During the holiday season, your tummy always asks for something yummy. Your tantalizing taste buds craves all kinds of delicacies. These yummy-tummy dishes also include lots and lots of sweets and sugar. You feast upon them and then you realize, “Oops! I was on a diet!” And you start thinking about ways to avoid your sugar cravings. Even while having tea, you can have super health benefits from this naturally sweet tea.
How many times have you been through this cycle? Is it so hard to stay away from sugar? Well, I will say it is not that difficult to avoid sugar even during the holiday season because it is all in your mind. Let me show you how.
What are Cravings?
To begin with, let us know what attracts us to sugar so much. The sweetness? Not really. It is the craving. According to health professionals, cravings refrain people from having a healthy diet. Many of us have this misconception that craving is something related to your tongue or stomach needs. No. Your brains strictly drive cravings. Your brains crave ‘rewards’ that can include anything that you love.
However, your cravings are mostly associated with your food because it is the easiest way to satisfy. It is not your body’s need for food; it is your mind’s need for a reward.
How to stop them? Cravings are associated with the flow of your emotions. You do not have complete control over what you crave. But, if you are craving sweets, taking one bite and moving on is fine. You are in a pit when you tend to binge on sweets and overeat to suffice your never-ending cravings, and you are putting yourself in health trouble. You need to put an end to it.
Ways to Avoid Sugar
Cravings can be controlled. Health experts believe that a craving combined with hunger is a powerful drive that most id us have a hard time keeping control of. These steps will help you avoid sugar cravings, especially during festivals.
Eat Healthy when Hungry
Firstly, you need to understand that craving is not being hungry. When you are hungry, your body calls for energy, but as mentioned above, when you are craving something, your mind is asking for a reward. To get over this, the best way is to eat healthily. Whenever you get a craving for sugar, eat something healthy. It may not suffice your brain, but it will surely keep your body fit.
You can opt for healthy snack food, pre-cooked meals, or protein-rich foods like meat, eggs, and fish.
Take a Hot Shower
It sounds bizarre, but when you crave sugar, a short hot shower works. Some people who heavily crave sugar have found that hot showers bring instant relief when you are at the peak of your craving. The water should be hot. Not as hot to burn your skin, but hot enough to make you uncomfortable. Stay in that hot water for 5-10 minutes. Health experts believe that hot water makes you feel dazed. It makes your craving do away.
Brisk Walk and Excercise Works
This is again an out-of-the-box solution. According to health experts, walking, running, or indulging yourself in any kind of exercise releases endorphins. These are feel-good chemicals in your brain. These chemicals help you reduce the urge of eating sugar, in turn subsiding your cravings.
Also, walking or exercising helps you burn fat.
Other Ways to Avoid Sugar this Festivity
Though these are the easiest and most effective ways to reduce your intake of sugar this festival, you can also give a try some of these methods. They also help.
Drinking-Water
When you are dehydrated, you need sugar to maintain the energy levels in your body. Drinking more water keeps you away from dehydration and you need not eat foods with sugar content to maintain your energy levels.
Eat a Fruit
The fruit has natural sugars in it. Whenever you want to trick a treat for yourself with sweets this holiday season, eat fruits.
Say No to Artificial Sweeteners
Despite trying everything, if you are still not able to control your cravings for sugar, you can treat yourself with sweets. But eat those sweets that do not have artificial sweeteners in them.
Other routine habits that help you stay away from sugar include:
- Sleep well
- Avoid emotional triggers
- Avoid stress
- Add a good amount of protein to your diet
- Do not starve
Some No-Sugar treats for you this Season
You don’t have to deprive yourself of treats to stay healthy. To stay low on sugar, these are some mouth-watering dishes that you can try to avoid excess sugar this Christmas.
- Sugar-Free Christmas Pudding
- Sugar-Free Cranberry Sauce
- Sugar-Free Mulled Wine
- Chocolate dipped nuts
- Chocolate Almond Apricots
- Sugar-Free Mince pieces
Apart from these, there are other dishes like sugar-free cookies, cakes, etc. which we have in our routine lives to maintain low sugar count in our body. These delicacies are tasty and healthy.
Conclusion
Sugar is good for you, but only if you have it within a certain limit. Festivals are meant to cherish all the lovely food and have fun with your loved ones. So, feast on all the delicious food served during this holiday season, but be careful not to overeat anything. You can anytime try these ten healthy alternatives to Christmas treats.
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