Our emotions can affect our eating habits. Anger, disappointment, sadness, and sometimes even happiness can be the cause of sweet cravings. So, what can we do when we have a sweet tooth? As your best friend ‘High Heels’, we offer 9 healthy solutions to your sweet tooth.
First of all, it is useful to keep this rule in mind: Dessert is not a need, but a want. In other words, sweets are not necessary to continue the body’s vital functions. It is a food that we want to consume only according to our pleasure. As in everything, balance and awareness are important when it comes to sweet consumption.
Why have a sweet tooth?
The real reason why eating sweets turns into a crisis is not because we love sweets or because they are delicious. Research conducted; It mentions many factors that cause sweet cravings, such as malnutrition, hormonal and psychological conditions, and various diseases.
Actually, what is the effect of dessert on us?
Simple carbohydrates and processed foods with a high glycemic index, such as white flour and bakery products made from white flour, sugar, desserts and rice, cause blood sugar to rise rapidly. In response, the mechanisms in the body quickly reduce the rising blood sugar. This causes strong hunger and sweet cravings.
What are the ways to prevent the sweet tooth?
Stay away from strict very low-calorie diets and long-term fasting. Take care to feed at intervals of 4-5 hours.
Instead of eating fresh and dried fruits alone, be sure to add dairy products such as milk, ayran, kefir, yoghurt or healthy oils such as raw almonds, hazelnuts and walnuts.
Instead of simple carbohydrates, which have a high glycemic index and raise blood sugar quickly, choose complex carbohydrates such as bulgur, buckwheat, whole grain foods and legumes.
Increase your daily fiber intake. Foods with high fiber content delay gastric emptying, allowing you to stay full for longer during the day and keep your blood sugar more balanced.
Add probiotic foods such as kefir, yoghurt and tarhana to your diet.
Use plenty of spices in meals. Especially make room for cinnamon in your kitchen.
Drink plenty of water.
Make sure you get enough and quality sleep and stay away from stress.
Increase serotonin secretion by exercising regularly.
What are the harms of excessive sweet consumption?
Likewise, very strict diets, very low-calorie nutrition and staying hungry for very long hours also cause blood sugar to drop during the day and increase the desire for sweets. In addition, lack of minerals such as iron, chromium and magnesium, which develop due to some diseases or malnutrition, are among the factors that cause sweet cravings to occur more frequently.
During menopause and pre-menstrual periods, sweet cravings are most common due to the decrease in estrogen hormone. In addition, emotional situations, intense stress and depression can also lead to sweet cravings.