The Socially Acceptable Drug: How to Stop your Sugar Cravings For Good

Real solutions to silence your sweet tooth forever.






Quit Cold Turkey

"Diseases desperate grown, By desperate alliances are relieved, Or not at all." -Hamlet (IIII.ii)

If you've tried the 'moderation method' and it didn't work, give it up completely.

Weaning down the amount of sugar you eat until you can eventually go without it, unfortunately, just won't work for most of us. As long as the taste of sugar lingers on our lips, we will crave it.

Fill the Black Hole

"Nature abhors a vacuum." -Aristotle

In other words, empty spaces become filled very quickly. Don't replace your sugar habit with something just as bad or worse.

Here are a few unusual foods that will not only help you stop craving sugar, but will inevitably replace your sugar cravings:

1. Kombucha-an old, traditional Russian beverage. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn claimed that it cured his stomach cancer while in Soviet prison camps. Click here for a simple recipe.  
2. Sauerkraut- cultured cabbage. Sailors carried sauerkraut with them on voyages to cure scurvy.
3. Beet kvass- an Eastern European drink made of cultured beets. It purifies the blood.  
4. Pickles-cultured cucumbers. A quick and easy, salty snack. Must be prepared in the old tradition of fermentation to receive the health benefits. 
5. Kefir- literally translates from Turkish as "feel good". It's a cultured milk product that is thought to date back to the pre-biblical era and is even considered by some to be manna. Today, it's still considered a super-food. Best if made from raw milk. Jordan Rubin contributes his recovery from Crohn's Disease to drinking nearly 2 quarts of kefir per day. 

The healthy bacteria in these fermented foods and drinks combat the bad bacteria in your gut that are causing you to crave more and more sugar. 

Break the hand-to-mouth reaction

"It's not stress that kills us, it is our reaction to it." -Hans Selye

Remember, sugar does not cure stress, it begets it. Find REAL ways to cope with stress such as:

1. Bikram Yoga- we hold most of our tension and stress in our shoulders and backs. Bikram Yoga's 26 posture series stretches and contracts the spine every other posture to release tension and toxins that build up in our spine and back muscles. The hot room sweats those toxins out.
2. Laughing- there's nothing more stressful than having a million things to do and no time to do them. For those of you on a limited time-budget try laughing once in awhile. Norman Cousins is a man who laughed himself back to health with a 1 in 500 chance of survival. Watching funny movies was one big contribution to his recovery.   
3. Walking barefoot in the grass- studies indicate that the process of grounding, standing barefoot in the grass or sand, for 20 minutes has a great impact on relieving stress. Don't have time to take a walk? Purchase a grounding mat for your home or office here. 

Do these suggestions seem realistic? Please comment below.

Read my next blog on How to Politely Refuse Sugar in Public.