How to beat sugar craving!

Reasons behind sugar cravings:

Scientists have long believed that cravings for carbohydrates and other sugary foods are driven by a desire to improve mood due to the fact that consuming sweet treats increases serotonin levels in your brain.

Serotonin is a brain neurotransmitter that boosts your sense of well-being, so it makes sense that if a food makes you feel better, you're going to want to eat more of it.

Aside from enjoying a healthy dose of a sweet treat as part of a balanced diet, there are other reasons that you may be experiencing a preoccupation with them, and that you may be craving them in exceptional amounts:

Emotional stress: Stress at home or job makes you seeking for comfort food and sugar comes directely into your mind due to its effect on the feel-good hormones.

Macronutrient imbalance: A diet low in filling nutrients like healthy protein, fiber and healty fat makes you crave sugar.For instance, a diet rich in high glycemic index food like donuts, croissant or cookies make you hungry after consumption that is the reason behind sugar cravings.

Lack of sleep: Lack of sleep increase level of cortisol hormone which make you crave starchy, sugary and salty food.

Underconsumption of calories: Low calorie diet lead to sugar cravings and binge eating according to many research.

Low-carb diets: Some limited evidence exists that eating a high protein, low carbohydrate diet may increase your cravings for sweet-tasting, palatable food.

You are female: According to research women tend to crave sugar ore than men do! In fact, women are likely to crave foods that are both high in sugar and high in fat.

High sugar intake: According to research, there is a strong correlation between a person’s customary intake of a flavor and their preferred intensity for that flavor. That means the more sugar you consume, the more sugar you will crave.

Frequent use of artificial sweeteners: Zero-calorie sweeteners can change your sense of taste when it comes to sweets, causing you to crave increasing amounts of sugar.

Depending on the brand that you use, your artificial sweetener may be anywhere from 200 times to 20,000 times sweeter than sugar. When you become accustomed to tasting foods that are overly sweet, eating sugary food that is reasonably sweet isn't quite as satisfying any longer and you crave more.

Micronutrient deficiency: Some nutrition experts have suggested that a magnesium deficiency, may lead to increased sugar cravings. While there may be some truth to the relationship, there is a lack of clinical evidence to support that assumption.

How to Help Curb Sugar Cravings

These tips can help you to curb cravings and reduce your intake of sugar. Expect the process to be more difficult in the beginning and ease up as you move through the process.

Use Artificial Sweeteners Cautiously

Replacing sugar with artificial sweeteners can help you to reduce overall calories intake. Some have suggested that weight gain is a potential effect as well. That doesn't mean that the sweeteners cause weight gain, but some experts feel that they encourage eating behaviors that increase cravings for sweets. Plus, artificial sweeteners have been connected to various negative health effects.

According to research sweet taste delivered by sugar or artificial sweeteners can enhance overall appetite not only toward sweets.

Make Sleep a Priority

Getting enough sleep is important for your overall health and it curbs sugar cravings too.

Make sure to get enough sleep interval as between 7-9 hours daily. Turn-off artifical lights.

Check Your Vitamin and Mineral intake

It is important to have a well-balanced diet to avoid any nutritional deficiencies.

Reduce Your Intake of Sugary Foods

It is important to keep your diet balanced and replace sugary food with more filling nutrients like healthy protein, fat and fiber. These food keep you full for a longer period and prevent any unhealthy choices.

For example, you can have whole eggs with avocado toast spread or Greek yogurt with oat and banana at breakfast.

Increase Your Intake of Fruit

When you cut back on added sugar, your cravings are likely to increase. Keep easy-to-eat fruit on hand (like berries, bananas, cut melon, or citrus fruit) to give you a boost of sweetness with the benefit of fiber and vitamins.

Consume Enough Healthy Carbohydrates

Current dietary guidlines suggest that we consume 40 to 60 percent of our daily calories from carbohydrates. So if you consume 1,500 calories per day, you would eat 600–900 carbohydrate calories or 150–225 grams of carbohydrate each day to meet that guideline.

Try to get carbohydrates in the form of whole unprocessed foods, like fruits and vegetables. Sweeter veggies and grains (like oatmeal, corn, or sweet potatoes) can provide a boost of sweetness to curb cravings for less healthy carbs like baked goods or sweetened cereal.

Enlist Support

If you are surrounded with people who crave sugar,this change may be hard to be done, So, it is better to find support from healthy people who can give you the power to stop craving sugar and adapt healthy lifestyle.