Sugar As A Drug: How To Break The Habit

Do you crave and enjoy sugar, soda drinks, candy, chocolate, ice cream?

Sugar’s very addictive for so many people. It’s like a drug because it profoundly affects the brain.

A long time ago, around 1900, sugar was extremely expensive, so only the elite people could afford refined sugar. Most people just ate small amounts of honey.

Now people eat up to twice their body weight per year in sugar because it’s so cheap. We’ve also seen an explosion in obesity as a result.

I started to notice issues with sugar with people a long, long time ago, when I first started to practice. I came to understand why so many people crave sweets.

Often sugar cravings stem from problems in diet and lifestyle. Thankfully, those problems can be easily corrected.

Once you’ve been eating sweet foods for some time, your blood sugar is impacted. Your blood sugar goes up, and then the pancreas produces a hormone called insulin to bring it down. Often, it’ll bring it down too fast. The plummet in blood sugar triggers sugar cravings.

It’s a vicious cycle that leaves you on a blood sugar and craving rollercoaster.

What ends up happening is that people with blood sugar issues only feel good when they have a cookie or a chocolate bar in their mouths.

Once you get the hit, you want to go back for the hit, and back for the hit.

As a result, it will end up destroying the blood sugar regulatory mechanism.

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You’ll plunge yourself into diabetes, heart disease, and all of the problems that having such a low pH brings to the body; yeast infections and eventually cancer.

Artificial sugars have been shown to actually stimulate sugar addiction further, so don’t touch artificial sweeteners.

The other factor that can contribute to sugar cravings is the stress hormone cortisol. Cortisol liberates stored sugar and pushes it into the bloodstream. Once again, insulin is released, blood sugar can plummet, and the cycle of blood sugar dysregulation is in full force. That cycle helps explain why people under stress often crave sugar.

High blood sugar can then trigger inflammation, which contributes to diseases like heart problems, depression, and cancer.

What should you do if you have sugar cravings?

Firstly, fix up the things in your life that cause stress.

Next, spend time planning your meals. Make sure you shop for healthy, whole foods, so you don’t reach for junk when you’re hungry.

A substantial, high-protein breakfast is one of the key ways to prevent sugar cravings. You don’t’ have to eat first thing in the morning. It’s okay to wait until 9 or 10 a.m. if you’re not hungry earlier than that.

Make sure you snack on something that creates satiety, not a temporary blood sugar peak.

Having enough water is very important to help stop sugar cravings.

Having enough water allows fiber to work properly. If you’re eating sufficient vegetable and fruit fiber, water will help slow down the passage of food through your digestive system and downplay sweet cravings.

Now, when it comes to sweets, I prefer honey. When I have my rolled oats in the morning, I put some berries and a little bit of honey on top.

Honey does contain sugar, but it’s a different kind of sugar than you’re going to get out of a sugar bowl, but be careful, because honey can also be highly addictive.

The last tip is to add bitter, salty, and sour foods to your diet. These types of food help reduce sugar cravings.

Bitter foods also improve digestion, discourage Candida and SIBO, and prevent gallbladder, pancreatic, and stomach dysfunction.

Bitter foods are your friend. Sugary foods are your enemy.

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