11 Steps To Reduce Sugar Cravings: Part 2
Steps 6-11
Change your habits
Do you tend to eat sugary or overly processed foods while watching TV? After work with friends? On your daily commute? Change you habits - go for a walk in the evening or call a friend rather than watch TV, make plans to do something else with friends, or take a different route to work. Changing up your habits could help you break a bad habit.
Understand your cravings
It might be easy to kick a bad habit just by changing up a few things but if it’s not so easy, you may need to take a deeper look into what might be causing it. I mentioned in a prior post that cravings could have a deeper meaning. They might be caused by nutrient deficiencies or dysbiosis in the gut. Start playing detective with your health. Your body will thank you.
Eat nutrient dense foods
Simply eating the right food can help to reduce sugar cravings. Eating processed foods leads to cravings for overly processed foods. These foods that we see in the grocery stores - boxed cereal, candy bars, ice cream, cookies - are all highly processed and manufactured to be highly satiating and addicting. They are made to make you want more - even the so-called “healthier” stuff. These companies know exactly how addicting their product is and use it to drive sales (“bet you can’t eat just one!”).
Eat Intuitively
Do you often eat past the point of fullness? Do you eat out of boredom rather than hunger? Start to pay attention to your physical and emotional feelings. Tune in to your hunger and fullness signals. Try to understand what a comfortable point of fullness is for your body and adhere to it.
Drink broth
Make homemade broths or stocks part of your regular diet and you will be doing wonders for your health. Along with proteins and collagen to help you feel full and satiated, it has nutrients that are great for your overall health - including the non-essential amino acid glycine that may have a positive effect on dopamine levels, which in turn will help curb those cravings (especially if you crave food for that dopamine hit!). Unless you have great digestion, try for shorter cooked meat stock to start.
Eat fermented foods
Fermented foods have been eaten for centuries and we have only recently begun to understand why. Fermented foods will feed the good bacteria in your gut and balance out those gut microbes. As mentioned in a previous post, an imbalance of bad bacteria in the gut can cause you to crave sugar. Adding fermented foods can help balance out gut bacteria, however, you may need some deeper healing to restore the gut before this might make a difference for you. Fermented foods are part of a healthy diet and not just something you eat on occasion.
