How to get rid of cravings for sweets — advice from nutritionists

Many peo­ple peri­od­i­cal­ly have a desire to eat sweets. In some cas­es, this is a nor­mal reac­tion of the body. But some­times such crav­ings require a doc­tor’s con­sul­ta­tion. KP.RU has col­lect­ed advice from experts to help you under­stand the pecu­liar­i­ties of eat­ing behav­ior.

Or maybe you just don’t eat enough?

Some bad habits accom­pa­ny peo­ple from child­hood. They also include a love of sweets. For exam­ple, dad comes back from a busi­ness trip as a child and brings sweets “Bear in the North”. As an adult, a per­son buys these sweets again. So he tries to get the same joy­ful emo­tions that he expe­ri­enced when he met his father after a long sep­a­ra­tion.

Accord­ing to nutri­tion­ist Lyud­mi­la Denisenko, irri­ta­tion of the taste buds of the tongue, which react to sweets, revives pic­tures of a care­free child­hood in mem­o­ry. A per­son returns to those hap­py moments for a short time.

“But it may well be that behind the crav­ing for sweets lies a feel­ing of hunger. To under­stand this, ana­lyze whether you eat enough for break­fast, lunch and din­ner, maybe you don’t eat enough? Or are you eat­ing too fast, swal­low­ing large bites, and your blood sug­ar does­n’t have time to rise to tell your brain you’re full? Then this prob­lem is eas­i­ly solved. Just start eat­ing prop­er­ly, with the arrange­ment. But even if you eat right, but you still want a can­dy, remem­ber: one can­dy or cof­fee cake is not a prob­lem.— said the expert Denisenko.

It is worth sound­ing the alarm when crav­ings for sweets exceed rea­son­able lim­its. For exam­ple, if a per­son alone eats a large buck­et of ice cream, a whole cake or a box of choco­lates. At the same time, as a rule, he does not expe­ri­ence either joy or sat­u­ra­tion. In this case, you need to seek help from a psy­chol­o­gist, or bet­ter, a nutri­tion­ist and an endocri­nol­o­gist. Such a strong crav­ing for sweets can be a sig­nal of severe stress, a lack of mag­ne­sium, and even more seri­ous health prob­lems.

How to cheat emo­tion­al hunger:

• Drink a glass of warm water and wait about 20 min­utes. If the desire for some­thing sweet does not dis­ap­pear, then eat this can­dy or cake. It is impor­tant that there is no feel­ing of guilt. Treat this with under­stand­ing: the body and brain need it. Don’t rush, enjoy the moment.
• Try brush­ing your teeth. If you have mint-fla­vored tooth­paste, it often dis­cour­ages the desire to eat. And to this is added the psy­cho­log­i­cal effect when you do not want to eat imme­di­ate­ly after brush­ing your teeth.
• Call friends or rel­a­tives. Dur­ing the con­ver­sa­tion, you will be dis­tract­ed from thoughts about sweets.
• Go for a walk or go to the gym.
• Take off your clothes and stand in front of a mir­ror. Do you real­ly need this can­dy?

Not only overweight, but also cysts, warts …

Each cake or can­dy is food for our body. Nutri­tion­ists say that you should eat three times a day and not bite. Gen­er­al prac­ti­tion­er Natalia Gorn explained this by the fact that with any meal, our wise­ly arranged body releas­es insulin. The more car­bo­hy­drates, that is, sug­ar, in this intake, the more this hor­mone is pro­duced for its uti­liza­tion.

In a nor­mal sit­u­a­tion, the lev­el of glu­cose in the blood increas­es after eat­ing, insulin is syn­the­sized. The hor­mone address­es the cell through its recep­tor. She, hav­ing heard the sig­nal, “opens the door” for glu­cose, which goes inside and goes to pro­duce ener­gy. At the same time, its lev­el, as well as insulin, decreas­es. And so in a cir­cle.

The devel­op­ment of insulin resis­tance leads to a dete­ri­o­ra­tion in the action of the hor­mone insulin on the cells of insulin-sen­si­tive tis­sues — mus­cles, liv­er and adi­pose tis­sue. The full uti­liza­tion of glu­cose in the cell requires more and more insulin, and its lev­el in the blood remains with­in the nor­mal range at the first stage of the devel­op­ment of this con­di­tion.

www.globallookpress.com / Michaela Beg­steiger

In the future, the process devel­ops: insulin resis­tance — obe­si­ty — pre­di­a­betes — dia­betes.

In a state of insulin resis­tance, a per­son eats often and a lot of fast car­bo­hy­drates, such as sweets, cake, cook­ies, and at the same time bites. The result is a rapid increase in blood glu­cose, which insulin tries to dis­trib­ute (this is nec­es­sary because of its dan­ger to the body at high con­cen­tra­tions).

The con­stant effect of the hor­mone on the cell through the recep­tor leads to the fact that the sig­nal is no longer per­ceived. The body’s pro­duc­tion of insulin con­tin­ues to rise to ampli­fy the sig­nal and deliv­er glu­cose to the hun­gry cell. But as a result, the cre­ation of its reserves in fat cells begins.

Com­pli­cat­ing the sit­u­a­tion is that high insulin not only con­tributes to weight gain, but also pro­vokes the devel­op­ment of papil­lo­mas, polyps and fibroids, fibroade­no­mas and cysts in the chest, tumors and oth­er prob­lems.

Is an eating disorder to blame?

A com­mon cause of weight gain is emo­tion­al overeat­ing (for exam­ple, stress eat­ing). Some­times peo­ple do not notice some of the nuances of their actions, and the pounds keep pil­ing up.

Accord­ing to nutri­tion­ist Anas­ta­sia Egoro­va, peo­ple can expe­ri­ence an eat­ing dis­or­der at any age. Often the pre­req­ui­sites for its vio­la­tion are root­ed in child­hood and are wait­ing for the right moment to come out. Many fac­tors can cause them: the birth of a child, divorce, diet after surgery. It is impor­tant to under­stand the source of the prob­lem with a psy­chol­o­gist.

The nutri­tion­ist states that the phys­i­o­log­i­cal caus­es of this con­di­tion must be ruled out before start­ing treat­ment for an eat­ing dis­or­der. In oth­er words, you need:

• Take a blood test for sug­ar: it should not be low­ered by more than 3.3 mmol / l.
• Get test­ed for thy­roid hor­mones: their lev­el should be nor­mal.
• Car­ry out com­put­ed tomog­ra­phy of the brain to exclude tumor for­ma­tions of the brain.
• Con­sult a gyne­col­o­gist to rule out organ­ic caus­es of amen­or­rhea and steril­i­ty.