Does your sweet tooth have you eating ice cream at night? Or does it have you stopping for a donut every morning? Trust me, you are not alone! I confess… I was a complete sugar addict. But, I have fully recovered and so can you! 

I was, as I called it a sugaraholic, majority of my life. I was addicted to sugar, especially when I was younger. Most people don’t know this about me but I could literally eat a half a gallon of ice cream in one sitting, or have two dozen cookies.

I was an extreme athlete growing up, and basically, I would just be in these extremes all the time, and so I craved sugar physically, emotionally, mentally. Anything that was going wrong with my life, I would go to sugar. I had this major sugar addiction, and it’s something that I had to really deal with head on after my accidents. I was dealing with so much inflammation, since, you know, refined white sugar causes so much inflammation in the body because of all the excess acids.

I have some tips I put together for you so that you know how to get a handle on this, and really get to the next level, if that’s something you desire.

#1. You should drink more water. In general, a lot of times when you have cravings, especially sugar, we’re actually dehydrated. Whenever I’m craving something now, I always have a glass of water. Most of the time, that helps dramatically. If you have sugar cravings, definitely drink more water.

I would recommend drinking two glasses of warm water when you first wake up, and then drink majority of your water in between meals so that you’re ahead of the curve.

#2. Use natural sweeteners and spices. Natural sweeteners might be stevia, raw honey, or lakanto, which is a monk fruit. You want to stay away from artificial sweeteners, like Splenda, aspartame, Equal, Sweet ‘N Low. That’s all chemicals and very harmful and toxic to the body. Natural sweeteners are a great way to transition off the white refined sugar, because white refined sugar is so addicting.

I would experiment with natural sweetener, especially stevia, which is an herb. There’s many different brands so find the brand that you like!

#3. Get physical. Getting physical, getting movement, exercise, is going to stabilize your blood sugar and that’s what we’re looking for. Especially if we’re trying to get off a sugar addiction and we want to have that stabilized energy. When we have refined white sugar, we have a huge insulin rush, and dopamine, serotonin, and all these things are released and then we have crashes. We’re looking to stabilize our blood sugar so we stabilize our mood and our energy. Exercise is one of those ways you can do that.

#4. Get more sleep and reduce stress. If we don’t sleep enough, the hormone that’s released to notify we’re hungry is a similar hormone that’s released when we’re really tired. Also, stress can create a lot of excess acid in the body and causes constriction. Sugar and anything that’s sweet causes expansion, so we’re craving that. Get on a routine with your sleep schedule and then also look at stress reduction exercises to do.

#5. Evaluate the amount of salt that you’re intaking. This is kind of a follow up from the last tip. If you’re eating a lot of salt, because you definitely need salt, and you need to have natural salt, not the table refined salt that has anti-caking agents and aluminum in it. You want Himalayan salt that has all the trace minerals. If you’re having a lot of salt, which happens when you eat out a lot, just know that’s going to cause a lot of constriction in the body. And you’re going to usually have cravings to have something that’s sweet, which will have expansion in your body.

There’s a middle path, and I’m always looking at moderation, especially since I tend to be in extremes. My whole last 10 years has been looking at how can I just go the middle path. It’s all about moderation and what is sustainable.

#6. Gradually get off white sugar. To think that you’re just going to cold turkey it the next day is really hard. Some people can do it. I am not one of those people. What I recommend, and I go into this in detail in my online program, is to gradually get off the white sugar and to go to healthy substitutions.

It’s about gradually getting off the sugar and going to more sweet fruits and gluten-free sugar-free cookies, or whatever that strategy is. I go into detail about this in my online programs.

What do you do to get rid of your sugar cravings? I would love to hear your comments!