home Audience 1 How to cope with addiction to sweets. Sugar addiction or how to get rid of your sweet tooth. Where to go for help

How to cope with addiction to sweets. Sugar addiction or how to get rid of your sweet tooth. Where to go for help

All kinds of sweets: candies, chocolates, cakes and marshmallows are loved by many people. They not only taste good, but also allow you to experience feelings of joy and euphoria for a while. This happens due to the release of a special hormone by the brain - endorphin. Sweets addiction is also serious illness, which not everyone can overcome.

It can form at any age, and in order to get rid of it, you will need to understand the causes of the problem. You shouldn’t consider yourself addicted if sometimes you want to eat a piece of cake or a couple of candies. A truly dependent person cannot control and limit his desires. The fight against them invariably ends in defeat and another portion of cake.

Reasons for loving sweets

Any person can become addicted to sweets; the reasons for this are psychological and physiological health conditions.

One of the reasons is the psycho-emotional state. A person eats up problems with sweets. Various anxieties, worries, conflicts and quarrels make him reach for more chocolates and cookies.

People cope with boredom, irritation, bad mood. When eating something delicious, the hormone endorphin is released, and fleeting happiness sets in, which does not solve the problem, but only aggravates it.

Some people have a hereditary predisposition to sweets. In the absence of the latter, something like drug withdrawal occurs and the person experiences stress, becomes irritable and nervous.

However, cravings for sweets can be caused not only by psychological, but also by physiological reasons. Thus, a lack of certain vitamins and microelements in the body leads to excessive consumption of sweets.

Getting rid of addiction to sweets

Constantly listen to yourself, whether there is a desire to eat sweets after another conflict or to experience the joy of candy. Do not allow a lack of vitamins in your body, take them in tablets and do not forget about vegetables and fruits. Dairy products will help both overcome and prevent addiction to sweets: kefir, fermented baked milk, yoghurts, cottage cheese.

Include complex carbohydrates in your daily diet: brown rice, buckwheat, oatmeal. The body can easily do without sweets by assimilating healthy sugars from necessary products. When switching to proper nutrition energy will be taken from fat reserves.

Active people can avoid gaining excess weight and overcome cravings for sweets. physical exercise. Especially on fresh air they promote the production of serotonin.

How to get rid of cravings for sweets? Learn to negotiate with your body. 30 minutes before meals, you can put a piece of dark chocolate under your tongue. This will allow the hormone to be produced in the brain and will not only stop the dependence on tasty food, but will also reduce the number of servings at lunch.

You can even trick your brain - chew the candy and spit it out, this trick will allow you to experience the same pleasure as if you had eaten it.

Drink teas without sugar, give preference to fruit varieties or add fruits and berries to them. Remember that coffee increases sugar addiction, so limit it to one cup per day.

Use less fatty foods, it increases cravings for sweets. Replace goodies with healthier products: dried fruits, biscuits, bread, carrots.

Excessive consumption of sweets not only contributes to weight gain excess weight, but also disrupts the functioning of all organs. Diseases of the gastrointestinal tract, pancreas, and liver develop. Immunity also decreases.

However, this does not mean that you need to completely eliminate all sweets; sometimes you can pamper your body, but there should be moderation in everything.

Video gallery

Sweet addiction is not a whim, but a real physiological addiction. Like drug addiction or alcoholism, it requires correction and some effort on the part of the sweet tooth.

Sweet gluttony

There is probably no person on Earth who would not like to eat a cake or a few sweets from time to time. This is a natural desire.

But sometimes it develops into an irrepressible and uncontrollable craving to consume sweets. A person cannot control himself: he can eat a whole cake at once.

It would seem that all you have to do is not allow yourself to spend money on another cake, and the addiction is over. But in reality, everything is not so simple. The fact is that the sweet tooth suffers dangerous disease. It's called sugar addiction.

Why does it arise? The reasons may be:

special psycho-emotional state;
heredity;
physiological prerequisites.

The desire to eat chocolate or something sweet often arises during stressful situations. If a person constantly lives like on a volcano, he often has a sugar addiction. The longer unfavorable circumstances that affect the psyche continue, the more it worsens.

With a hereditary craving for sweets, the situation is even more complicated. A person celebrates any event, sad or joyful, with a portion of cake and sweets. Such a sweet tooth always has sweets in stock in his house.

Dependence on sweets often develops in those people whose bodies lack calcium, magnesium, potassium, and iron. The body requires their replenishment, and the sweet tooth feels an irrepressible craving for sweets.

Depending on what microelements are missing, there are:

lovers of sweet soda;
chocolate gluttons;
sugar gourmets.

So, if there is a lack of calcium, a person drinks sweet carbonated water. At the same time, he falls into a real addiction, similar to alcohol. Sweet water leads to the leaching of calcium in the body, and in order to replenish it, you want to quickly get a portion of sweet water.

Chocolate gluttons are actually unfortunate people who lack magnesium in their bodies. But instead of taking a course of magnesium tablets, they constantly buy the much-coveted chocolate bars.

Sugar lovers are hostages of missing potassium and iron. Healthy eating they are gradually being replaced by the consumption of sweet cookies, cakes, and ice cream.

The mechanism of addiction and its consequences

So, why do some members of humanity have such uncontrollable cravings for sweets? It's all about the pleasure hormone - dopamine.

When sugar enters the stomach, it is extremely quickly broken down into glucose and fructose and enters the blood. Behind a short time more glucose enters the brain cells; the brain begins to work more actively. On his orders, the hormone of pleasure and happiness is produced.

Any sweet tooth is a real biological addict.

For the sake of feeling cheerfulness and happiness, he is ready to absorb and consume mountains of sweets.

Perhaps doctors would not sound the alarm about such gourmet behavior. But the consequences of sugar addiction are very sad. Initially, sweet gluttons become outwardly unattractive. They are deposited on the sides overweight, the face and body are covered with incurable acne.

Later, more serious problems with health. Some people develop diabetes due to metabolic disorders. Others suffer from obesity with all the ensuing consequences: problems with the heart and blood vessels. Still others develop fatty liver (hepatosis).

All people suffering from sugar addiction are very overweight, suffer from shortness of breath, frequent changes mood; have a whole bunch of serious diseases.

How to overcome addiction

Every person one day can say to himself: “Stop.” But it can be difficult to control your habit of eating sweets in large quantities. Abstinence and breakdowns alternate continuously.

In such cases, you should contact a psychologist for help. Correctly placed accents will help to correct eating behavior.

Simultaneously with the course of psychotherapy, it is worth going on a diet, eliminating sweets if possible. Chocolate should be replaced with whole grain cereals, and instead of sweet breaks, introduce healthy snacks like apples, carrots, and beets.

Those who are addicted to sweet carbonated drinks should replace their addiction with a passion for the tea ceremony. How many different tea blends can be made by adding various herbs to the usual brew. And the benefits of drinking such teas are great.

If you are really tormented by the desire to eat at least a piece of sweets, you can deceive your brain. Chew the candy, hold it in your mouth, and then spit it out. This way you can easily achieve pleasure without harming yourself.

It's really worth fighting sugar addiction. Already a month after giving up sweets, the skin begins to clear up and the complexion improves. Six months of abstinence bring noticeable changes in the direction of improved well-being and weight loss.

Video about the body’s need for sweets and ways to combat addiction:

As medical scientists have recently proven, the body has an amazing ability to heal itself. You just need to want and help yourself a little, and life takes on new attractive horizons.

Greetings, friends! I have great news for you, I have started active work above my YOUTUBE channel and today I suggest you watch the video.

I will talk about addiction to sweets, the reasons for cravings for sweets, how to overcome it and how to get rid of it. For those who have slow Internet speeds, I am posting a transcript of the recording and you can read about what we're talking about in the video.

Enjoy watching! subscribe to my channel http://www.youtube.com/c/SakharvNormeTV

These days there is a real pandemic of excess weight and carbohydrate disorders. Health systems in many countries are seriously concerned about the rising number of cases diabetes mellitus and obesity, especially among children. Russia is by no means the last place in this problem. In our country, the number of adults and children with overweight increases every year.

Behind last decades Russia has moved from 19th to 4th place in terms of the number of obesity in women and by 2030 it is predicted to approach the indicators of the USA and Great Britain. By the way, about 50% of their residents already have overweight and obesity.

There are quite a few reasons for weight gain, but one of the most common is excessive consumption of sweets and desserts, which is very strong, pathological cravings to these products.

And today we will talk about some of the reasons for craving for sweets and how to overcome this bad habit.

Good dream

Healthy sleep is the main condition for maintaining normal weight or weight loss issues. You can work out in the gym as much as you want, but if you sleep little, go to bed late or the quality of your sleep suffers, then you can forget about a beautiful figure.

Surely you noticed that after sleepless night or a late bedtime, the whole next day is accompanied by a low level of energy and you always want something tasty. In fact, this has long been a proven fact.

A study was conducted that with various sleep disorders, a person begins to eat more and at the same time unconsciously choose foods with a high glycemic index.

This is easy to explain. Sleep is a time for complete relaxation and restoration of strength, especially for our nervous system. During sleep, the brain accumulates energy for the next day. Not only the number of hours is very important, but also the time of going to bed and the quality of the sleep itself, i.e. absence of extraneous sounds and light. Pituitary hormones (ACTH, STH and others) and melatonin (pineal hormone) are involved in restoring strength. They have their own hours of greatest activity associated with sleep and its phases.

Naturally, when you went to bed very late, the brain did not have time to recover, and therefore the whole body, since it is the brain that sets the tone for the entire body. When energy levels are low, a person is simply forced to replenish it throughout the day. What is a fast source of energy? That's right, carbohydrates! And the sweeter the better!

Therefore, the ideal time to go to bed is no later than 22:00, sleep duration is at least 7 hours and you need to sleep in complete silence, with tightly curtained windows, removing the slightest light sources in the room. The use of earplugs and blindfolds is encouraged.

How to reduce and overcome sugar cravings after poor sleep

What to do if there was bad night, and no one canceled daily activities? In this case, I can give some advice. Usually bad feeling begins serving after lunch from 2 to 4 p.m. It is the adrenal glands that have used up their entire reserve in a day.

Candidiasis

Our bodies are home to billions of different bacteria, viruses and fungi. The yeast fungus Candida is an opportunistic flora. In other words, it does not cause unpleasant symptoms until it is suitable conditions for excessive reproduction.

Uncontrolled use of antibiotics, decreased immunity and excessive love of sweets create fertile soil for the development of fungal pathology. At the same time, it is not limited to damage to the genital area, as is commonly believed. Candida begins to spread throughout the body and affects many organs and tissues, especially the intestinal tract.

As you know, yeast grows by consuming glucose. Candida also requires glucose for development and the fungus will secrete special substances, which will magically affect eating behavior and cause cravings for sweets. As a result, a person, without realizing it, feeds the insolent candida, thinking that this is his decision.

What to do in this case? To reduce cravings for flour and sweets, you must first prove the presence high concentration this fungus. A stool analysis according to Osipov is recommended, which will show you not only the fungus, but also other pathogenic and opportunistic microorganisms.

When the diagnosis is clear and there is candidiasis, then another question arises. How to treat? In this case, the first step would be to switch to an anti-candida diet. You may need to prescribe antimycotics and dietary supplements. I’ll tell you about this some other time, subscribe to the channel so you don’t miss it.

Stress and fatigued adrenal glands

There are two types of stress: physiological stress and distress, i.e. pathological. Physiological stress hardens the body and makes it stronger. In this case, a short-term release of adrenal hormones occurs, which are used to solve a specific problem. For example, running away from a bear is a healthy stress that saves a person’s life or resisting viral infection– this is also healthy stress, which also contributes to a person’s recovery.

Distress is a long-term and moderate exposure to irritants that do not threaten a person’s life, but significantly spoil a happy life. For example, a nasty boss who bullies an employee every day. As a result, a person’s dissatisfaction accumulates, since he cannot talk it out, because he will lose his job. Or eternal time pressure, when you need to complete many tasks in a day, and there are only 24 hours in a day. Or a young mother who is trying to manage to look after her child, go to work, cook food and do a lot of things around the house, while not having personal time to relax.

Together with poor nutrition, physical inactivity, pollution environment, low level spirituality, drinking alcohol and smoking, distress gradually and surely destroys the body due to stimulation of the adrenal glands, namely the hormone cortisol. At first, a lot of cortisol is produced, and this is worth noting as a “hormone of destruction.” In such quantities it pathologically affects all types of metabolism.

But the adrenal glands are not able to work every day at such a frantic pace without recharging. Over time, the function begins to fade and develops reverse situation when cortisol begins to be deficient. When there is not enough cortisol, it’s not like running away from a bear; it’s even very difficult to get out of bed. Starts to suffer general tone and performance.

In both cases, a craving for sweets appears and in order to remove it, you need to deal with the adrenal glands. In the first case, carbohydrates intoxicate the brain, causing illusory well-being and relaxation. It's comparable to alcohol, it's just that carbohydrates are a legal drug.

In the second case, carbohydrates become vitally necessary, since they at least somehow provide energy, because the internal reserve, alas, has been exhausted. Moreover, the more sweets you eat, the worse your adrenal glands work.

How to support your adrenal glands?

First of all, work with distress. And there are no universal solutions here, because everyone life situations different. Very often the problem sits in our head and sometimes it helps to change our attitude towards the problem, even if the problem remains unresolved.

For example, you have a nasty boss who constantly shouts and expresses dissatisfaction. You cannot leave for another job, but you can change your attitude towards this situation. Develop healthy indifference, learn not to react to comments, not to take everything to heart. This is quite difficult to do when you are already deeply stressed. I see a way out working together with a psychologist or psychotherapist. And of course, personal development, reading books on psychology, distraction in the form of sports or walks in the forest, and engaging in your favorite hobby.

The main thing is to be able to remove accumulated negativity and not accumulate it in yourself. There are different techniques and methods that you can search on the Internet. Try to relax more, but not in front of the TV with a can of beer, but watching active rest or meeting with your favorite friends, but without alcohol.

In addition, sometimes it is necessary special food, additional additives and even medications. But this is a topic for another video.

Chromium shortage

There is a lot of information on the Internet on the topic of “sweet cravings” and this microelement is constantly mentioned. I will break this tradition and will not talk about it at all, since girls and women often shift responsibility to this mineral, and to all sorts of appetite-reducing drugs, while the above reasons have not been eliminated.

Yes, chromium is involved in glucose absorption, insulin production and improving tissue sensitivity to glucose. But true chromium deficiency is so rare that we still need to look for patients with such deficiency. So little of this microelement is needed that when adequate nutrition his need is safely covered by food.

If you are still in doubt, you can get your blood tested to confirm or refute chromium deficiency. If confirmed, you can take pills to reduce your craving for sweets. In case of deficiency, it is easily replenished with the help of tablets and dietary supplements.

Distortion in nutrition

And the last reason for today. No matter how trivial it may sound, addiction to sweets is caused by the consumption of these same sweets. In other words, the more you eat, the more you want. If you reduce your consumption of sweet foods, the addiction may go away on its own.

Imagine that you ate a lot delicious dessert– cheesecake or esterhazy. These desserts contain unrealistic a large number of fast sugars, which are very quickly absorbed into the blood and raise blood glucose levels. The pancreas immediately reacts to this and produces disproportionately large quantity insulin to transport incoming glucose into cells

As a result, insulin lowers glucose levels very quickly and reaches normal values does not stop, but continues to decline. The person begins to experience terrible hunger, and some of the very real signs of hypoglycemia. Having waited for the next meal, a person unconsciously chooses carbohydrate-rich dishes and something tasty for dessert... again... or again...

Some people don’t wait and eat candy straight on an empty stomach, repeating the situation with insulin. Such swings can occur many times during the day. The real one is developing physiological need in sweets and it’s quite difficult to overcome it, but it’s possible.

Another extreme is irregular and poor nutrition. When a person has not eaten anything during the day, he creates an energy deficit, which he will fill generous intake food with obligatory tasty treats late in the evening.

What to do in such a situation? Firstly, eat regularly and fully throughout the day so as not to feel hungry at the end of the day. Secondly, you need to eliminate the carbohydrate swing by complete failure from sweets. Within a few days you may experience real withdrawal, which passes quite quickly, and with it irresistible craving have a pie.

There are also psychological problems, which can cause addiction to sweets, but I’ll tell you about that next time.

And that's all for me. I hope the video was useful to you. Then you can watch other videos of our channel, links to them will appear on the screen. Subscribe to the channel, click thumb up and see you again!

With warmth and care, endocrinologist Lebedeva Dilyara Ilgizovna

Why do you want sweets so much? After all, it seems that the body literally demands a muffin with chocolate syrup, a cappuccino with caramel or, say, a lemon tartlet with whipped cream. We know how harmful sugar is, but we can’t control ourselves. “At the heart of this obsessive need are both physiological reasons, (for example, a lack of microelements or an unbalanced diet) and psychological - many of us turn to sweets as a tranquilizer in order to relieve anxiety or anxiety,” explains nutritionist Elena Morozova.

The first reason: stress

Products containing sugar, when entering the body, stimulate the production of the hormone serotonin. It's biological active substance improves mood, calms, relieves anxiety. In fact, it is a natural antidepressant for any of us. And chocolate also contains magnesium, a microelement that has a calming effect. That is why, in a state of anxiety or depression, the hand reaches out for something sweet.

What to do: get magnesium and speed up serotonin synthesis with more healthy products nutrition.

Serotonin. In the body, serotonin is produced from its precursors, in particular from tryptophan, one of the essential amino acids. You need to consume about 1-2 grams of tryptophan per day. In a state of stress, the consumption of tryptophan increases, therefore the daily norm of this amino acid should be more than times at two. Here is a list of products that are leaders in the content of this valuable amino acid:

LEGUMES (per 100 g): peas, beans – 260 mg, soybeans – 714 mg, lentils – 284 mg GRAINS, POTATOES (per 100 g): buckwheat– 180 mg, pasta– 130 mg, wheat flour (grade I) – 120 mg, oatmeal – 160 mg, millet – 180 mg, rice – 80 mg, rye bread – 70 mg, wheat bread – 100 mg, potatoes – 30 mg DAIRY (in 100 d): Dutch cheese – 790 mg, processed cheese – 500 mg, low-fat cottage cheese – 180 mg, full-fat cottage cheese – 210 mg MEAT (per 100 g): beef, turkey – 200 mg and even higher MUSHROOMS (per 100 g): champignons , oyster mushrooms – 210–230 mg EGGS (1.5–2 pieces): 200 mg

Magnesium. Like tryptophan, magnesium burns very quickly under stress. We should receive about 300–350 mg of magnesium per day. What products are best to get it from? First of all, among grains, for example, based on the magnesium content in 100 g of product, bran (350 mg), buckwheat (150 mg), and oatmeal (130 mg) are rich in it. One of the leaders in magnesium content is watermelon - 100 g of product contains from 220 to 440 mg of this trace element. In fact, a piece of watermelon is your daily requirement for magnesium!

Second reason: lack of microelements

An irresistible craving for sweets may be associated with a deficiency of chromium in the body. This microelement is involved in the regulation carbohydrate metabolism and blood glucose levels. It normalizes the permeability of cell membranes to glucose and the processes of its use by cells. Also, thanks to chromium, the sensitivity of cells to insulin increases and the effect of this hormone increases. In other words, the body will produce less insulin, but there will be enough hormone to meet the body's needs. Chromium deficiency causes a significant increase in blood glucose levels. In order to maintain it at this level, simple carbohydrates must be supplied to the body uninterruptedly, which significantly increases cravings for sweets and increases the feeling of hunger.

What to do: enrich your diet with chromium through food and dietary supplements.

The daily requirement of an adult for this microelement is 150 mg. A lot of chromium (about 50 mg per 100 g) is found in fish and seafood, offal (30 mg per 100 g), chicken eggs (22 mg per 100 g), broccoli (20 mg per 100 g). After consultation with a specialist, you can take dietary supplements with chromium picolinate.

Third reason: unbalanced diet

Paradoxically, the craving for sweets is most often due to the fact that a person abuses these same sweets. Almost immediately after dessert, your body's blood sugar levels rise sharply. The body tries to “accumulate” this sugar faster, for which the pancreas produces the hormone insulin. At the same time, we feel an unprecedented surge of energy. However, this condition quickly passes, since simple carbohydrates are utilized very quickly. To maintain such energy, another portion of sweets is required.

Sugar addiction is aggravated by irregular meals. When there are long periods between meals, blood sugar levels drop significantly. You can quickly lift it using simple carbohydrates, on an intuitive level, every person knows this, which is why the desire to eat something sweet arises.

What to do: maintain a balance of carbohydrate intake with food.

You shouldn’t give up simple carbohydrates completely, especially abruptly. Such a strategy will lead to irritability, decreased mood and performance. Moreover, with psychological point in terms of escaping temptations is not the most The best way deal with them. How should you structure your nutrition plan?

The diet must contain sufficient amounts complex carbohydrates and proteins that will help maintain even blood glucose levels. In particular, in the diet of people who are not physically active active image life, the daily intake of carbohydrates is 400–500 g, of which complex carbohydrates should account for about 80–90%. Daily norm protein – on average 1–1.2 g per kg of body weight.

Eat small meals. This will avoid sharp jumps blood sugar. Eat small meals about 5 times a day. The volume of each serving should not exceed 200–250 g.

Distinguish between true and false hunger. Often we experience not hunger, but thirst (in the brain nerve centers, responsible for these sensations, are very close). So before you eat something sweet, drink a glass of water.

pay attention to protein products. When you want something sweet, it’s better to eat a piece of cheese, yogurt or boiled egg. Such products stabilize blood sugar levels after 15–20 minutes, and cravings for sweets subside.

Eat sweets for dessert. After lunch, a piece of cake or cookies will not cause a sharp jump in blood glucose, which means you will be able to maintain a sense of moderation. If your meal includes only sweets, you will feel the urge to eat more within half an hour.

about the author

Elena Morozova, nutritionist, psychologist, CEO"Weight loss clinics of Elena Morozova"

They helped us:

Evgeny Arzamastsev
Dietitian of the Center aesthetic medicine Margarita Koroleva

The World Health Organization estimates that a typical Russian eats about 100 grams of sugar per day. Despite the fact that the human body can process no more than 50 g of sweet additive more or less painlessly. And modern Scientific research Excess sugar in the menu is persistently associated with such serious diseases as diabetes, hypertension, strokes and heart attacks, and colon cancer. This list alone is enough to make you forget about soda and buns forever. But there is a nuance.

Stories about the dangers of sugar, alas, cannot force those with a sweet tooth to give up candy. American biologists It has long been proposed to equate sweet poison with alcohol and tobacco and start honestly calling it a drug. Not for the sake of shocking: the mechanism of our brain’s reaction to sugar is not much different from the addictions that develop, say, with each new glass of champagne.

One of many experiments on this topic is indicative. Scientists from Princeton University fed experimental rats sugar daily, gradually increasing the dose. Everyone was happy. But one day, terrible for rodents, people completely excluded sweets from the menu. What do you think? The animals became restless, irritable and aggressive and, if they could, would probably complain about headache and the desire to bite. In general, the poor rats experienced a typical withdrawal in the absence of the coveted dose.

But let's get back to the people. Most of us swallowed our first dose of the sweet drug before we could speak clearly, and for decades maintained the bad attachment by buying “something for tea.” We can't just stop eating sugar, no matter what. strong-willed people neither were, ask any narcologist. But we can gradually (this is a key condition for success) reduce the amount of sweets in our diet to a minimum or even to zero.

WH experts have formulated several rules for those who intend to one day give up desserts. Get a plan of action.