Why Your Sugar Cravings Won’t Go Away

I saw this meme the other day on Facebook that compared sugar cravings to stray cats. “As long as you keep feeding them they’re not going to go away.” Think about it. If a person is trying to quit heroin or cocaine we don’t encourage them to have a little bit while they’re trying to kick the habit. Did you know that sugar is just as addictive as heroin and cocaine? If you’ve ever watched an addict struggle to get clean you can find room to give yourself grace during this process. I’m not going to lie, in the beginning, kicking your sugar cravings may be challenging. How challenging it is for you depends on how much sugar and carbohydrates you’ve eaten prior to this point. You must also factor in any insulin resistance, poor sleep, and stress levels because they all contribute to blood glucose levels. If you want to stop sugar cravings and withdrawals it’s about more than just skipping dessert and going sugar-free.

How Should You Approach Your Sugar Cravings?

If you’re a fairly healthy person there’s going to be less to worry about. For those who are diabetic, have blood sugar issues, and/or are taking medications to reduce/control blood sugar you must work with your physician. If you’re taking medication to control blood sugar and you quit eating sugar 100% you’re likely to find yourself on the floor and likely the hospital. This is where it is imperative that your doctor is willing to work with you. A gal I worked with gradually went paleo and told her doctor she didn’t think she needed so many meds anymore. He didn’t listen and her teenage kids ended up calling for an ambulance. In today’s world where most people have blood sugar issues to some degree, I can’t stress this point enough.

For those who are controlling their blood sugar with prescriptions, you’re going to have to gradually transition. Where you begin and how quickly you progress is up to you and your doctor. Even if you’re not taking medications some may find that a gradual approach works better for their mindset. The word of caution I’ll throw out: if your plan is to gradually wean yourself off of sugar the likelihood of not making it is higher. It’s that thing where you’re still keeping around “the drug” while also trying to kick the habit.

If you want to get it over and done with there’s always the rip off the bandaid approach. That is, no added sweeteners of any kind or any foods that produce a significant rise in blood sugar. You’re essentially cutting the head off of the sugar dragon with one whack of the sword.

Sweeteners Feed Sugar Cravings

I don’t care if it’s stevia, monk fruit, coconut sugar, or whatever you tell yourself is a better sweetener. Sugar is sugar and it all produces an insulin response even if it’s marketed as sugar-free. Just looking at the dessert menu produces an insulin response. Why do I have a firm stance against all sweeteners, especially in the beginning? The moment something sweet touches your tongue it produces an insulin response in the body. Even though your body might not receive as much glucose the insulin is still going to be there. What does insulin do? It takes the glucose that is circulating in the body and stores it either as glycogen or as fat. Your body will sense a drop in blood glucose and activate the fight or flight response and consequently trigger cravings for carbohydrates. It doesn’t make sense to eat sweeteners, even if they’re labeled sugar-free, knowing they’re just going to cause you to crave more sweet things. Your body is already going to have sugar withdrawals when you take it away, don’t add fuel to the fire any more than you need to.

Non-nutritive, artificial sweeteners are even worse.

The findings highlight “the potential for these responses in habitual consumers of artificial sweeteners and support the concept that artificial sweeteners could reduce the body’s control of blood sugar levels, exaggerating postmeal glucose levels, which could predispose them to developing type 2 diabetes

Remember, insulin is released when something sweet touches your tongue. When you consume a sugar free sweetener the insulin will still drive the existing blood glucose into your cells. However, additional glucose never arrives. The body perceives a drop in sugar as a stress response and it triggers cravings for more carbohydrates.

They did a study where they by-passed the tongue. People swallowed artificial sweeteners that had been encapsulated. What they found was that even though the sweetener never touched the tongue, these people had an increased glucose absorption of 20% compared to the placebo. Their plasma glucose increased 24% compared to placebo. [1]

From the primal perspective, our ancestors didn’t rely on alternative sweeteners to keep their physique. They never had to worry about stopping sugar cravings because their world wasn’t loaded with sugar like ours is. The next time you’re out in the woods look around and see how much sugar you can find to eat. In the summer you might find a berry bush or get lucky with a beehive, otherwise, it’s pretty hard to come by. Now think about most stores and checkout aisles. It’s harder to avoid sugar in today’s world than it is to find it.

How Much Fruit Can You Eat?

If I had a dollar for every time someone told me about their new endeavor to get healthy and then proceeded to list all of the fruit they bought…I’d have a lot of dollars. I’m not saying fruit is 100% off limits but if you’re eating it all day long it’s going to slow your progress to stop your sugar cravings. Eating fruit is better than drinking juice though. When you eat the whole fruit the fiber in the fruit helps the body metabolize the sugar a bit slower than if you drank juice. If you’re going to have fruit from time to time aim for fruits that are colorful on the inside because they have a higher antioxidant to sugar ratio. Berries are my top pick. Try to limit yourself to no more than a handful of berries a day while you’re kicking your sugar habit.

One place where people don’t seem to be very skeptical is when they’re buying dried fruit and trail mix. I know I grew up thinking trail mix was a healthy snack thanks to the marketing efforts of these companies. When the water is removed the amount of sugar in dried fruit skyrockets. Comparing the weight of 1 apple to the same weight of dried apple chips, you’d have to eat a lot of apple chips to match the same weight and volume of an apple. Many popular paleo bars contain dates. While the ingredient list is paleo these bars pack a sugar punch. I regularly see people complain about their sugar hangover and how they fixed it with one of these date bars. Well, of course, you feel better…you just ate sugar.

The biggest problem with fruit is that it contains the sugar fructose. In the study below they overfed people fructose and after 6 days their level of insulin resistance increased by 28%

Normal healthy subjects were overfed fructose.  De novo Lipogenesis (DNL) – or the production of new fat in the liver increased six fold accompanied by a 79% increase in plasma triglycerides.  A measure of insulin resistance in the liver increased by 28%.  After 6 days! [2]

What is insulin resistance? It’s when your body becomes resistant to insulin’s signal to store glucose. The brain thinks you’re starved for nutrients so it will increase your appetite hormones. Your insulin-resistant liver begins manufacturing glucose because it thinks there isn’t enough. Since your muscles are resistant to insulin’s storage signals all of this excess glucose gets stored as body fat. What does fructose have to do with it if I’ve been talking about glucose? Fructose causes non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and consequently insulin resistance.

You Can’t Beat Sugar Cravings On A Grain Based, High Carb Diet

More often than not people believe that simply skipping dessert is enough to avoid sugar. Did you know that 1 slice of whole wheat bread will raise your blood sugar more than white table sugar or a Snickers bar? While you’re skipping dessert but still eating whole wheat sandwiches and pasta you’re keeping those blood sugar levels high with your “healthy” choices. It’s not just wheat, all grains ultimately metabolize into glucose. Check out this blog post for my 12 Reasons To Go Grain Free 

Depending on your level of insulin resistance (how much glucose your liver manufactures) a diet heavy in root vegetables, even if it is a paleo diet, can stall your progress. If you’re just starting out should you adopt a ketogenic diet right away? I’d never tell anyone to do that. You have to pass the Keto quiz before I’d suggest experimenting with it. What I’m saying is that you are your best gauge of how things are going. People are so desperate to follow a plan that they forget to listen to their own bodies.

Your body doesn’t know the difference between sugar you ate in a dessert versus sugar you get from whole wheat pasta or sweet potatoes. Glucose is glucose. Do you have to avoid every carbohydrate for the rest of your life? No. Perfection is the thief of joy. I simply hate to see people struggle because they don’t have the full picture of how everything works. Knowing how to stop sugar cravings and withdrawal symptoms will get many people a long way in the modern world.

How Stress Feeds The Sugar Cycle

When you’re stressed it activates the sympathetic, fight or flight, side of the nervous system. From a survival standpoint, this system is designed to keep us alive in the event that we need to outthink or outrun a predator. The body responds to stress by releasing cortisol. Cortisol pulls glucose out of storage and makes it available in the blood. Unfortunately, most Americans are stressed all the time. This system rarely gets a break to shut off.

Then there are the people who combine their sugar-free mindset with exercise that promotes the sugar cycle. If you’re exercising every night at a high intensity, because you’re chasing calories, not only are you repeatedly activating the stress response, you’re also keeping your body sugar dependent. You can read more about it on my blog here and here and here.

How Poor Sleep Feeds Sugar Cravings

You’ve been skipping dessert and eating sugar-free but you still have sugar withdrawal symptoms? What does your sleep look like? When you miss as little as 30 minutes of sleep per night it can lead to obesity and insulin resistance. Many think that they can catch up on the weekend but that simply isn’t true. Diabetes UK and UK National Institute of Health research funded this study below:

Participants completed 7-day sleep diaries and calculated their weekday sleep debt. At baseline, the researchers recorded their height and weight to determine obesity status, measured their waist circumference for central adiposity, and analyzed their fasting blood samples for insulin sensitivity.

At baseline, compared with participants who had no weekday sleep debt, those who had weekday sleep debt were 72% more likely to be obese, and by the 6-month mark, weekday sleep debt was significantly associated with obesity and insulin resistance.

At 12 months, for every 30 minutes of weekday sleep debt at baseline, the risk of obesity and insulin resistance was significantly increased by 17% and 39%, respectively. [3]

If you don’t sleep enough your body requires more insulin to maintain normal glucose levels. Sleep deprivation alters the sympathetic nervous system and hormonal balance. Your insulin-producing cells stop working properly which in turn elevates blood glucose levels.  Then there is the basic fact that fatigue stimulates the fight or flight response (cortisol) and further hinders blood sugar regulation. If your blood sugar is wonky it’s likely going to keep you on the sugar rollercoaster and sugar withdrawal cravings and symptoms will continue.

The other problem is that the less you sleep the more you overeat. When you’re tired the hormone that tells you you’re hungry (ghrelin) increases and the hormone that tells you you’re full (leptin) decreases. Since your body is looking for a quick energy boost you’re naturally going to crave carbohydrates thanks to the cortisol I mentioned above.

A study in the Annals of Internal Medicine found that when healthy people got just eight hours of shut-eye in a 48-hour period, their lowered leptin and raised ghrelin levels upped their appetite for unhealthy high-carb, high-calorie foods by as much as 45 percent. [4]

When it comes to body composition goals (weight loss) did you know that sleep is equally as important as exercise? Sleep and exercise contribute 10% each to the total equation. What you eat determines the other 80%. You can get my Sleep Hygiene Tipsheet in my 4-Day Masterclass.

Additional Help Beating Your Sugar Cravings:

In order to slay the sugar dragon, there are a number of pieces to the puzzle that have to come together. Your diet, exercise, sleep, and stress are all factors to consider. This is why I address more than just food in my coaching. It all works together and if one piece is lacking it affects the whole system. The rate you can make changes really depends on you as an individual. Your level of insulin resistance, lifestyle, stress, and mindset all play a role in stopping sugar cravings. When it comes to sugar withdrawal symptoms they can be mitigated with your approach. Naturally, if you do a 180-degree turn you’re going to have more sugar withdrawal symptoms than if you gradually make changes. The challenge lies in mindset. For some, going sugar-free gradually leaves the door open to the past and it’s easy to return to old habits. This is where coaching comes in.

[1] http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/885945

[2] https://idmprogram.com/fructose-causes-insulin-resistance-hormonal-obesity-xxxii/

[3] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/03/150306082541.htm

[4] https://www.fitnessmagazine.com/health/conditions/diabetes/lack-of-sleep-can-lead-to-diabetes/

Originally posted on February 27, 2020 @ 15:42

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