How to Stop Sugar Cravings

As I have mentioned several times on this blog, sugar is the worst thing to consume if you're dieting.

Not only does it add more calories itself, but it slows down, and even stops the body from burning fat, creating a double-negative effect.

Here are my tips on how to stop sugar cravings...

• Stopping the sugar craving is a matter of learning to love other foods. If you continue to eat sugary foods, all it will do is pacify the craving, and you'll never learn to control it.



• Avoid non-sugar sweeteners like Splenda, Equal, or Sweet'N Low. These might satisfy your craving for sugar, but it will only keep you craving for more. What you want is to stop the craving altogther.
  
  Train yourself to appreciate food for what it tastes like without sweeteners. Enjoy coffee black. Enjoy tea unsweetened. Eat french fries without ketchup.



• Use lemon or lime concentrate for flavor. What I do is buy a couple cases of bottled water and squirt some lemon or lime into it for flavor. There's no added sugar or sweeteners in that stuff, just pure juice. I drink a few bottles of that every day.



• Fruit for dessert. When that sweet tooth starts acting up reach for fresh fruit. Buy strawberries, blackberries, blueberries, grapefruit, mangoes, cantaloupe. In fact those fruit specifically have lower sugar levels than other fruit. But rely on any fresh fruit you like.
  
  One advantage with fresh fruit is that you don't have to refrigerate them, and they taste just as good room temperature as they do cold. Keep them close to you on your desk, or sitting on the kitchen island to make them more convenient.



• The temptation to buy cookies. If you're at the store and you see a package of cookies, or a box of doughnuts, or a pint of ice cream, and you find it too hard to resist buying, then fine buy it. BUT, the rule is that you have to also buy fresh fruit.
  
  For every sugary food you buy, you have to buy a healthy alternative. At least you'll have a package of oranges, or a carton of strawberries there at your house, and if you're honest with yourself, you'll do yourself a favor and eat them.



• Dessert at the restaurant. After a meal, always ask for a coffee, black. The coffee will give you something to put into your mouth, and the liquid will fill up whatever space you might have left in your stomach.
  
  If you're with other people, make sure you are the first to order. Otherwise, if you hear your friends ordering an apple pie, or a fudge brownie, it'll only make it more difficult for you.



• Use steak seasoning instead of steak sauce. Steak sauces all contain sugar, that's part of the reason why Americans love their steak sauces. Most steak seasonings, on the other hand, don't contain sugar. But always read the ingredients, some of them do.
  
  Keep a bottle of seasoning when you eat a steak, and just sprinkle it on each piece.
  
  If you find that a steak is too dry, then use guacamole, salsa, or hot sauce. These rarely ever contain sugar. If you think guacamole on steak sounds freakish, then imagine guacamole on a hamburger and you realize that it's actually pretty darn good.



• Beer instead of wine. Wine contains sugar, and you'll soon realize that the reason why so many people drink wine is because of the sugar. Beer on the other hand contains very little, to absolutely no sugar. Stick with lighter colored beers, they typically have no sugar at all, and you'll actually find that a 12oz bottle of beer is lower in calories than a 5oz glass of wine.



• Watch out for salad dressings. Most salad dressings contain sugar! Read the ingredients list and you'll find either sugar, cane juice, or corn syrup. Stick with salsa as a salad dressing. It has the salt that people love on their salads, but with no sugar and no fat.



• Snack on pickles. Pickles don't contain sugar. In fact, pickles contain very few calories at all. They are, however, full of salt. But if you have the urge to snack, consider reaching for one.



• Let your friends throw away junk food. Invite a friend to come over to your house and throw away all your junk food. Tell him or her to rummage through your pantry and refrigerator and toss out all the cookies, cakes, ice creams, sodas, and any other sugary bad boy they can find. Or if you think you're "man" enough, then toss them all out yourself.
  
  You're first thought is that it's a waste of money to throw away food, even if it's junk food. But it's an even bigger waste of your health, to keep them.

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