5 tips to help with sugar cravings

Getting off sugar is not as easy as it sounds, otherwise, we would all stop eating sugar and there would be no need for our government to impose a sugar tax. I will give you five tips if you want to reduce or cut out sugar altogether.

1. Supermarket foods: take a look at the labels of the savoury foods you are eating. These include your sauces, soups, bread, salad dressings, ketchup — they will most likely contain sugar. Many manufacturers add sugar into foods because when they blind taste test these dishes, people prefer the foods that are a little bit sweeter. If you are really going for cutting sugar out, try to not buy pre-manufactured foods or really do study the labels.

2. Drinks: there is a massive industry of fizzy drinks, and fizzy drinks are quite addictive by themselves whether they are so called sugar free diet drinks or not. These are not a part of a healthy diet. Also, reduce, and eventually stop putting sugar in your hot drinks — coffee, tea, anything you are drinking. It is very popular in summer to drink fruit squashes made by adding water into a concentrated sugary syrup. Water should be your number one thing to drink when you are feeling thirsty.

3. Coffee: if you are suffering from sugar cravings, drinking coffee will actually make it worse. Coffee is a stimulant and when you drink it your blood sugar balance gets affected and a little bit more dysregulated, that is why we always want some kind of sweet thing when we are drinking our coffee, just coffee on its own it becomes not enough.

4. Alcohol: not only does alcohol have a lot of sugar added (like these lovely summery wines that are actually quite sweet) but also alcohol is another substance that dysregulates your blood sugar balance. That is why after drinking you do feel like eating a lot more than you would normally, and when you get a hangover you want that big breakfast or big meal to replenish the blood sugar that has gone a little bit too low. There are some alcohols that are better than others, but if you are struggling with sugar addiction, it would really be worth cutting out alcohol completely for a period of time.

5. Eating little and often: eating like this is not helpful for all people all the time, but if your sugar cravings are out of control, eating a little bit of protein and fat quite regularly will stabilise your blood sugar.

I hope this is useful and even if you do one or two, it will still be a huge step forward. We now know that blood sugar imbalance is linked to a lot of inflammatory conditions, like diabetes type 2 which is becoming such an epidemic everywhere in the world.