Hello Health Champions. Today we're going to talk about the top 10 foods to stop sugar cravings and
if you're like most people you have probably tried to reduce or cut out sugar at some point in your
life and you've also probably found how hard it is and for some people it seems almost impossible
so we're going to talk about some of the mechanisms today to understand why it can be so
difficult and how to overcome that. So cravings, especially for sugar, are tied to three factors
and the first is that sugar stimulates opiate receptors that means sugar is a drug it is highly
addictive and of course it's going to affect different people differently just
like an alcoholic can't have one drink and then stop whereas some people can and the sugar is
exact same way secondly we have to break our carb dependency if you have taught your body
to top off to expect to top off blood sugar every couple of hours then your body doesn't know
how to generate energy without that frequent snack and those high carbohydrate and if you also tied
that habit into the pleasure of sugar from these drug receptors that makes it even more difficult
and third is emotional conditioning that we can break our physiological addiction in a matter of
days three four days and we're done your body has rewired but then there's all these different cues
in our environment so maybe after a meal or in front of the tv or on a trip in the car
we trigger these reward seeking behaviors we feel like we've got to have something else even
though the physical addiction is gone we still have this emotional conditioning so we have to
understand that this transition is a process that we have to be firm it's going to take some time
the physiological addiction is going to be pretty fast but the emotional is going to be
taking that transition it's going to take a little bit longer and we have to recondition every system
in our body that's involved so we're going to talk about 10 different foods and categories to make it
easier for you to break that sugar addiction but don't click off at the end because there's a bonus
that you're going to love one of the most important things to recondition
is our energy production so realize that if your body is used to sugar for fuel and you cut it
out then it's not going to know what to do in the short term so you have to give it something else
such as fat and protein and another thing is don't try to do too many things at once so someone might
say oh I'm going to start my life over I'm going to stop drinking stop smoking I'm gonna
do intermittent fasting and stop sugar and lose weight and exercise all at once that's
a recipe for failure you cannot go hungry and stop sugar at the same time so don't make any
drastic changes other than cutting out the sugar the next thing to recondition are enzyme pathways
and fat uses certain enzymes carbohydrate uses certain enzymes and your body is going to have
to adapt and up regulate some and down regulate others but like I said this happens pretty fast
in two three four days most of that is going to be taken care of for you as long as you're consistent
and at the same time your body will also need to rewire neural pathways and some emotional habits
and this is going to take a little bit longer probably three to four weeks so because of these
opiate receptors that we mentioned sugar is a highly addictive substance but it's not just
the substance itself it's because of what we have done with it so if you take this flower
it's called poppy and it is perfectly natural however if you refine it a thousand times and
turn it into heroin then it's not natural anymore we changed it we extracted a powerful component
and concentrated it a thousand fold and now it becomes one of the most addictive drugs there are
and sugar is the same way it is one of the most natural substances in the world there's a little
bit of sugar in everything but the key is a little bit when we concentrate it when we refine it
then it's not natural anymore and now it becomes a drug so I'm not opposed to sugar
in all the different forms because sugar like I said it's in everything but you have to find out
at what level does it become a drug for you so food number 10 is berries so based on what we just
talked about with rewards it can be nice to have something to transition with so instead of having
sugar instead of having processed candy and snacks and desserts a berry can be a very nice reward you
get a little bit of sweet and for most people it's not going to set off any addictive behavior so
it's only slightly bad you're getting a little bit of sugar but for most people it's going to be all
right however that's most people not everybody so this is not okay for some for some people
it's going to be like an entry it's going to be a pathway drug where it's going to set off that
addictive behavior and this could be even just the sweet taste even things that don't even have
sugar in them such as alternative sweeteners like stevia and monk fruit and sugar alcohols
that don't actually have anything that raises blood sugar but just this taste itself can set
off that behavior so is stevia all right for most people yes but you have to recognize if
it is okay for you or if it triggers some addictive behavior so in order for this to
work you need to set a goal and if you're truly addicted to sugar then you need to understand
that you can't have just a little bit you need to cut it out completely to break that drug addiction
and once you make a decision decision means to cut off all other possibilities so it's like you
draw a line in the sand and I always think of the movie lord of the rings where Gandalf says
you shall not pass and that's how you want to think of this line in the sand once you've drawn
it once you made that decision then it is not even an option to cross that line then you set a time
limit for yourself so I would suggest that you do it for a month your physiological addiction
is going to be broken it's going to be fine in a few days time but then you have all
these emotional habits and it takes somewhere around three weeks to make new habits so I think
a month is a good goal good time period for a goal and unless you are super human then you want to
throw out all the sugar because if it's around and you're not superhuman then you will probably eat
it at some point it's too much of a temptation don't keep it around number nine is spices
and we have things like cinnamon that actually help stabilize blood sugar it helps the body
control blood sugar better and therefore it's been shown to reduce cravings we've got fenugreek and
turmeric there are two herbs there are pretty major components of curry so if you like curry
then just eat a bunch of it have some cinnamon you don't have to go buy supplements that have
these in in capsules or anything because the the spice is going to do the same thing for you
cloves is another one and ginseng is another so ginseng you probably would have to go buy a
supplement but again don't don't spend a fortune the reason this is number nine is that this is
like the the last few percent they can help you a little bit but don't count on this you have to do
all the other things that we talked about number eight is leafy greens and seven is
non-starchy vegetables so what do these do they fill you up they have some volume because of the
fiber and if you have some fluid some water with the fiber then they create some volume
and it's not going to be satisfying by itself because you can eat these and they have some
volume but they don't really give you any energy they don't have a lot of calories so you don't
want to eat them just by themselves but it's going to be a foundation it's going to be part of the
things you eat and then you add other things to it and here's probably the root of all of these
addictive behaviors and all these imbalances when it comes to sugar it's carb dependence
that your body requires stable energy you have to have energy to function your mood
your energy your ability to do things depends on stable energy but it should not
come from snacking this is one of those absolute worst things we've ever been taught
is that you have to keep your blood sugar up with snacks we have four different hormones to raise
blood sugar between meals we have an excellent system we have a fantastic capacity
to allow the body to maintain energy levels as long as we don't screw it up with a bunch of
snacking and a bunch of refined foods and so forth so what most people do is they eat refined foods
and with that refined food and sugar we get a much faster rise in blood sugar than we could ever have
there's nothing in nature that will give us that kind of blood sugar spike and if something goes
up really fast then it's an emergency the body needs to maintain a stable blood sugar level
and if it rises super fast then it's an emergency and it's going to pump out insulin and with a lot
of insulin it's going to drop quickly so now if we keep eating and keep living like this and keep
listening to the stupid advice of having snacks every two hours then our blood sugar is going
to look like this like a roller coaster and every time that the blood sugar crashes a little bit we
think that we have to have something to bring it back up and the body has three sources of
fuel it has carbs fat and protein but protein is only in an emergency with long-term starvation
so during regular living we have carbohydrates and fat for fuel and if we live with this model
now we're going to train the body mostly to use carbs and if we cut out the carbs the body
learns again to use fat and fat is a very very stable fuel it doesn't spike blood sugar
it is processed very slowly we store it on the body and when we don't eat for a while then we can
retrieve it from the body and use it for energy so if you were to reduce those refined carbs that
cause this blood sugar roller coaster and instead you eat what we talked about you eat the
non-starchy vegetables and the leafy greens and then you add in some protein and fat
then your blood sugar is going to look like this it's not going to have those huge spikes because
there's nothing to set it off and then you also don't get the big drops that give you the cravings
and what you find though in the beginning it's okay if you want to eat four five six times a
day because that's what your body is used to then do that but when you don't get the spikes anymore
you won't be so hungry you'll find that eating a couple of three times a day is plenty and then
your energy levels are not going to fluctuate your blood sugar curve is going to stay within a very
narrow range so healthy fats is something that you want to add you don't want to be afraid of that
and nuts is good they have healthy fats plus some protein and seeds do as well so nuts could be any
sort of nut that you like it could be walnuts pecans macadamia are my favorite also almonds
are pretty good but there are lots of different nuts that work seeds some of my favorites
are pumpkin seeds chia seeds flax seed hemp seed but again you can use a lot of different seeds
there are very few that are not going to work well for this so because these foods are richer they're
more concentrated with fat and protein they're going to help satisfy you the leafy greens and
non-starchy veg they put a little volume there but they don't satisfy now you're adding some
things that are satisfying you can go much longer between meals and you can add these healthy fats
to the vegetables you can add nuts and seeds to the vegetables and nuts and seeds you can also
eat them by themselves as snacks don't be afraid to snack if you are trying to break an addiction
and you feel like you have to have something then it's okay to do some snacking in the short term
while you're breaking that addiction just make sure those snacks don't have anything
to spike blood sugar number three is avocado it's just a fantastic food it's rich creamy
filling there's really no limit to how much you can eat of that it's plenty of fiber
tons of fiber and very very low carb you can eat it as a snack you can eat it as a whole meal you
can put a little oil and vinegar in it some spices and it has a dressing you can just spoon it out
so many different ways and of course you can turn it into guacamole as well
number two is eggs and dairy and these foods are very filling they're high in fat and protein and
they're also complete foods much more than nuts and seeds these can become a meal in themselves
and the key here is to go for the rich foods if you want to break a sugar craving you want
food that is satisfying and filling and keep stable blood sugars you don't have to be afraid
of the butter and the heavy cream and the sour cream what you want to be afraid of is the skim
and milk because the skim milk not only does it taste nasty but it is also mostly sugar virtually
all the calories in skim milk come from the milk sugar and even though that's not spiking blood
sugar it's not nearly as addictive as processed sugar it's still not what you're looking for
and number one on the list is meat and this could be any sort of meat could be fish
chicken beef lamb organ meats game meats etc. and why is this number one again it's not that
you should eat only meat or that it's the best or any of that but it is the most complete it's the
most satisfying because you get a combination of fat and protein and if you can only eat one thing
that's really going to satisfy you and keep those cravings away then that should be meat and you can
eat you can cook some chicken wings you could have some sausage you could have some smoked salmon
in the fridge and that's great stuff for snacking as well and if you understand all
of the things we talked about now you are ready for a little bonus and the first one is apple
cider vinegar because in apple cider vinegar there are several things one of them though is
short chain fatty acids and these short chain fatty acids they feed the beneficial gut bacteria
that actually help you with blood sugar they help stabilize blood sugar and they can reduce cravings
when you have that type of bacteria and the other thing is MCT oil medium chain triglyceride so
these are really kind of the same thing the short chain and the medium chain it's just a short
they're a little bit shorter even than the medium but both of them can act as energy so if you take
a teaspoon of MCT oil a couple of times a day then that can give you a little bit of energy to help
you break that sugar craving if you like this video you're going to love that one. And if you
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