Want to know what causes sugar cravings? Watch this video to learn why we crave
sweet foods and what you can do about it.
Hey, carb dodgers! My name is Dr. Dan Maggs I'm so glad you've landed on my channel.
I help people achieve sustainable weight loss through low carb real food diets.
And I release new videos every Tuesday, so be sure to subscribe and hit the
bell to get notified whenever I post new content.
Now I often get asked what is
the number one piece of advice you'd give someone to improve their health and
I always respond with the same thing, cut sugar out of your diet like completely!
As I mentioned in the intro I'm an advocate of low carb real food diets but
if your sugar addicted then even the thought of drastically cutting out your
carbs might be enough to bring you out in a cold sweat and if that sounds like
you and don't worry you're in the right place.
In this video I'm going to be
diving deep into the brain to help you understand why we get sugar cravings and
then I'm gonna be breaking down some of the different ways I use to help my
patients and private coaching clients eliminate sugar from their diets.
So, let's get started by looking at what causes sugar cravings.
Firstly it's important to understand that we're hardwired to crave sweet foods.
It's an evolutionary response that comes from our hunter-gatherer ancestors and
actually probably our non-human ancestors before them too.
So on the one hand, we have things that taste overwhelmingly bitter and we know these
foods are probably ones that we shouldn't be consuming in fact the
bitter taste act as a deterrent. A signal to be careful when eating. Sweet foods on
the other hand tastes good to encourage us to eat them. Foods that taste sweet do
so to signal to animals that they're safe to consume and a lot of fruits
actually, rely on animal consumption for the spreading of their seeds. But to
really understand why humans have developed this addiction to sugar,
we need to understand what it does to our brains.
Let's talk about dopamine.
So what is dopamine? Dopamine is a chemical in the
brain that allows nerve cells to communicate. It acts as a reward released
in the body when we complete survival tasks such as sourcing food. It's a vital
chemical our bodies produced to encourage life-sustaining behaviors.
Ultimately, it encourages growth in development and chemically underpins our
desire to survive. Dopamine is also important in other
things in the body movement for example and reduced dopamine production is a
feature of Parkinson's disease and can be treated using synthetic dopamine, like
drugs, whereas an excess of dopamine can result in the brain signaling
unnecessary movements causing tics. It's also involved in pleasure-seeking
behavior. Dopamine is the chemical that controls pleasure in the brain it
stimulates us to seek out pleasurable things which could be sourcing food or
sex and therefore procreation. So, hopefully, you're starting to see that
dopamine and food are strongly linked. In fact, dopamine is released when we see
and smell food and yet more dopamine is released when we eat but if we eat the
same food over and over again it takes more food for dopamine to be released.
As a result, we no longer feel as satisfied from the dish as when we once did and
we're less inclined to eat us so this is a brain chemistry actually making us
bored with food if we eat the same thing over and over again. So why would our
brains do this? Well it's an evolutionary response that encourages us to eat a
varied diet, however when it comes to refined sugars as we know them in the
what modern world such as sucrose or high fructose corn syrup we seem to be
losing the benefits of this evolutionary trait altogether.
So why is sugar addictive when other food is not, but when we consume sugar
the brain produces huge surges of dopamine over time our bodies get used
to these high levels of dopamine and when we aren't eating those sugary foods
we start to crave them and in many ways a sugar addiction is similar to drug
addiction when humans take cocaine or heroin a huge surge of dopamine is
released and that's what makes these drugs addictive and when tolerance
starts to build, deadly! There, of course, large differences with cocaine and
heroin addiction versus sugar addiction cocaine and heroin lead to severe
instant health concerns as well as significant social problems,
sugar addiction, on the other hand, plays a much more subtle role in the deterioration of
our health taking a long time to become apparent and symptoms that may seem
somewhat harmless such as afternoon headaches or sugar cravings or frequent
dips in our mood and as we start to eat more sugar to allow for the high
production of a dopamine our bodies start to build a tolerance and we start
to require more and more of it to feel the benefit from this feel-good hormone.
The more our bodies are used to this the slower the dopamine response and the
more we need to get that feel-good dopamine hit.
So, now we know that the
more sugar we eat the more sugar we need to consume for dopamine to be released
in the brain. So before we get into the next section and address sugar addiction
I want to ask; "Do you or have you ever struggled with sugar addiction?"
Let me know by simply right "yes or no" in the comments down below.
I'll go first, "YES" I've absolutely struggled with sugar addiction in the
past and even now that I've been low carb for nearly 4 years if I have a
break from the diet for example for a special occasion and I consumed sugar I
very quickly feel the same desire to consume more sugar again.
So let's start the second half of this video by asking...
"If sugar is so addictive, how do I cut down?"
Firstly the bad news cutting down on your sugar intake is no easy task it
requires commitment and a strong desire to improve your health.
Removing sugar from the diet can cause withdrawal symptoms such as headaches,
fatigue, dips in mood, cramps and in severe cases even nausea. Now the good
news when we start to cut down our sugar intake our body readjusts and our
tolerance decreases. Meaning we need to consume less sugar to get the same feel
good dopamine hit. You can train your body not to crave sugar and in doing so,
retrain your taste buds to get rid of that sweet tooth. As you take only about
a week of no sugar consumption for taste buds to completely reset to normal and
you will be amazed at how incredibly sweet those sweet treats taste after a
week of no sugar. And after a few weeks of reducing our sugar intake dopamine
will start to be released more quickly in response to consuming sugar and we
won't need as much to feel satisfied. Now, there are a couple of approaches that
work for people and ultimately it's about finding out what works for you.
Option one is quitting cold turkey maybe you're an all-or-nothing person like me
quitting sugar cold turkey can work for certain people in order to quit cold
turkey effectively it helps to be organized and have an action plan before
quitting go through your food supplies and get rid of the sugary stuff if you
don't have access to sugary foods you're more likely to succeed. Remember this is
addiction we're dealing with and if you are trying to give up smoking you
wouldn't want to have a packet of cigarettes at home would you?
Make sure you have recipe ideas ready and a fully stocked fridge full of the
new foods you're excited to be eating. Things to note about quitting cold
turkey depending on your previous sugar intake levels you may experience
withdrawal symptoms and there are some nice easy ways to combat those if you
start to experience headaches in the afternoon start by eating one or two
squares of dark 70% plus chocolate in the mornings with a glass of water.
Dark chocolate contains magnesium which acts as a muscle relaxant in the body
magnesium as a result can be an effective assistant for migraine and
headache relief while also being an ideal food to satisfy sugar cravings
Quitting sugar cold turkey for some is incredibly difficult where some people
can just go the full way and go straight on to a low-carb diet
but I do understand that this can be intimidating for some people and the all-or-nothing
approach can be pretty overwhelming. So if that's you then wanna try Option two
which is making gradual changes if this resonates with you try this simple level
up technique just take a look at your standard daily food intake identify
places that could be improved for example let's say in the morning you're
rushing to get to work and you grab a chocolate croissant and a coffee with
two sugars from your local coffee shop and eat them in the car been there done that
For one week try levelling up this meal
by swapping out this routine for a healthier one for breakfast why not whip
up a batch of high-protein chorizo and egg low carb breakfast muffins they are
zero sugar and the protein in them encourages dopamine production protein
will also help to reduce sugar cravings as it makes you feel full and satisfied
for longer now this may already be a huge change to your daily routine so
avoid levelling up on any other area of your diet until you're confident
in this new habit and if this simply isn't working for you try levelling up a
different aspect of your diet instead no one's perfect and trial and error is key
in this approach another idea might be to look into the afternoon snack habit
for example let's say you work in an office job and at 3:30 every day you and
your colleagues have a tea and biscuit break you might like this routine and
don't want to get rid of it after all it's part of what you like about working
where you do its sociable and signals that the work day is coming to a close
it's important to recognize what this break does for you and think of ways you
can keep it without consuming the sugar maybe you start to bring your own savory
snack into the office and ask your colleagues to make you a herbal tea
instead of your English breakfast with one sugar it might be helpful to tell
the people around you what you're trying to achieve in reducing your sugar intake
maybe even some of them might want to do the same thing the more people who know
about your journey the more encouraging they'll be hopefully and the more
careful they should be sharing food around the office that you've expressed
that you're trying to stay away from another really important thing to
remember is to drink water and this sounds like a really obvious one but
when you're starting your day with a tall glass of water they can really help
curve those cravings throughout the day we know that thirst can often be
confused with hunger and sometimes when we're craving something sweet really we
just dehydrated in moments where you start to fill a sugar craving have a
glass of water and wait a few minutes if you're still hungry perhaps then choose
a healthy snack option at that point because ultimately whichever way you
decide to give up the sugar you're gonna be on the right path whatever works for
you and remember that falling off the wagon is part of the journey and if you
do make a bad choice at the beginning of the day
it shouldn't necessarily dictate the fate of the rest of your day try to
identify why you fell out of the good habit and hop right back on the wagon to
continue to take control of your health make sure you prepare as much as
possible to set you up for success with recipes at the ready that satisfy your
sugar cravings after a short while of cutting down sugar your body will start
to respond to sugar consumption in a healthier way
and you'll start to crave sugar less and less the more you practice lowering your
sugar consumption the easier it gets a promising then we can start thinking
about cutting the rest of the carbs down.
That's it from me today if you like this
video please let me know by liking it down below and sharing it with your
friends and family don't forget to subscribe to my channel and leave me a
comment down below this video if it helped you I'll see you next Tuesday