Say goodbye to sugar cravings

When 2014 had begun, the familiar question emerged like it does every year. “Do you have any New Year’s resolutions?”, my friends, family and colleagues asked. Normally I am not one to adopt New Year’s resolutions as I do not believe in them; why start new habits or break through old ones from the 1st of January on? Why not in May, or in October? If you really want to change something, it shouldn’t matter what date it is. Start now! Anyways, I did start a new habit, and it happened to be the 3rd of January when I did so. Some might say that it is my New Year’s resolution; I prefer to think of it as a healthy new habit instead.

I have been looking for easy ways to live healthier, but I really couldn’t (and still can’t) easily choose an apple over a cupcake. And to be honest, I don’t really want to. I am not trying to lose weight, I simply want to live a bit healthier. So I started studying my habits to see what was relatively easy to change. Turns out it was staring me right in the face all the time: water! At breakfast, lunch, dinner, and countless times in between, I was drinking juice. Orange juice, apple juice, pear juice, pineapple juice, pomegrenate juice; name it and I’ve drunk it. It’s safe to say that I am a sugar addict. Or well, I was one.

Recently I saw an experiment on TV, arguing that our cravings for sugar are merely an illusion. People could smell and look at candy or chocolate, but they were not allowed to actually eat it (sounded like torture to me).  Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not sniffing at a glass of juice now every day, but it did get me thinking: do I really need all this sugar? There were moments in which I was absolutely convinced that I needed to eat a chocolate bar, a piece of candy, or just generally something that contained sugar, because I felt that my “bloodsugar was low”. Yeah, right, nicely fooled yourself there girl!

Sooo?

You’re probably wondering about results. Well, ever since I started drinking water instead of juice, the cravings have dropped immensely. Since sugar makes you crave more sugar, it’s no wonder that I have less cravings - one glass contains about five sugar cubes (Sugarstacks.com). Imagine that: I was eating at least 20 sugar cubes a day. Now, several weeks later, I feel healthier and the immense cravings for sugar have dropped to a new low, although I have always been and will always be a sweet tooth. But the purpose was not to deny myself some of those (guilty) pleasures, it was to lower the amount of sugar I take in through juices. A nice side effect is that I don’t crave sugar that much anymore. So all in all, I would say: mission accomplished! Sugar cravings, fuck off!

Did you have any New Year’s resolutions, or healthy new habits for 2014?