How can I stop my sweet craving?

A craving for food comes in all shapes, sizes and tastes   

At the extreme end, a pregnant woman can have an intense desire for a specific food (and non-food!) that makes you wonder of all the choices readily available, why crave that?  Yes, I know it’s subjective.  One person’s beef is another person’s meat and all that, but few of us are surprised to hear that cravings for sweet food is indeed common, and that the menstrual cycle is one of the factors linked to this.
 
A couple of years ago, a small study in Poland found that women wanted to eat more and had stronger cravings for the sweet stuff during the luteal phase of their cycle – this is the two weeks between ovulation and the next period.  And way back in 1994 a really small study of 25 women, most of whom were healthy weight, found that food cravings for different types of foods increased in pre-menstrual days and 49% of their cravings were for chocolate and chocolate-containing foods.

... There’s that something about the feel and taste of chocolate that makes it irrisistible, isn’t there?!

Is it just about your hormones?

Men also crave foods, including the sweet stuff, so an intense desire for a food is not just about hormones.  Importantly, for those who are cutting back on what they eat to lose weight, food cravings do not seem to be linked to dietary restraint – not having your cake doesn’t make it more likely that you want to eat it!
 
Can I do anything to stop sweet cravings?
 
When it’s related to the menstrual cycle, it might help to add starchy carbohydrate snacks into the eating plan, if not being done already.  The aim is to keep your blood sugar levels fairly stable through the time when metabolism may slightly increase during the cycle and the body subsequently uses up calories slightly more quickly.  
 
A small starchy carb snack (80-1oo calories), such as a Ryvita slice with an ounce (~30g) of light cheese spread, provides the glucose to keep blood glucose steady between meals and possibly reduce the craving for something sweet that you then overeat at a cost of lot more calories?  A slice of ham or vegan ham-style topping on a slice of Ryvita is another option for that 80-100 calorie snack.
 
But my sweet craving surfaces at any time of the month
 
Again, keeping blood sugar stable between meals is the aim.  And you can do this by including starchy carbohydrate with each meal and keeping the glycaemic load (GL) of the meal low, which means a slower rise and fall in blood glucose between meals.  A stable blood sugar may be less likely to trigger a craving for something sweet. When people start a plan for weight loss they may cut-back on carbs a tad too far. Btw, carbs don't make you put on weight - see the blog Do carbs make you gain weight?

Choose starchy carbs that themselves have a low GL, such as oats, branflakes, wholemeal bread, wholemeal pitta and brown rice.  Adding a protein food, such as egg, chicken, fish, pulses, Quorn, soya protein, meat, to the meal further slows down the rise and fall of blood glucose low GL carbs, thereby helping keeping blood sugar stable betwen meals
 
Give it a try and let us know if it does or doesn’t work for you …
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Tony Hirving
Dietitian