sugar cravings Archives - Curves Cardio And Cupcakes

May 23, 2018 by cardioandcupcakes

Why Can’t I Stick To My Diet And Have Willpower?

Why can’t I stick to my diet?

Willpower.

I know you’ve heard this term and probably used it yourself in regard to dieting. Well I’ll be the one to tell you that it’s all a crock!

We start out on a diet where we have all of these restrictions, can’t eat any of the things we love and frankly, I’ve gotten quite depressed on some diets because of this. I mean who really wants to live every day denying themselves of things that bring them joy in life?

When we fail at our diet which wasn’t designed for us to be successful anyway, we feel guilty and ashamed that we couldn’t have enough willpower to stick to it. We feel like such a failure.

Why is it so hard to stick to a diet?

Your diet is too restrictive. I think the most important part of sticking to a diet is listening to your body. I did a low carb diet in my 20s. I lost 90 pounds, felt great and got in the best shape of my life. My body was loving that diet at that time. I tried a low carb diet again in my late 30s and I felt completely horrible. I felt like I couldn’t digest the food properly and I didn’t lose anything. In fact, I gained a few pounds! I now listen to my body and what it needs to do its job. If I try a way of eating that doesn’t feel good, I don’t continue with it. A starch based vegan diet is what feels good to my body and gets me results. I honestly haven’t felt this good in years!
You have uncontrollable sugar cravings. It is impossible to stick with a diet if you can’t stop thinking about all the sugary goodness that you can’t have. I know. I’ve been there. It isn’t pretty! My sugar cravings would haunt me until I just ate whatever I was craving. I couldn’t get them out of my head no matter what I did. I would read online to just have some water or go for a walk and they would subside. Are you kidding?! That doesn’t work! So I would give in to the sugar monster and eat that sweet goodness. And then of course, I would have the feelings of guilt and shame for failing myself. You can read here how I’ve kicked my sugar cravings for good.
You’re dieting only to lose weight. I know we all want to lose weight and that’s usually the main goal of going on a diet. But what if you changed the way you look at dieting? Stop focusing on the scale and focus on how you feel. If you’re eating healthy food and listening to what your body needs, you should be feeling great and the weight loss will come with that. The more we stress about the scale and pressure ourselves to lose the pounds, the more a diet sucks. Are you eating in a way that you can live with for the rest of your life? If not, search for the diet that makes your body happy and your mind happy. I’ve put my scale away and am focusing on what makes my body feel good and I’m so much happier! And I know I’m losing weight because my clothes are getting loose. Who cares what that scale says?! Wouldn’t you rather see your pants size go down than a number on the scale?
You’re deficient in vitamins and minerals. A lack of essential nutrients can cause all sorts of problems in our bodies. I was deficient in several nutrients including vitamin D and the B vitamins. It took me a long time to figure it out, but a gut bacteria imbalance was causing my nutrient deficiencies. These bad gut bacteria were using up all of my vitamins and leaving none for my body to use which caused all kinds of crazy symptoms in my body that I would never have thought would be related to my gut or vitamins. Vitamin and mineral deficiencies can cause cravings that make you fail at your diet. This is how I got my gut balanced so my body can use the nutrients I put into it.

How To Have More Willpower

The most important things you can do to overcome your lack of “willpower” are to listen to your body and talk to yourself positively every day. Negative thoughts about yourself just bring more negativity. Instead of beating yourself up, take the time to try to figure out why you can’t stick to your diet.

Maybe you have one of the issues above or maybe there’s an underlying issue that’s causing you to hold on to the extra weight as protection. I had so many health problems in addition to the extra weight. I was super angry at my body for failing me. I wrote a letter to my body which allowed me to release the anger and negative feelings and the weight started coming off finally. Negative thoughts and emotions can cause you to sabotage your weight loss without even realizing it.

Trust in yourself and put in the time to try to understand what is happening and why so you can correct it. In the medical world, doctors seem to look for a quick fix band-aid rather than finding the root cause of a problem. As a society, we all want instant gratification. I fully believe in finding out what is causing your problem so you can fix it permanently rather than just masking the symptoms. If you’re having cravings, there’s a reason. If you’re body doesn’t respond well to a certain diet, there’s a reason. Your lack of willpower is your body trying to tell you something. Listen to it.

How To Stop Sugar Cravings In The Evening

This post contains affiliate links. See my disclosure here.

I have to be honest here. I have had sugar cravings my whole life since I can remember. I come from a long line of diabetics. So I needed to figure out what was causing these sugar cravings and how to stop them as quickly as possible!

My sugar cravings were so bad, but the worst time for me was at night. I would literally just finish dinner and feel like I needed some sort of sweet snack. The problem was that I couldn’t stop thinking about it until I just went ahead and ate something sweet. It was out of control. I also craved bread and other processed carbohydrate foods, but the sweets were the worst.

I’ve struggled with a ton of health problems over the last 13-ish years. You can read about that here. I was on the diet roller coaster since childhood when my mom started taking me to Weight Watchers meetings with her. I’ve just about tried it all and guess what?! I would lose and gain it all back and then some. Quite a few of these diets were not healthy and didn’t teach me anything about how to eat properly and I always had sugar cravings no matter what diet I followed. Even on a keto diet I craved sugar. I read that after a couple of weeks on low carb, you wouldn’t crave sugar anymore. HA! That was not true for me!

I had read that certain vitamins and nutrients could help with sugar cravings and over the years tried quite a few of them, but none of them ever helped me kick my sugar addiction. Nothing ever seemed to work and it was super frustrating!

How To Stop Sugar Cravings

A few months ago I started eating a plant based whole food diet and I added in fermented foods to help my gut bacteria just to see if it would help. You can imagine my surprise when I started to feel better and lighter but I was still struggling with a few of my health problems and some sugar cravings even though they improved a bit with the diet and fermented foods, when I came across this cistus tea.

I’ve been drinking the tea 3 or 4 times a day and I feel like a new woman! The reason I decided to try it is that it is supposed to break up biofilms in the body. It is said that bacteria and yeast overgrow in our bodies and create these biofilms to protect themselves. So when we take antibiotics or natural antibacterial or antifungal products, the medicine can’t reach the bacteria and yeast to kill it because of these protective biofilms.

Of course I was skeptical if this was true or would even work, but the tea was inexpensive enough that I figured it was worth finding out. I’ve struggled with my health for so long that I’m usually willing to try just about anything. I started drinking the tea the day I got it in the mail. I didn’t notice much difference that day or the next day.

On my second full day of drinking it, I felt my belly bloat reducing and a sense of lightness in my body that I haven’t felt in years! It’s hard to describe, but I felt like a thousand pounds was lifted off of me. The coolest thing that happened though was that I wasn’t hungry! I didn’t find myself snacking all day like I usually would. I was having such filling and delicious foods that I would forget to eat until I was truly hungry. And let me tell you, I am not someone who forgets to eat!

My third day I felt a little rough. I still had the wonderful feelings from before but I was a bit nauseated and had a bit of a headache. I reduced the amount of tea I was drinking for that day and felt better by the next day. They say as these biofilms are broken up and the yeast and bad bacteria are dying off, they release toxins. So I think that may have been the reason for how I felt on this day. This is the first day I realized that I wasn’t craving sugar in the evening anymore!

After the third day, I felt better and better every day. My belly keeps getting smaller every day with the combination of this tea and my diet of plant based whole foods and fermented foods. I’ve vowed to stay off of the scale but my jeans are looser so I know I’m losing weight. My sugar cravings have completely stopped. I feel like I am in control of my eating for the very first time in my life! It’s so amazing!

A key factor to this is eating healthy because you don’t want to keep feeding the bad bacteria and yeast. Plus you want to get good bacteria into your body to help push out the bad stuff. So be sure to get your fermented foods in!

If you try the incanus tea, you’ll want to use the same tea and brew it 3 times. It releases different polyphenols each time you brew it. I love this because it makes it even more cost effective! It comes in loose leaf tea. So I use this little gadget to brew mine. I tried drinking it hot at first and realized the flavor of it is muted more if I drink it iced. I usually add a packet of stevia to sweeten it a little. And don’t worry, it doesn’t taste bad. I was nervous that it was going to be super gross, but I actually enjoy it when it’s iced.

Another awesome thing about this tea is that it breaks up the biofilms on your teeth too. So your teeth feel cleaner and accumulate less plaque.

I hope you find this information useful if you’re trying to stop sugar cravings. It’s amazing to me that an imbalance of gut bacteria could cause such bad night time sugar cravings. I’m so thankful I found this solution to my problem and I hope it helps you too!

Share this post with a friend who craves sugar.

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Avoid Eating Too Much Candy At Halloween

Avoid eating too much candy this Hallloween with these simple diet tips. Stop sugar cravings and lose weight at Halloween instead of overindulging in candy.

Fall is almost upon us and we all know that means the beginning of overeating season! It all starts with my beloved Halloween. I’ve always loved dressing up in costume. Of course there was always the candy from trick-or-treating. It was always a struggle to avoid eating too much candy.

Candy (especially chocolate) is like a drug for me and many other people. One piece leads to another and another and before I know it I’ve eaten way too much to undo the damage unless I want to spend the whole day on the treadmill. I would like to share some tips with you to keep yourself from getting out of control and avoid eating too much candy this Halloween. These are also great tips for your kids as well. You can teach them moderation now so they don’t end up learning to binge on candy.

How To Avoid Eating Too Much Candy At Halloween:

Don’t buy your candy until the day of Halloween if you’re handing out candy. I know you want to give candy to those adorable little fairies and cowboys that show up at your door. There’s no need to buy it 3 weeks in advance and having it sit around the house staring you in the face. And guess what! If you do buy it that early, you’ll likely be at the store on the 31st buying more because it’s all gone (or that’s how it works for me anyway). Also don’t overbuy. If you’ve lived in your home for any amount of time, you know approximately how much candy you need to fulfill the dreams of the little trick-or-treaters. Buy just enough.
Buy candy you don’t love. It’s going to be really hard to resist eating your favorite candy, but if you buy something you don’t even like, you probably won’t even be tempted by it.
Put your candy in a jar with a lid and somewhere you won’t see it every minute of the day. Out of sight, out of mind. If those shiny foil wrappers of your favorite Hershey Kisses are calling to you every time you pass through the living room, it’s going to be very hard to resist.
Allow yourself a set amount of pieces and only for a day or two. Setting a limit for yourself allows you to still enjoy your favorite candy so you don’t feel deprived, but keeps you from eating the whole bowl.
Savor the candy you do eat. Don’t just mindlessly pop piece after piece in your mouth without even realizing you’ve eaten it. Be conscious of it. Really enjoy the treat that you’re allowing yourself and taste all the flavors.
Before you mindlessly grab a piece of candy, ask yourself if you’re really hungry or are you bored or emotional eating. Many times we grab something without thinking because we have nothing else to do or we’re stressed. Be sure you really want that piece of candy to avoid feelings of guilt later.
When your child’s favorites are gone from their trick-or-treat bag, throw the rest away. I usually had eaten my favorite candies from my bag within the first few days. The rest I ate because it was there. Total waste of calories! Get rid of the ones that no one really likes. Now, if you’re like me and have a problem throwing away perfectly good candy, the next tip might be a better solution.
Participate in a buyback program. Buybacks are held at local businesses, traditionally but not limited to dental offices. With the goal of removing excess Halloween candy from kids while supporting our troops. Check out the Halloween Buyback site here.
Freeze your leftover candy. Many candies are freezable. However, if you like your favorite candy frozen, do not do this! LOL
Do something different than trick-or-treating. You can throw your own party where you are in control of the food and drinks or go to a pumpkin patch or corn maze. Your kids get to dress up (and you too!) and you can avoid having candy around the house all together.

These tips help me avoid eating too much candy at Halloween. I hope they’ll help you too!

Need help staying motivated? Don’t miss this post with tips to stay motivated to lose weight!

Healthy Halloween!

XOXO,

Cassie

August 18, 2017 by cardioandcupcakes

How To Stop Food Cravings And What They Mean

Stop Food Cravings Now!

Cravings! We all have them sometimes and they can be overwhelming and sabotage our diets. They’re actually our bodies telling us that we need certain nutrients. Here are some of the common cravings, what your body is trying to tell you it needs, and how to get those nutrients with healthy foods. Stop food cravings in their tracks and make healthier choices to satisfy your nutrient needs.

Salty snacks cravings–Your body is telling you it needs chloride. Chloride helps keep the amount of fluid inside and outside of your cells in balance. It also helps maintain proper blood volume, blood pressure, and pH of your body fluids. Try eating lemon, fish, unrefined sea salt, tomatoes, lettuce, celery, olives, and seaweed to combat this craving.
Soda or oily cravings–Your body needs calcium. Calcium is necessary for life. In addition to building bones and keeping them healthy, calcium helps our blood clot, nerves send messages and muscles contract. You can get calcium from kale, broccoli, legumes, almonds, spinach, okra, oranges, and sesame seeds.
Bread cravings–You are lacking nitrogen. Amino acids contain nitrogen are the building blocks that make up the proteins in your hair, muscles, skin and other important tissues. Nitrogen is an important part of your DNA. Nitrogen can be found in beans, peas, lentils, oatmeal, spinach, mushrooms, almonds, white fish, and lean meat.
Sugary food cravings–Lack of chromium, sulfur, and tryptophan are to blame for these cravings. Chromium is an essential part of metabolic processes that regulate blood sugar, and helps insulin transport glucose into cells, where it can be used for energy. Chromium is also involved in the metabolism of carbohydrate, fat, and protein. Sulfur makes up vital amino acids used to create protein for cells, tissues, hormones, enzymes, and antibodies and is essential to life. Tryptophan is considered an essential amino acid because our bodies can’t make it. It is important for the development and functioning of many organs in the body. Combat your cravings for these essential nutrients with broccoli, cabbage, beans, kale, cranberries and grapes.
Chocolate or acidic food cravings–You need magnesium. Magnesium is important for regulating muscle and nerve function, blood sugar levels, and blood pressure and making protein, bone, and DNA. Get magnesium from fresh fruit, legumes, and raw nuts and seeds.

A couple of other ways I stop food cravings if I’m not having a specific craving, but just want to eat and I’m not really hungry are drinking some water or brushing my teeth. Nothing really tastes good after you brush your teeth. I’ve found it’s a good way to keep myself from mindless eating. And water makes you feel more full so you don’t feel the need to eat.

I hope this list helps you crush your cravings and feed your body what it needs!

If you’re having a hard time sticking to your diet, you don’t want to miss this post!

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