arrive.

1. First you need to determine the reasons for this phenomenon. In this case, you can contact a specialist who will help identify possible deficiencies of vitamins, minerals, and other disorders in the body and offer the necessary way out of the situation.
2. Adjust your diet. It should include three full meals a day with small portions that include healthy fats, proteins and carbohydrates. To replenish the missing chromium, you need to eat more beets, broccoli, fish and liver; if you lack magnesium, you can include sea fish, nuts, seeds, cabbage, greens and avocados. On the recommendation of a doctor, you can take vitamin and mineral complexes.
3. Increase physical activity to reduce stress hormone levels and increase serotonin. This is perfect for a vacation with family or friends, sports, a massage, or just a walk in the fresh air. It is necessary to establish a sleep schedule and, if possible, diversify your leisure time.

Important! If you really want sweets, you need to remember that this, first of all, indicates a lack of energy in the body. You can replenish energy by eating the right foods, giving preference to nutritious foods rich in proteins and slow carbohydrates.

Have you played sports recently

During training, the body actively consumes energy and then looks for ways to restore it. This is confirmed by an American study by CK Martin, WD Johnson, CA Myers, JW Apolzan, CP Earnest, DM Thomas, JC Rood, NM Johannsen, C. Tudor‑Locke, M. Harris. Effect of different doses of supervised exercise on food intake, metabolism, and non‑exercise physical activity: The E‑MECHANIC randomized controlled trial / The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 171 overweight people did exercises to lose weight. Scientists noticed that after long, exhausting exercise, the subjects' cravings for sweets increased.

What to do

It may be necessary to carefully select physical activity so as not to cause overwork. Special nutrition for training is also recommended. Here are his principles Nutrition rules that will fuel your workout / Mayo Clinic:

• Don't forget about carbohydrates. They need to be eaten at 3–5 g per kilogram of body weight per day if training is of moderate intensity, and 6–10 g if training is heavy. These should be whole grains, pasta, fruits and vegetables.
• Include proteins in your diet. Eat 1.2–2 g per kilogram of body weight daily. Poultry and fish are best. But you can use legumes, eggs, cheese or yogurt.
• Don't give up fat. The best sources are avocados, seeds and nuts, and vegetable oils.
• Eat 2-3 hours before exercising. Be sure to have a protein snack or protein shake within 15 minutes of your workout.

Healthy sweet substitutes

Some parents often buy sweets for their children, especially before tests and exams, they are strictly convinced that this increases the level of intellectual activity. However, here the question arises: is this really so, and if so, can they be replaced with something more useful?

Today, there is a wide alternative to sweets and sweet cookies in the form of natural sweets:

• berries and fruits;
• honey;
• dried fruits;
• paste;
• fruit chips;
• candied fruit;
• marmalade;
• marshmallows

Do you have premenstrual syndrome?

In women, RJ Wurtman, JJ Wurtman, MM Regan, JM McDermott, RH Tsay, JJ Breu decreases before the onset of menstruation. Effects of normal meals rich in carbohydrates or proteins on plasma tryptophan and tyrosine ratios / The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition serotonin synthesis. Therefore, the mood worsens and Premenstrual Syndrome Clinical Presentation / Medscape cravings for sweets appear. And this is fraught with excess weight gain.

What to do

To reduce Premenstrual Syndrome Clinical Presentation / Medscape signs of premenstrual syndrome, doctors prescribe medications that maintain normal serotonin levels and also recommend a diet rich in vegetables and fruits. Some women benefit from massage, psychotherapy, or herbal remedies.

You have compulsive overeating

This is the name for an eating disorder in which a person cannot control food intake. He eats a lot of Binge eating disorder / US National Library of Medicine high-calorie foods (usually sweets and fatty foods), even when he is not hungry. He often does this secretly because he feels remorse.

What to do

If you have compulsive overeating, you should consult a psychotherapist. The doctor will prescribe medications that reduce anxiety and eliminate depressive disorder. Various methods of psychotherapy also help.

Why is it difficult to give up sugar?

If you have an addiction to sugar, it will be difficult to get rid of it. A person becomes dependent on it emotionally, just like on cigarettes, alcohol and drugs, only in our case on a chocolate bar, cupcake, candy or ice cream.

There will be suffering both physically and emotionally, especially at those moments when the body demands another portion of sweets. When trying to eliminate sugar from your diet, you may experience withdrawal symptoms such as headaches, anger, physical pain, and mood swings. All this can lead to failure of the intended goal and a return to square one.

Lack of physical activity

Previously, in the USSR and in many modern companies in Japan and Korea, daily exercise in the workplace was or is mandatory. If you do not disperse the stress hormone, cortisol, which was mentioned above, this leads to increased fatigue (even though the body has not experienced any real stress) and a desire to eat stress. We are genetically wired to experience physical activity, which the body rewards with bursts of endorphins after the first 20 minutes of activity. Many studies show that people who get at least 30 minutes of physical activity a day are less likely to overconsume sugar-containing foods.

Identify sweet traps

Analyze your day and determine what times and places you are most susceptible to sweet temptations. Perhaps your office has unlimited access to cookies? Sorry. Read this article to your colleagues and suggest replacing sweets with fruits. Perhaps you can't resist buying chocolate bars from the supermarket after a hard day at work? Today, give in to temptation one last time, but buy an extra pack of nuts and put them in your bag. Tomorrow, before you go to the store, kill the worm.

olgamanukyan/Depositphotos.com

Sweets calm you down

Ice cream to cheer you up at the end of a hard day, eclair to cool down after a quarrel with your loved one. Situations familiar? Often, a psychological or emotional addiction to sweets first occurs, which can lead to a physiological one. We justify ourselves when we reach for the 20th piece of candy: “Today was a bad day. I need to relieve stress somehow, and tomorrow I’ll go on a diet.” But it's not even about the extra pounds. If you eat dessert when you are tired or in a bad mood, or chew chocolate when you are nervous or afraid, this is an alarming symptom.

Try not to eat your emotions, or at least do it in a more useful way. Put the cake aside, take a carrot or an apple. Does the replacement seem unequal? Cake calms you down, but carrots don’t, which means you’re one step away from sugar addiction.

Details

If you have a sweet tooth, it's completely natural. Preferring sweetness to any other taste helped our distant ancestors survive. Bitterness in nature indicates poison, sweetness indicates nutrition. Finding food is not a trivial task, and death from starvation is common. Under such conditions, those who are good at recognizing bitterness and sweetness and are highly motivated to avoid the former and find the latter live longer and have a greater chance of passing on their genes to subsequent generations. Including those responsible for cravings for sweets.

In the body, sugar increases the level of the neurotransmitter dopamine - the so-called “happiness hormone”. To be more precise, it does not give happiness, but motivates us to get something to satisfy our needs. In the case of sweets, this something is energy, extremely valuable for the inhabitants of the Paleolithic era. Back then, most of the foods that the ancestors of modern people ate were no sweeter than carrots. Honey is one of the few exceptions.

Then people took up farming and began to eat more starchy foods. But everything changed radically when we learned to extract pure sugar from these products and add it everywhere. And now the problem is the opposite of what faced hunter-gatherers: it is difficult to find food without sugar. It is found not only in candies, cookies and cakes - obviously “sugar” products, but also in sauces, bread, semi-finished products and ready-made dishes.

What's wrong with cravings for sweets?

Even before the Paleolithic, about 15 million years ago, during one of the periods of global cooling, mutations occurred in the genes of our ape-like ancestors, which allowed the body to more efficiently store reserves for a rainy day, easily turning sugar into fat. Today is not a rainy day, there is an excess of sweets, fat reserves are growing, and this, in turn, can lead to a deterioration in metabolic health.

Another danger is that sugar, or more precisely glucose, is an extremely active molecule that can react with proteins and change their structure. The concentration of glucose in the blood is regulated by the hormone insulin: after eating, it is released by the pancreas, and insulin allows cells to use glucose to produce energy. But if the insulin system malfunctions (the first signs of diabetes) or if glucose peaks occur too often (you eat carbohydrates and sweets many times a day), then excess glucose in the blood will gradually destroy, among other things, the walls of blood vessels, which will lead to the development of atherosclerosis and cardiovascular diseases.

Glucose promotes inflammation in the body, which in turn leads to fatigue, anxiety and depression.

Doctors and health organizations recommend that adults and children reduce their intake of added sugar, which is found in almost everything from sugary drinks to sauces, breads, breakfast cereals and yogurts. WHO, for example, calls for reducing sugar to 5% of total calories consumed - that's about 25 g or 6 teaspoons of sugar per day. For comparison: a 0.33 liter can of Coca-Cola contains 35 g of sugar; 100 g of “healthy” breakfast cereal may contain 20-30 g of sugar.

How to stop eating so much sugar?

The problem has two sides: how to plan a diet with minimal sugar content (technical) and how to stop craving sweets (psychological). First, about the simpler side, the technical one.

The best way to eat less sugar is to learn to identify it in food and not keep such food in the house. Chocolate, baked goods and Coca-Cola are definitely “sugar” foods. Bread, sausages, ready-made salad dressing, low-fat yogurt, and cereals that say “sugar-free” on the label are less obvious candidates, but processed foods almost always contain sugar, and sometimes in significant quantities. Sugar can be hidden under different names: corn syrup, maltose, fructose and several dozen other options.

There are also plenty of tricks you can use to push sugar out of your diet: replace cookies with carrots or dark chocolate, eat bitter arugula, play Tetris or take a walk when you want candy, and so on. But they don’t work well if the reason for your craving for desserts is not a love of sweet taste, but so-called emotional hunger.

“Emotional hunger” is a fairly common concept: this is what some psychologists and nutritionists call the desire to eat something high in calories, contrasting this impulse with real, physiological hunger.

Real hunger

it grows gradually, is felt below the neck, appears a few hours after eating and goes away after eating. The meal itself is satisfying.

Emotional hunger

comes suddenly, is felt above the neck, does not depend on time and is felt even after eating. At the same time, eating food causes feelings of shame and guilt.

Watch yourself. If your relationship with sweets sounds like the description of emotional hunger, try to minimize sweets in your diet by analyzing and changing your habits or dealing with the “problematic” feelings themselves.

How to change the habit of eating sweets?

We associate eating with certain emotions and situations, so sugar cravings can be viewed as a learned behavior—and addressed through behavioral science.

Step 1: Identify triggers.

Habit is a reaction to a stimulus. What happens before you order carrot cake with your coffee or open the refrigerator in search of ice cream? Try to track the sequence of events several times and write them down at least in the notes on your phone. The trigger can be different situations and emotions - not just those that you clearly identify as “negative”.

Step 2: Have a plan in place.

If the triggers are clear, you need a plan—alternative behaviors when the habit takes over again. This advice was given to the doctor of medicine and author of the book “One More Piece!” David Kessler Behavioral Experts. The point is that it is easier to resist habits when you have developed a plan in advance: specific actions that you will take when something happens that you are used to eating sweets (trigger). The more often this plan is implemented, the sooner you will develop new automatic behavior that will allow you to cope with the old one. Solutions? Any other actions that can give you a feeling of self-care: drink a mug of hot tea, chat with loved ones, pet the cat, do a breathing exercise.

Step 3. Argue with your thoughts.

Behavior is largely controlled verbally, through mental pronunciation. Eating problems are no exception. This is the way to overcome the automaticity of habit. Psychotherapist Karin Melvin suggests using the ABC model: highlight the trigger (Activating experience), irrational beliefs that push you to eat sweets (Beliefs), and consequences (Consequences). Separately, imagine or even write down arguments that would challenge your beliefs. For example, the belief that the only way to calm down is to eat chocolate can be countered by many others: “Chocolate actually has nothing to do with my situation”; “Perhaps the desire itself is caused only by bright advertising of chocolate”; “The brain acts automatically - why should I follow this decision?”; “Walking is a healthier way to relieve stress,” and so on.

Meditation can help deal with automatic desires and emotions - there are studies showing that such practice allows you to better understand what causes the need for sweets, and consciously make the choice “to eat or not to eat.”

How to deal with emotions?

It is believed that behind emotional hunger there is a strategy of emotional avoidance: candy allows you to distract yourself and not have to deal with difficult experiences. The solution is to stop running away from them. It's a difficult process, but accepting your emotions will increase your ability to tolerate the discomfort that causes sugar overeating. That’s why it helps more effectively than just behavioral methods.

Step 1. Name the emotion.

What feelings does eating sweets mask? To recognize them, the visualization technique of non-diet nutritionist Carol Grannick comes in handy. Sit in a quiet place, close your eyes and remember the moment you ate a chocolate bar. Imagine that you only ate two slices and stopped. Ask yourself: what thoughts and feelings does this evoke? Once you find the definition you want, write it down. This will reduce the intensity of the emotion.

Step 2. Take a break.

When the desire to eat your emotions with a piece of cake arises, nutritionist Svetlana Bronnikova advises asking yourself: can you put it off until later? If you can wait 15 minutes and do something else, do it. And then ask yourself: do you want a cake? Or has the desire changed? If everything is the same, eat the cake and don't beat yourself up about it. The goal is not to give up food, but to learn to tolerate anxiety.

Step 3: Focus on problematic feelings.

A paradoxical method from the arsenal of dialectical behavior therapy. The point is not to try to control emotions, but to ride them like a wave (that’s why the technique is called “surfing”). This is what it looks like. You close your eyes and focus on the experience that makes you want sweets. There is no need to try to change it somehow. Just observe what sensations it causes in your body. So you will notice that the intensity of the experience is not constant: feelings sometimes reach peaks of pain, then decrease to the level of calm. Glide on them like surfers glide through the water. The peak, most painful moments will become shorter, and the experiences will become such that you can cope without chocolate.

Also on topic.

How I gave up sugar and found out the psychological reasons for my addiction. The story of psychotherapist Ev Khazina. Link.

How much sugar do we need per day to avoid gaining weight?

• We don't need sugar to survive. We can do without it. There is now even a carnivore diet that eliminates sugar completely. We DO NOT need sugar. 4 grams of sugar per day is enough for us. But this depends on the state of health and existing problems.
• We are all very different, we metabolize sugar differently, but as for carbohydrates in cereals, root vegetables, fruits, this is a normal reaction in children, for example. I ate it and it doesn’t make me sleepy, it absorbs it normally, this is a healthy carbohydrate metabolism.
• It is better not to use unhealthy products that contain various syrups, maltose, dextrose. This is also sugar.
• Some doctors call sugar a toxic product.

Do you have diabetes?

This disease is accompanied by 3 Reasons You Crave Sweet or Salty Foods / Cleveland Clinic a constant and intense feeling of hunger, and some people binge on sweets. Sometimes this is a sign of high or low glucose levels.

What to do

If, in addition to sweets, you constantly want to drink and urinate a lot, you need to see a therapist. He will order a blood glucose test. Once the diagnosis is confirmed, the doctor will give recommendations on what to eat and what medications to take.

And those who have long been diagnosed with diabetes mellitus need to discuss treatment with an endocrinologist and, perhaps, change something in it.

Symptoms accompanying sugar addiction

The following types of sugar addiction are distinguished:

• physiological – the cause is hormonal imbalance (lack of joy hormones) due to regular stress or endocrine diseases;
• emotional – occurs in case of psychological discomfort, psychosis, disturbances in the functioning of the nervous system;
• behavioral – when excessive consumption of sweets occurs for social reasons (upbringing, traditions of society, patterns of behavior at work or in other groups).

Sugar addiction is determined by the following symptoms:

• sweets have a calming effect on you;
• there is a constant need for sweets;
• without sweet foods and drinks you feel restless;
• the lack of sugar is compensated by increased consumption of other unhealthy foods (fatty, smoked, fast food, canned food, salty).

Why is sugar considered a drug?

You may be craving sweets if you lack endorphins. Endorphin is a simplified name for endogenous morphine (morphine is the basis of heroin). The word "endogenous" means that it is naturally synthesized in the body. This hormone, when interacting with several neurotransmitters, puts a person in a state of euphoria, uplifting the mood and adding strength.

Endorphins are polypeptide chemical compounds similar to opiates. Morphine and its derivative heroin are opiate drugs that block physical and emotional pain. Endorphins are also called endogenous opiates.

Sucrose acts in the same way as an opiate drug. It does not affect as strongly, but according to the same pattern. On the surface of brain cells there are tiny molecular structures called opiate receptors. Taste buds in the mouth, detecting sweetness on the tongue, send impulses to the cerebral cortex. Next, the dopamine system of the pleasure center of the brain is activated, and endorphins are released, which relieve physical and psychological pain. This is where problems arise for those who eat.

Food manufacturers and marketers are not asleep! After a series of experiments, it was discovered that the narcotic effect of fast carbohydrates is twice as strong if you mix it with fat. This mixture produces an even more significant opiate effect. You don’t have to go far: in 80% of cases we eat away our problems with chocolate, which is a carbohydrate mixed with fat. For the human body, sugar is a kind of psychoactive substance. And sometimes dependence on it is instilled in us in the womb. Any addiction has such a component as withdrawal syndrome, in simple terms – “withdrawal”. Information belongs to the site REW)(MED