You want to lose weight and be healthier but sugar cravings are stronger than you. It’s not your lack of willpower or discipline! There is physiology behind it and also few emotional factors. Let’s dive in:
Diet Related Causes of Sugar Cravings
1. Nutritional Deficiencies. Especially magnesium, chromium, zinc and B vitamins.
The ‘fun fact’ is that when you eat sugar you deplete your zinc stores which creates a bit off vicious cycle. More sugar -> less zinc and less zinc ? more sugar cravings
2. Poor Digestion. If you crave sugar snacks after your meals, especially lunch or dinner, it’s a strong indication of poor digestion. You can think about it as your body telling you “ hey I can’t cope with processing all these foods, I need more energy”. Unfortunately sugar is the quickers and easiest source of energy and from survival point of view, your body will always prefer what’s quickest and easiest.
3. Blood sugar dysregulation. When your blood sugar drops too much your body will crave suagar. It can happen quite often when you eat too much of refined carbohydrates.
4. Hydration. It’s quite common that we can mistake dehydraton with sugar cravings.
If you are not sure, every time you crave sugar, have lemon ginger water with pinch of himialayn salt — it’s my best remedy for sugar cravings!
Other Imbalances That Cause Sugar Cravings
5. Neurotransmitters Imbalances. Imbalance in neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine, which are linked to mood and reward, can lead to increased sugar cravings.
6. Insulin resistance. You eat but your cells are starving inside. It’s because they became resistant to insulin which signals your body to transport and allow glucose inside the cell.
7. Gut issues. Overgrowth of bad bacteria not only makes weight loss harder but can also increase sugar cravings!
8. Food allergies and sensitivities. Eating foods that we react to can elevate blood sugar in a way that is similar to consuming foods high in sugar. Generally, once we fix our gut we should be able to eat most of the foods but if we don’t address that, food intolerances can increase your sugar cravings!
Lifestyle & Emotional Causes of Sugar Cravings
9. Poor sleep. When we don’t sleep well, our body will naturally crave sugar as a quick source of energy.
10. Stress. It can be both physical when i.e you don’t eat enough and move a lot or exercise or emotional when you are busy, working long hours, can’t switch off in the evening or have some more demanding period in your life. Sugar and carbohydrates help to lower?that stress hormone – cortisol, in other words carbs and sugar can calm us down and that’s why we naturally crave it when feel more stressed. If you know that your sugar cravings are driven by stress then choose quality carbs rather than refined sugars
For example, I did quit sugar like 10 years ago but I noticed that when I have lots of going on or lots of ‘worries’ and problems to solve, I’m starting to craving sugar out of nowhere.
From nervous system perspective it makes perfect sense as we humans are designed to cope with fight or fight situations well but only for short period of time. The problem starts when we are chronically in a fight or fight state then it’s flagged by our system as ‘DANGER’ or a threat and this is where our body will crave sugar. Unfortunately our brain can’t tell difference between actual danger or us thinking out unpleasant event or problem from 2 days ago.
Common Sugar Alternatives Worse Than Actual Sugars….
Metabolic diseases are sky rocketing now. Lots of brands label their products as sugar free but the thing is in 95% cases sugar is replaced with sugar alternatives and sweeteners so it’s just different form of sugar… I’m not even talking about artificial sweeteners but about common sugar replacements. They can be even worse when we look how they affect your body as a whole. Glucose fructose or rice syrup (common in snacks and protein bars) will spike your blood sugar more that regular sugar for example. Then erythritol that can exacerbated gut inflammation or malitol that can cause bloating. Both will still spike your blood sugar but on the top of that they can negatively affect your gut, especially when used in excess.
Hope that was helpful
Sandra
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