Crush Sugar Cravings With These 6 Tips

Do you feel chained to sugar and its ill effects? If you eat sugar every day or excessively, and you want to reduce your sugar intake to promote better health, stop the bloating and fatigue, along with shifting your body into a fat burning mode (as opposed to a fat storing mode), you are ready to win the battle against the sweet stuff.

Implement These Six Tips to Achieve Sugar Freedom:

    1. Use the Sugar Freedom Trifecta Plate

We all need guidelines to ensure success and the Sugar Freedom Trifecta Plate is going to help you. The best part? You are going to be adding to your plate, not taking away. You will be adding delicious healthy fats, clean lean protein and healthy fiber.

Adding these three food groups (the trifecta) will help prevent up and down blood sugar swings that happen quickly with the wrong foods.

Foods such as: sugar, excess carbohydrates, white flour products, chips, processed junk foods, which all send your blood sugar crashing. What do you do when your blood sugar plummets? You go in search for that candy bar to bring your blood sugar back up as the body always needs to maintain balance. This is a key component of the sugar addiction cycle.

Every plate should have protein, fat and fiber – the Sugar Freedom Trifecta. Add in healthy proteins such chicken, wild fish, whole eggs, and grass fed beef or lamb. [Ratliff, J., Leite, J. O., de Ogburn, R., Puglisi, M. J., VanHeest, J., & Fernandez, M. L. (2010).

Consuming eggs for breakfast influences plasma glucose and ghrelin, while reducing energy intake during the next 24 hours in adult men. Nutrition Research, 30(2), 96-103.]

Add in those healthy fats like nuts and seeds, creamy avocados and coconut.

Then add the fiber! Avocado is an excellent choice, as you not only get the great healthy fat, but the high fiber as well. All varieties of veggies are a key fiber choice and especially leafy greens, along with chia seeds and nuts as well.

    2. Engage in Interval Training

Interval training is a form of exercise that is done in short bursts and effectively triggers an endorphin and dopamine response; exactly what sugar does, however, sugar’s lasting effects promote inflammatory health conditions, including weight gain down the road.

Exercise in general promotes the ‘happiness’ neurotransmitter, serotonin. When you have plenty of serotonin, you are less likely to have cravings for sweets. However, Interval training or burst training has many benefits compared to traditional longer cardio. [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23835594]

This quick and efficient form of exercise helps to boost metabolism for over 24 hours and takes just minutes! It helps to use up those fat-storing enzymes such as lipoprotein lipase (LPL) that essentially locks the door of our fat cells – think fat storage. Use interval training with any form of exercise such as walking, running, biking, elliptical trainer, your own body weight such as in the image below and more.

Here is a basic Interval Training example:

Go as fast as you can for 30 seconds, go back to a slow to moderate pace for 90 seconds. Repeat 8 times. That’s It!

   3.  Eat Something Sour

Eating anything sour such as lemon juice or apple cider vinegar can help quash sugar cravings by taking your sweet tooth away. Lemons in particular, help prevent fluctuations in blood sugar levels. One major benefit is the citric acid in lemon helps slow the conversion of carbohydrates to sugar. Lemons also contain the soluble fiber pectin that forms a gel in the stomach preventing hunger and cravings.

4. Add Supplements

Adding in specific supplements will powerfully reduce sugar cravings without relying on will power alone. This is that one time (with physician’s approval) if you are going to take supplements, will make a robust difference. The correct supplements make the whole process of crushing sugar cravings so much easier!

Here are my top 3 recommended Sugar Freedom supplements:

L-Glutamine (500 mg. twice daily) This amino acid will stop sugar cravings in their tracks.

Chromium Picolinate (400-600 mcg daily). Chromium picolinate will balance blood sugar kicking sugar cravings to the curb within three days in most cases.

Alpha Lipoic Acid (250 mg. daily). This supplement will help stabilize blood sugar levels, so you don’t get the munchies or get hungry a few hours after eating,

    5.  Reduce Stress

So many people are stressed with work, family and other obligations. They reach for food to soothe frazzled, anxious nerves. When you are stressed, you raise the stress hormone cortisol that lowers the feel-good neurotransmitters dopamine and serotonin and that is going to send you right to the carbohydrates and sweets. The hormone cortisol is also a fat storage hormone – especially inflammatory belly fat.

The key takeaway here is to practice stress reduction every day.

To effectively combat stress, we need to activate the body’s natural relaxation response.

Examples include: deep breathing (such as the 4-7-8 Technique below), a warm bath with lavender essential oil, massage, yoga, meditation or guided mediation [Schulte, Brigid. “Harvard Neuroscientist: Meditation Not Only Reduces Stress, Here’s How It Changes Your Brain.” Washington Post]. specifically for stress reduction, or the #1 stress reduction technique: exercise.

We need to get moving to manage stress. Exercise is important in every facet of our health and will help to boost your feel-good endorphins making you more resilient to sugar cravings.

6.    Get Crucial Sleep

Do you know what happens when we lose just one night of quality sleep? We become more insulin resistant, the ‘feel-good’ neurotransmitter serotonin is lowered, the stress hormone (belly fat hormone) cortisol is raised and after just one night of poor sleep, you are also left hungrier the next day … and it’s not for broccoli, but for high carbohydrate, sugar-laden foods.

Once you get started on that cycle of using carbs such as sugar to increase energy, it will wreak havoc with your weight and health. [“New Pathways From Short Sleep to Obesity? Associations Between Short Sleep and ‘Secondary’ Eating and Drinking Behavior” by Gabriel S. Tajeu, DrPH, MPH; and Bisakha Sen, PhD in American Journal of Health Promotion.]

Make time for sleep. Incorporate 7-8 hours of quality sleep each night. If you have trouble falling asleep or wake up during the night, use this highly effective breathing 4-7-8 technique that can put you back to sleep right away:

Breath in through your nose for 4 seconds, hold for 7 seconds and exhale for 8 seconds. Repeat 6 times or as often as needed. This will make a powerful difference in reducing your sugar cravings.

These six tips have been shown to help crush even the most powerful sugar cravings. Follow them and you will begin to feel vibrant health and leaner in no time.

References

Lawler, David. “America’s Sugar Addiction: Just How Bad Is It?” The Telegraph.

Locker, Melissa. “Oreos May Be As Addictive As Cocaine.” Time.

Schulte, Brigid. “Harvard Neuroscientist: Meditation Not Only Reduces Stress, Here’s How It Changes Your Brain.” Washington Post.

This Woman Proves That Weight Loss Takes Time and That's Totally OK

Forget the fad diets, weight-loss pills, or seemingly magical success stories. Real weight loss takes time, and Lindsey Newman shows us that it's time well spent.

By Lindsey Newman as told to Charlotte Hilton Andersen | Sep 16, 2016

Topics: 

I love running at night. I first started doing it in high school, and nothing has ever made me feel so free and powerful. At the beginning, it came pretty naturally to me. As a kid, I excelled at sports that required footwork—running, soccer, and dancing was my favorite ways to move. But despite being so active, there was one thing that didn't come very easily for me: my weight. I never had what some would call a "runner's body," and even as a teen, I struggled with the scale. I was short, stocky, and painfully self-conscious.

I was on the track team, and practice was making my knees ache, so one day I visited the school trainer for help. She told my knee problems would be solved if I just lost 15 pounds. Little did she know, I was already living on a starvation diet of 500 calories a day just to maintain my weight. Mortified and discouraged, I quit the team the next day.

That was the end of my joyous night runs. To make matters worse, shortly after I graduated from high school, my mother died from cancer. I shoved my running shoes into the back of my closet, and that was the end of my runs altogether.

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It wasn't until 2011 when I got married and had children of my own that I started thinking about running again. The difference, this time, was that it had nothing to do with a number on the scale and everything to do with being healthy so that I could watch my kids grow up. There was also the part of me who remembered the freedom and power that came from a strong body, and who wanted to prove to myself that I could do it—again.

The only problem: I was a size 22 and not exactly in peak running condition. But I wasn't going to let my weight hold me back from doing something I loved. So I bought a pair of running shoes, laced them up, and headed out the door.

Running when you're heavier isn't easy. I got heel spurs and shin splints. My old knee pain came right back, but instead of quitting, I'd take a quick rest and get back out there. Whether it was just a couple of steps or a couple of miles, I ran every night at sunset, Monday through Friday. Running became more than just a workout, it became my "me time". 
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As soon as the music was on and my feet took off, I had time to reflect, to think, and to recharge. I started to feel once again the freedom that comes from running, and I realized how much I'd missed it.

Let me be clear, though: Getting healthy was NOT a quick process. It didn't happen overnight or within a month of two. I focused on small goals; one at a time. Each day I went a little farther, and then I got a little faster. 

I took the time to research the best shoes for my feet, learn the correct way to stretch, and get educated on proper running form. All my dedication paid off as eventually one mile turned into two, two turned into three, and then roughly a year later, I ran 10 miles. I still remember that day; I cried because it had been 15 years since I'd run that far.

Once I'd reached that milestone, I realized that I could accomplish goals I set for myself and started looking for a bigger challenge. That week I decided to sign up for the MORE/SHAPE Women's Half-Marathon in New York City.  By then, I had lost 50 pounds on my own just from running, but I knew I needed to mix it up if I wanted to continue to see progress. So I braved a long-standing fear and also joined a coed gym. (Even if you've never run a day in your life, you can cross that finish line. 

I was unsure what I would enjoy besides running, so I tried everything—boot camp, TRX, and spinning (all of which I still love and do regularly), but not everything was a win. I learned I'm not cut out for Zumba, I giggle too much during yoga, and while I enjoyed boxing, I forgot I'm not Muhammad Ali and herniated two discs, which handed me three painful months of physical therapy. The biggest missing piece of my health puzzle, though? Weight training. I hired a trainer who taught me the basics of lifting weights. Now I weight train five days a week, which makes me feel strong and powerful in a whole new way.

It wasn't until I ran a Spartan Super race this past summer with my husband that I realized how far I've really come in my journey to lose weight, get healthy, and just be a better version of me. Not only did I finish the grueling 8.5-mile obstacle race, but I came in 38th in my group, out of more than 4,000 racers!

None of this was easy and none of it happened fast—it has been four years since the day I first put my running shoes back on—but I wouldn't change a thing. Now when people ask how I went from a size 22 to a size 6, I tell them I did it one step at a time. But for me it's not about a clothing size or what I look like, it's about what I can do.

                                                                                                                                                                           source: http://tiny.cc/MotivatedWomen

THIS CUCUMBER DIET WILL HELP YOU LOSE 15 POUNDS IN 3-4 WEEKs

The cucumber is a healthy vegetable. It’s rich in water, fiber, magnesium, zinc, calcium, as well as vitamins B, C, and E. It also has potent detoxifying properties.

Consuming cucumbers on a regular basis is a great way to clear your body of toxins. It promotes metabolism besides cleaning the digestive and intestinal tract. It is a potent diuretic since it gets rid of excess water from the body.

Cucumbers are mostly used in detox diets as well to treat skin issues. Nonetheless, they are also great for weight loss. They can help you lose weight fast.

HERE’S A SIMPLE CUCUMBER DIET THAT WILL HELP YOU SHED 15 POUNDS IN ONLY for 3-4 WEEKs:

§  Breakfast: Two hard-boiled eggs and a bowl of cucumber salad.

§  Snack: An apple or peach and five plums

§  Lunch: A bowl of cucumber salad and a piece of toast

§  Snack: Cucumber shake

§  Dinner: 300 grams of your preferred fruit

   

HOW TO MAKE CUCUMBER SALAD

§  200 ml yogurt or sour milk

§  400 grams of cucumbers

§  Onion

§  Pinch of salt

Peel your cucumbers before chopping them into slices. Add salt and mix well. Then, add your onion and sour milk. Mix gently.

HOW TO PREPARE CUCUMBER SHAKE

§  One cucumber

§  A handful of spinach

§  One apple

Blend the ingredients together to get a homogenous mixture. You should consume it fresh.

Use this diet and you’ll lose 15 pounds in just less than a month!

                                                                                                                                        source: Cucumber Diet

One Powerful Simple Action Will Double Your Weight Loss

 What if I told you there was one simple action that would increase your weight loss, was easy to do, has no side-effects and costs nothing..would you do it?  Of course, you would.  The action I am referring to is accountability.  This particular form of accountability – ‘food tracking’ research shows, results in double the weight loss and much quicker. 

Food tracking helps in providing objective information on food intake, portion sizes and patterns. It gives you a quick glance into what actions you are taking or are not making and clearly lets you know what changes need to happen.

A very typical surprise when tracking food/drink intake is that we really misjudge our food intake. Misjudging serving sizes and how much one eats, is one of the most common mistakes people make when evaluating their eating habits. 

Research shows that people UNDERestimate how much grains, fats, oils and sweets they eat, and OVERestimate their intake of veggies and other healthful foods.

There are different types of accountability and adding at least one or all of them, will take you to success. However, finding one that is a good match is important. Start out with the one you believe you will maintain on a consistent basis. Below is a sampling of the different forms of accountability available to choose from.

Various types of Accountability

Keep a Food Journal.  A food journal is the #1 accountability tool to weight loss success. Research shows that simply “tracking” every bite and sip doubles weight loss. It is crucial to writing down everything (every nibble too) that crosses your lips as we tend to underestimate the amount, the size and how often we eat.

Have a Diet BFF.  

Having a weight loss buddy not only reinforces accountability but also provides positive motivation to stay on track. Buddying-up can make the difference between failure and success with any weight loss plan. Many people put effort into finding the right weight loss or fitness program but neglect the necessary success components of support and accountability.

Keep a Fitness Log.  

Exercise is an important element to weight loss and optimal health. By maintaining a fitness log and only marking an “X” on the day you workout is highly rewarding and motivating. You can also add in what type of cardio and/or strength training. At the end of the week, you can see how successfully active you have been.

Use Your Smartphone.  

Apps provide an excellent opportunity to have virtual accountability in many areas such as fitness, water intake, weight loss, calorie counting and much more. Apps such as Lose It!, Snap it or My Fitness Pal, to name a few.

Enlist a Weight Loss Coach.  

A weight loss coach has an expertise and will help you stay accountable and succeed. Knowing that you have to be accountable to your coach means that you will, in most cases, do your best and if you have any obstacles, they will be overcome. For example, if you had a video crew following you 24/7, you would most likely do what you are supposed to do. The same applies to having a coach – you will do what you need to do; ambitious goals become achievable, and the process becomes much more rewarding, fulfilling and fun.

Learning to rely less on an external accountability system and more on an internal one is a crucial step = a mindset shift that will carry through to weight loss success.

                                                                                                                                                               source: OneSimpleStep

What The Biggest Loser Study Means For The Everyday Dieter

We seem to be on a never-ending quest to conquer weight loss and find a way to maintain that weight loss for the long-term. The journal Obesity recently published a study looking at long-term weight maintenance and metabolic changes in 14 Biggest Loser participants and found that most of the participants regained a significant portion of the weight they lost.

Six years after the competition, 5 of the 14 study participants were within 1% or heavier than their pre-competition weight. Of equal importance is the fact that participants had significant declines in metabolism after the competition. Additionally, participant’s leptin levels, a hormone responsible for letting you know you’ve eaten enough, were below baseline after the contest, and never returned to normal. Essentially their bodies were fighting them to gain the weight back because of their reduced metabolism and increased hunger. This left many everyday dieters with a “what’s the point of trying?” attitude.

Sure, the study points out a lot of concerning issues, but let’s consider some of the positive things we can still do for our health and weight management. We have long said that dieting is what makes people gain weight. Dieting essentially triggers a survival response in your body because it interprets a diet as a decline in food availability. It doesn’t know you’ve withheld food on purpose. To survive, after going through a food shortage, the body overreacts with increased hunger and ability to deposit fat so it can gain back what it has lost, and sometimes more, in order to prepare for the next food shortage, or diet in this case.

If diets make us gain weight, then what should we be doing?

Focus On Sustainable Changes

Our approach to weight management has always been this – if you can’t do it for life, don’t do it to lose. Even if your metabolism does slow a little, by selecting methods of weight loss that you can stick with, you already have sustainable actions in place that will keep up with any metabolic changes. This clearly wasn’t the case for those Biggest Loser participants as We are sure having personal trainers and chefs by their side wasn’t sustainable once the show was over. I personally have lost about 20 pounds and have maintained the loss for over 10 years. However, I didn’t set out to lose weight. I focused on eating to be healthy and reversing my prediabetes. Additionally, I worked on improving my relationship with food as I used to be a chronic dieter and stress binge eater.

Basic Common Sense Nutrition

This really goes a long way. We have over-complicated healthy eating in our quest for the “perfect diet”. I like to strip things down to basics. Try to get a variety of food groups at each meal with an emphasis on protein, healthy fats like nuts/seeds, avocado and olive oil, and fiber from fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. Don’t over-analyze your points, macros, calories, or whatever people are counting these days. To keep your portions in check, try to start eating before you are too hungry and stop before you are full. It’s okay to fit in fun foods too. Bottom line: 

Don’t over-complicate healthy eating; you’re not perfect and your diet doesn’t have to be either. Let it be easy. If you need additional coaching or support, reach out to a professional; the right one can help make the process easier.

Focus On Your Mindset

As a mindful eating coach and someone who used to have a terrible relationship with food and my figure, We know this is huge. When your mindset is “today I’m dieting so I must (fill in the blank)”, and a few days later you find yourself saying “I’m so over it today, I just don’t care, I’ll start over Monday”, then it’s time to start focusing on your relationship with food. 
Going back to finding sustainable changes, even if you find healthy recipes and a fitness routine you like, your efforts can be sabotaged by stress, boredom, or celebration eating. 

Then we end up in a cycle of eating, repent, repeat. Often when we are in our recent stage we are “too good”, which leaves our body feeling deprived and primed for another over-indulgence. Once you remove guilt from eating, recognise that you need to eat balanced, adequate meals throughout the day and most importantly, slow down to enjoy whatever you are eating. That’s when things become a lot easier.

Try to fully embrace the motto: “Eat right and exercise because you love your body, not because you hate it”. Once I accepted myself at my current weight, stopped actively trying to lose weight, and began focusing on my health and loving myself unconditionally, I eventually lost 20 pounds over a 2-year period. If I had still been focusing on losing, I think I would have continued to get discouraged, self-sabotage, and probably ended up gaining more weight, since dieting is what made me gain weight in the first place.

Be Realistic But Don’t Give Up

While a 100-pound sustained weight loss for someone who is morbidly obese may be possible, that goal also puts a lot of pressure on someone. Often times, when we put too much pressure on ourselves, especially if it’s something we have struggled with for years, we will subconsciously self-sabotage. Accepting yourself as you are and just making healthy choices you can feel good about will help take the pressure off. Even if you never lose as much weight as you’d like, you will feel better and be healthier because of your consistent actions. In my book, a consistently balanced but not perfect diet trumps a perfect diet that you can only follow some of the time.

The Fitness Factor

The study commented on the participants’ increase in appetite from low leptin levels as well as slower metabolic rates. I read the study top to bottom and didn’t see a mention of it, or what type of exercise the participants did in the 6 years following the show. Even without this information, I do know that regardless what your resting metabolic rate is, if you move more you will burn more calories. Exercise is a great way to burn more but so is just moving more throughout the day. If you have a sit-down job try to get up and move (stretch, take the stairs, walk, do lunges, etc.) at least 5 minutes out of every hour you are sitting. I do this myself, not with the intention of losing weight, but rather because I know it is good for my physical and mental health.

Value Sleep And Stress Reduction

Sleep and stress are two of the biggest weight and health factors that often get ignored. Poor sleep habits and high stress not only lead to poor health outcomes, they also lead to weight gain. Not to mention, most people don’t feel their best when they are sleep deprived and stressed. In many cases, I find it more important to start with improving sleep and stress management than to work on diet and exercise. If you are struggling with making the changes on your own, consider working with a dietitian-nutritionist or coach who focuses on behaviour change.

The bottom line – an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. In other words, focusing on being healthy and developing a positive relationship with your figure from the beginning, will make it much easier to avoid excessive weight gain because you won’t be fighting against your body’s own survival defenses like a drop in metabolism or altered satiety hormones that can result from dieting and weight loss. Shift the focus of food from weight to health and remember – it’s important to take the time to enjoy eating.

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Final thoughts - As a society, we really need to shift our prejudices towards people who are overweight or obese. 
We can say first-hand that many people aren’t overweight or obese from a lack of trying, but possibly from trying too hard and ending up in the diet cycle of deprivation, followed by the body’s survival mechanisms kicking into overcompensate for the deprivation. 

Start by focusing on self-love and doing healthy things for yourself because you love yourself and your body deserves to be fed healthy food.

Each of us can make "Life Good 365 Days" - LG365, that`s why we are here!

Hope you enjoy the article:)

                                                                                                                                          source:WeightControl