Sugar can prevent you from healing your gut and adrenals. It promotes inflammation, messes with your blood sugar and mood and stresses adrenals and liver. There are many reason to lower or avoid sugar.
By sugar I mean table sugar or natural sweeteners like coconut sugar, honey, molasses or maple syrup. Sugar found in fruit in small quantities is usually ok because it is packed with fiber to mitigate the unhealthy affects.
Giving up sugar is not easy because it’s psychologically and physically addictive.
But kicking the addiction is possible if you go slow, are gentle with yourself (don’t beat yourself up for mistakes) and have a good strategy in place.
Being prepared is the absolutely best strategy there is, but here are a few more tips to weather the rocky transition from craving sugar to being somewhat indifferent to it. And yes it is possible. I am proof. Just keep at it until you get it right. The tips below will help.
- Manage your stress
Stress often triggers sugar cravings. Sugar boost serotonin (along with other neurotransmitters) temporarily, increasing feelings of pleasure and calm. It can cause stress later during the crash from the sugar spike. Managing stress is a huge topic, but getting the support you need when you are stressed makes a difference.
That can be in the form of adaptogenic herbs, like ashwagandha, lemon balm, tulsi or rhodiola, that help the body adapt to stress. B vitamins are also depleted during stress and can be supportive. My favorite stress support supplement is Daily Stress Formula by Pure encapsulation. You can buy it here.
2) Drink water
You may have heard that thirst can manifest as hunger or fatigue, which makes you reach for quick and easy energy in the form of sugar. Staying hydrated can help you feel full and ease craving. Drink a glass of water when you have cravings.
You can add electrolytes to your water or sliced fruit to make spa water. Or try a hot or iced chai spice tea (the cinnamon helps tame sugar cravings). Drinking water over sugary drinks, like sodas or juices, will help balance blood sugar and reduce cravings. Sugar consumed in liquid form can make you crave more.
3) Substitution versus deprivation.
A super effective strategy for preventing binging or indulging in sugar is to feel less deprived. When you remove something familiar or pleasurable you need to replace it with something else.
Make your own low sugar or no sugar treats to replace the high sugar ones. I wrote two cookbooks (to help people replace high sugar treats with gut-friendly, healthy ones that are low in sugar but still satisfying).
Replacing unhealthy treats with healthy one is a slow way to wean off sugar and prevent deprivation.
Plan ahead when sugar cravings come, by having healthy alternatives on hand. Bring healthy treats or snacks to gatherings or on trips. Being prepared is the most crucial tip for slaying the sugar dragon.
4) Take blood sugar balancing supplements like l-glutamine.
L-glutamine is a popular supplement for repairing the gut lining, but it also helps balance sugar cravings. It does this by helping regulate insulin and blood sugar levels. And it has many other health benefits for the gut, brain, heart, muscle recovery and lowering inflammation.
My favorite source for glutamine powder is GI response by Innate Response Formulas. You can buy it here (just create an account and search for it). Chromium, 5HTP and cinnamon are also supportive for the blood sugar and craving control.
5) Eat more healthy fat to fill yourself up.
When you crave sugar, eating fatty foods can help take the edge off. Not only is it filling but fat also stabilises blood sugar. Sources of healthy fat are coconut, avocados, nut or seed butter, salmon, cheese, eggs and Greek yogurt.
I use these coconut butter, anti inflammatory fat bombs to bust my sugar cravings.
6) Deal with subconscious resistance and self sabotage through hypnosis.
You may not know or understand why you’re fighting and resisting a change you really want to make. You may try and fail to give up sugar, but it’s not because of weak discipline. The subconscious mind block change because it associates sugar with happiness, protection or fitting in.
You can’t battle a subconscious drive with logic or discipline because the subconscious never gives up. It simply waits for a moment of weakness or temptation to have its sway. The subconscious mind runs your behaviour, but there is a way to rewire subconscious programming through hypnosis.
Hypnosis puts you into a relaxed state where you can access your subconscious find out why it won’t allow you to give up sugar. Understanding the reasons will help you rewrite them into new beliefs that serve you. Hypnosis is one of the most powerful way to battle addictions.
I offer hypnosis session to clients to address healing blocks like anxiety and addiction.
7) Address nutritional deficiencies like magnesium and other mineral imbalances.
When your body is deficient in something it will crave a food or drinks that contains it. For example, some people crave chocolate because they lack magnesium. You can get magnesium from supplements or epsom salt baths or take a full spectrum mineral tincture.
Testing your micronutrient status can shed light on your deficiencies so you can supplement them. Another strategy is researching the food you crave to figure out what nutrients they contain that your body may be craving. Try to supplement it with healthier foods or supplementation.
8) Distract yourself.
If you eat emotionally, use strategies to distract you from that emotion or find ways to sit with the emotion to process or address it. People commonly eat sugar when they are lonely, bored or stressed. When these emotions strikes, they can be powerful.
First make sure you don’t keep tempting foods in your house. Or if you do, get yourself out of the kitchen or out of the house for a walk outside. Walking in nature is ideal.
Second, figure out what emotion you’re feeling when sugar craving hits. If it is stress or anxiety, you can exercise, get a massage, take a bath or shower, breath deeply, ask for help or read something calming or empowering.
If you’re lonely or bored get out into public or connect with your favorite people by phone or in person. Or watch a funny movie or journey about what you want to do.
While more difficult, the process of identifying and sitting with your emotion will heal more than just your sugar cravings. It will heal your mind and heart. And it gets easier to do with practice.
9) Eliminate foods with added sugars that increase cravings.
Again, when you eat sugar, you crave sugar. Eliminate hidden sugars from your food and drinks. And don’t consume sugar alcohols or fake sugar, they confuse your body. Things like pasta sauces, salsa, peanut butter and ketchup are common offenders. Read your labels and don’t buy foods with added sugar.
10) Don’t go too fast or be too extreme.
When you adopt an extreme strategy (cold turkey, keto, carnivore, super low carb overnight) it’s easy to find yourself at another extreme (guilty binging). Too much too soon is stressful for the body. This can create deficiencies, deprivation, cravings and a shock to the system.
While extreme or cold turkey strategies can work for a minority of people (typically all or nothing types) it is hard to sustain. Extreme exercise can also trigger sugar cravings as your body tries to make up for lost energy and glycogen.
Set yourself up for success
To change a sugar addiction, stay balanced, go slow, and celebrate successful baby steps along the way. That is how you stay off sugar sustainable and for the long term.
Perfectionism, pushing and rushing almost always backfire.
Instead, do the work. Be prepared with substitutions and support your blood sugar with diet and supplementation. Don’t forget to address you mind.
Train your body like you train a puppy, slowly, consistently and with love. And soon it will no longer crave sugar. You’ll be free to lose weight, balance your biome, heal your gut and support your mood.
Angela Privin is proof that IBS is NOT an incurable disease, but a cry for help from a gut out of balance. When the body AND mind are complaining, it’s an opportunity to examine what’s not working and change it. After solving her own IBS mystery almost two decades ago, Angela became as a health coach to help others. Angela uses root cause medicine protocols personalized to the individual to solve each IBS mystery. Her tools are lab testing, dietary changes, supplementation, subconscious mind work and nervous system rebalancing . Learn more here.