Anyone else struggling with chocolate?

Spirogyra

Hi I'm struggling really badly with sugar and sweet things in general,but especially chocolate. Seems to be the default setting to have chocolate every day, or toffee, or something sweet and not sure how to deal with it. Had blood tests a few months ago and while not very high, my blood sugar levels were higher than desirable. I'm extremely fit with a good figure but am worried about type 2 diabetes in the decade ahead if I do nothing. Kids expect chocolate, my mother expects it when I visits, so not easy.

Anyone else struggling and how did they deal with it?

Advice appreciated

Thanks

S

Slydice

Yep, absolutely crave sugar. Usually through chocolate or ice cream. If it gets beyond baring, I go out and get some and binge too :-/

Try to offset by having loads of fruit (apples/pears/bananas) around. There's sugar in fruit so I hope that helps. Also have honey which has sugar. Still though I have a bunch of chocolate each week. I try to help limit it by having 85% or 90% dark chocolate around to easily get to. That way I'm trying to avoid going on one of the binges.

Dunno if I'm fooling myself there though :-/

grimm2005

I have a terrible sweet tooth and like yourself, used to be in a position where I'd generally always have something sweet everyday. As others have said here on occasion, if you can go cold turkey for a week or two, the cravings will almost completely stop.

Getting through those couple of weeks can be pretty hard, and I've failed at it a fair few times but luckily I'm off the crap now. Cravings will pop up every now and then but as Slydice mentioned a good high percentage chocolate bar can give you that little hit to squash the cravings again, without setting off the bad habits and putting you back to square one, as they have far less sugar and can actually have health benefits in limited amounts. I usually keep a bar of 85% chocolate in the fridge that I can break a couple of squares off of.

Some people have cheat days once a week where they'll eat whatever they want but personally I can't do that as it would slowly send me back into the bad habits again. So as hard as it is, the only thing that worked (for me anyway), was just to cut it all out of my diet.

Sam Mac

I'm the same, I tend to binge on junk food when I need a suger hit. My diet is not great really. Another item that I seem to be addicted to is pre-packaged fruit juice and smoothies (both from concentrate and not from concentrate - still sugar though!). My teeth have become more sensitive because of this and the fillings are going to cost me a fortune in the long run.

I know it is slowly but surely making me overweight, or even worse, the possibility of getting diabetes.

I plan to go cold turkey for the next fortnight, and only eat fruits if I feel the need for sugar. We'll see how it goes.

Wish me luck!

conzy

stop buying it. eat more real food so you are not hungry

Alf Veedersane

I appreciate the difficulty but if you keep giving it to the kids, they'll continue to expect it. Make it a weekly treat and not a daily one. Your mother doesn't need you to buy it for her if she wants it.

So do yourself and your kids a favour and don't have it in the house.

Everyone wins.

Zillah

conzy wrote: »

stop buying it. eat more real food so you are not hungry

Both of these are good. Stop keeping them in the house, because willpower is great and all but avoiding temptation is much more effective. It's one thing to say that the cravings got the better of you, but if you're buying them ahead of time then you're planning to fail. The kids expect them? Boo hoo, they'll get over it, just stop keeping junk in the kitchen. It shouldn't be a part of their daily lives.

Also yeah, if you're still hungry then having a second portion of a healthy dinner is much better than having lots of sugar.

househero

I wasn't allowed much chocolate as a child, it was a treat and it still is.

If you want your kids to grow up with a healthy attitude to choc/sugar its behaviour as s child that they will always revert to.

Freeze your chocolate. It last longer.