Sweet Tooth: Bite Back At Your Sugar Addiction
We all need a sugar kick now and again. After a lot of physical exercise, a sugar spike can even be a healthy energy boost. However, it’s all too easy to go overboard with sweet foods. Taken to the excess this can lead to unwanted weight gain, heart disease, diabetes and high blood pressure. If you’re eager to bite back at your sugar craving – or have recently developed an illness and have been forced to cut your intake – here are the measures you should take.
Start scanning ingredients
Whilst it’s easy to stop putting sugar in your tea or to cut down on obvious perpetrators such as sweets and cakes, there may be other foods that are secretly contributing to your sugar overload. Even salad dressings and yoghurts that don’t taste sweet may contain traces of sugar. When shopping, start scanning the backs of items to look for these hidden traces. ‘No added sugar’ is the caption you should be keenly looking out for.
Opt for naturally sugary foods
Fresh fruit does contain sugar, but also contains vitamins and minerals that can counteract many of the unhealthy traits of other sugary products. Next time you have a sweet craving, turn to apples, bananas and grapes. Choose pure juices over squashes and fizzy drinks. Experiment with new fruit to give yourself some excitement. You can even grab yourself a blender and start creating some of your own smoothies.
Try alternative sweeteners
If you really need to sweeten something up, why not try an artificial sweetener? These have been proven to tackle weight gain. However, be careful not to rely too much on these substitutes. Scientific research is still being made into the effects of these sweeteners, with some claiming that they can up your sugar craving rather than quenching it. Use these as a last resort.
Switch your e-liquid
If you’re into vaping, you may be able to get your sweet fix here. Flavoured vape juice such as a dessert flavoured e-liquid could help ward off some of the cravings. Whilst there is some sugar in these e-liquids that you may ingest, it’s unlikely to have the same direct effect on your teeth and body that crunching and digesting hard sugar has.
Time your sugar rush
As discussed earlier, there are times when a sugar rush can have a positive effect. Digesting sugary snacks twenty to thirty minutes after hard exercise can give you a much needed energy boost and help aid muscle repair when paired with protein. Without exercise, your body is much less equipped to digest sugar, and this is where it gets converted into fat instead. Therefore, if you still want to keep cakes and chocolates and sugary foods in your diet, ensure that you’re partaking in a heavy workout first. Start using sugar as a reward for physical activity and you could transform your sugar addiction into a healthy addiction – just make sure that you’re working up a sweat and not just rewarding yourself for hovering the house.