Can't get through the day without something sweet

[KelliDarling]

So I have a really bad sweet tooth. I blame my stint working in a bakery for this, since I had unlimited access to cake all day (aweso--I mean, no, it was so horrible you guys )

 

I'm looking for tips on curbing this thing. It always happens in the evening after dinner: My brain will light up and ask, "okay, what's for dessert?" Yesterday I was able to satisfly the craving with eating strawberries, but my brain doesn't usually register fruit as dessert. It registers it as fruit.

 

I'm not looking to cut out sugar completely, because that never works.

[JPrev]

You can probably incorporate them into your diet every now and then with no ill effects (just a calories in v out thing).  Long term, wrap up your cut then switch to a surplus and no longer have to worry so much about it!

[ContractSoldier]

Good Afternoon,

 

 

      I have the same problem, the only thing I found that works for me is keeping a small bag of hard candy around. Usually after dinner while cleaning up or doing dishes I'll ween myself from the craving by chomping on a few starlight mints (Hard peppermint Candy). Also make sure to have a cheat day where if you feeling like having a cupcake or something of the like, you can. Maybe try planning for it and cutting back on other sweets that day (coffee creamer, candy, soda's, etc.) Hope that helps, and as always good luck and godspeed.

 

 

v/r

[rjanke7]

Sugar is very addictive, try adding some healthier sugars throughout the day, like fruit, or almond butter with a bit of honey.   This can help reduce cravings because you aren't depriving yourself of sugar.  You aren't eliminating it, but at least you might be able to reduce it, and better yet, reduce the amount of processed sugar.  

 

Also, I like what Contract said.  If you plan for a reward a couple times a week, it can help prevent breakdowns and binges.  

[Chris-Tien Jinn]

Possibilities:

 

• Mix something with refined sugar with fruit ... and gradually shift the ratio to more fruit and less sugar
• Try teas with a lot of cinnamon.  Some people find that it hits the "sweet" button in their brains. 

[TurtIe]

Chocolate protein shake

Greek yoghurt with fruit

Bananas coated in warm nut butter topped with whipped coconut cream.

There are plenty of things out there that can help your sweet tooth without giving you a huge sugar hit. It's just a matter of finding out what works for you.

On the other side of the spectrum, you can do what I saw someone on here suggest once and brush your teeth straight after dinner- effectively telling your brain that your stomach is closed for business for the day.

[Vella]

There's probably nothing wrong with having dessert for a while.  Reduce the portion size from what you usually would have, though, and keep reducing it until you've eliminated dessert altogether, or to only 'cheat days' or something like that - wherever you'd like to be.  Switch out for less refined sugar is a good option, too.  But nobody says you have to go completely cold-turkey right off the bat if that's going to be too problematic.

[oolong]

I have the same problem.  I work at a cafe, so I have unlimited access to sugary coffee drinks and pastry samples.  I've gotten used to having a sugary drink first thing in the morning when I get to work, so now even on my days off or when I don't have to go in until later, I wake up craving sugar and usually indulge with something really bad for me, like within 10 minutes of waking up!  

 

Personally, I've been trying to curb those early morning sugar cravings with a smoothie for breakfast.  Usually half of a frozen banana, some spinach (or kale or broccoli), berries, and water.  I also like spinach, banana, and sunbutter.  Satisfies my sweet tooth, feels like a special treat, and has more nutrients than pastries or sugary beverages.  

 

I also try to chew a piece of gum after eating dinner so that my mouth isn't wondering "Where's dessert?"

[tomocalypse]

I know that feel. Only problem is all the candy I used to eat is doing a number on my teeth.

 

Personally, I've found hard candy to be a good substitute for the pastries and gummy things I used to munch on, only because a little will go a long way. Sucking on something hard for ten minutes seems to satisfy my cravings just as much as pounding back a bag of gummy bears in the same amount of time.

 

In the long run I want to learn to cook more healthy dessert things, to try and make the occasional sugary treats at least a little nutritious, instead of just being empty calories. 

[tomocalypse]

...just realised I wrote the phrase "sucking on something hard for ten minutes".

 

Oh my.

[MogiShade]

 

• Try teas with a lot of cinnamon.  Some people find that it hits the "sweet" button in their brains. 

 

 

This works for me.  Something like plain Greek yogourt or cottage cheese with a sprinkling of cinnamon, maybe a banana or apple mixed in, tastes like a dessert to me. 

[Disil]

As counterintuitive as it may sound, abstaining sweets will make the cravings for sweets go away. When I started losing weight, I cut out carbs almost entirely, except for those from vegetables, and my craving for candy and the like simply vanished - as did my overall hunger pangs. I'm pretty sure it's a combination of how sugar and the brain are interacting (dopamine release, sugar acting ike a drug) and how sugar and insuline are interacting (low amount of sugar intake = much less insuline spikes resulting in less cravings).
Of course that doesn't provide a solution right in the moment where you have said cravings, but if you can abstain longer, they might just be gone when you wake up the next day, or the day after. This way I was able to not eat anything sweet at all for 2-4 weeks at a time and this worked every time I attempted it. Also, every time I caved after that time, it was more difficult to not eat something sweet than before I caved, meaning the candy right after caving was much harder to resist than the initial candy.

 

Note that this is only if you really want to cut hard. If you're strength training, you need some form of sugar anyway, might as well make that a treat to keep you sanity. To me, it was simply easier to abstain sweets completely for a set timeframe instead of trying to limit myself to a little amount - the stuff is just too addictive (by design, by the way - "Salt, Sugar Fat" by Michael Moss is a great read on food engineering).

 

[Dradis]

I was the same regarding pudding. I would crave it even if i wasn't hungry and regardless of amount of sweets ingested during the day.  You might not like the way i got away from it - cold turkey.

It was TOUGH, i'm not gonna lie, but i just stopped one day. After a few weeks, it may have even been a month, the cravings disappeared. I can now eat the sweet things without the crazed "MORE!" feeling and i can eat dinner and not feel like something is missing.

[Shortgorilla]

I sound like a hardass when I say stuff like this, but just quit eating it.  You've conditioned yourself that "it's time for dessert" or that candy/cupcakes is some sort of reward.  Just start telling yourself that your reward isn't the immediate gratification of a sweet treat, but the healthy lifestyle you are trying to adopt.  If you have an unhealthy relationship with a food (and it sounds like you sort of do) then it needs to be put to rest. 

 

Eating sugary, overly sweet foods does trigger a reward response in your brain.  Any time you cave in to the craving you're just reinforcing that response, and the behavior around it.  Set small goals, one day, then two, then three, then a week.  Check a day off the calendar every day you go without eating it.  Pretty soon you won't have to try and you won't be worried about it any more.  After about six weeks of completely abstaining from it, if you're not still obsessing over sweets, you're probably safe to have some on a cheat day.  If not, go another couple of weeks and see how you feel.

 

In my experience people generally speaking fail at this sort of thing when they make justifications to themselves as to why they behave a certain way.  Keep in mind bad habits are just that; habits.  We condition ourselves to eat, sleep, and live in ways that we are comfortable with, and stepping outside of those conditions feels uncomfortable.  Just like you have to condition your body to run a marathon or bench press 200 pounds, you have to condition your mind to be comfortable living differently. 

 

I hope this helps a little.  I'm not trying to come off sounding like a jerk.

[Ãœberleben]

Personal opinion, natural honey.  If you're eating dairy, some natural yoghurt with a spoonful swirl of honey and a handful or two of fruit always hits the spot in my sweet tooth.  And if I want sugary soda instead of sugary treats, I can dump it in the blender and turn it into a smoothie instead, just as delicious.

[Ahoythar]

When I have a sweet tooth I'll either drink sugar free cocoa or eat some sugar free jello! I know some people have issues with sweetners, but I love having something sweet without that dirty feeling sugar leaves in my mouth. If  I'm feeling extra special I'll bake an apple with cinnamon, nutmeg and walnuts. SO good!

[crazykhajiitlady]

Agree with Uberleben! I can have a small taste of raw honey or mix it with fruit/yogurt/whatever and it definitely satisfies my sweets cravings. Honey and fruit is very dessert-y to me. 

 

I also recently made these: http://www.elanaspantry.com/gluten-free-apricot-power-bars/

 

They were really delicious and don't have any added sugar in them (unless you wanted to add chocolate chips). 

[Mike_Wright]

Try some high cacao content dark chocolate.  If you get up into the 70-80% range, you still get the "chocolate" hit but its a far healthier solution.  Delicious also - once you get used to it, you won't go back to "regular" chocolate.

 

Mike

[MalleusMaleficarum]

1. Tons of fat in the diet (most of what makes cake/baked goods tasty and satisfying is actually the fat, not the sugar)
2. 1g:1g:1g ratio of fat/carbs/protein in the diet to preclude any cravings of anything ever
3. My fancy cocoa drink: 50/50 milk & water, pure cocoa powder, vanilla extract and stevia. I put it in the fridge overnight so it's ice cold and really well dissolved and sip on it for 6+ hours, it tastes like the most badass iced coffee in the world sans the overwhelming majority of the carbs.
4. Fruit juice ice cubes, grab 4 of them and huck them in water. Sweet but hardly any appreciable sugar/carbs added to the diet this way.

[Sambalina]

These are all excellent suggestions for something I'm dealing with - yet again! Like some of you, I don't find the fruit hits the spot, generally, but if I add some fat to that fruit, say with nuts, nut butter, cream, or coconut milk, it does a MUCH better job for me. I remember reading somewhere that some scientists were playing around with the idea that some of our sugar cravings can actually be fat cravings, especially if you're on a ow fat diet. So, I find this combo of fruit+fat to work pretty well. However, it needs to be the only/easiest option - if there're cookies, ice cream or whatever anywhere near, it'll win. So, second tip is to keep the sweets out of the house

 

Hope things are going well for you!

[Hestia]

I also have (had) a sweet tooth. Usually I have a bit of something sweet each day, but I'm gradually decreasing even that small amount. One thing that helped the cravings was taking a digestive enzyme supplement with my meals. For some reason, this curbed the carb cravings. I suspect it might be because I was deficient in an enzyme or two, which resulted in the cravings for carbs and sweets. 

[Bookworm_Tess]

I relate! I relate!

 

Sadly I have no tips on how to overcome it...

 

Except maybe for brushing your teeth... Also sometimes drinking a glass of lemonade will do it. Sadly, my glass of lemonade sometimes turns into a glass of grape juice which I LOOOOVE and is oh my god so so sweet hahaha

 

The hard candy thing, for me personally, backfired horribly. I eat it compulsively and I can't stop until I reach the end of the... whatchamacallit... wrapped set of ten candies... one of these: 

or these:

 

 

It got so bad I was worried about teeth cavities lol.

 

Not only that, but I have specific chocolate craving also. I would eat one a day. The manufacturer of my dairy-free chocolate stopped selling it though (reasonably priced ones are very hard to find, I guess dark, bitter chocolate in Brazil just doesn't sell), and my tastebuds will not tolerate oversweeted chocolate, also it does give me dairy realted symptons... So I got rid of that addiction for shortage of supply hahaha

 

Which only made my hard candy addiction worse... And a local peanut candy called paçoquinha. Oh my god I looooove paçoquinha and it's so small and harmless, I eat like three at a time hahaha

 

Two days in the low-carb now. *Sigh*

If only to prove myself that I can...

[Cort]

Much like everyone else here, I have the same sweet-tooth issue in the evenings right after dinner.

 

One of my favorite "healthy" remedies for this is to make my own personal sized fruit crisp.  It's pretty easy, you just need a bowl of your favorite fruit - any kind (canned works if you can't/don't have fresh). Then mix up your own oatmeal "crunch"

 

(These are approximations - you can play with the amounts depending on what size serving you want)

 

2-3 Tbl oatmeal 

1tsp butter softened

1tsp brown sugar

Cinnamon to taste

Mix until lumpy

 

Warm the fruit in the microwave and sprinkle your "crisp" on top.  It's not the chocolate thunder from down under, but it will do.

 

I also keep the small York peppermint patties in my freezer as a quick and easy 50-cal sweet in the evenings.  Even if I spurge and have 2 I figure it's the lesser evil of practically any other kind of dessert.  I can't keep pastries in the house at all, they are my kryptonite.