Controlling Those Sweet Cravings While Dieting

One of the hardest parts of any diet is having to give up desserts and sweets. We all know that those foods are high in calories and do not normally contain many nutritious ingredients. But the problem is—they taste good and that makes them enjoyable to eat.

There are ways that you can control your ‘sweet tooth’ however. The following are some tips that might help you:

1. When you get a craving for sweets, eat fruit instead. Most fruits taste sweet and are definitely healthier and lower in calories that the normal sweet desserts that you crave. Eating a fruit can give you the sweet taste you want without adding a lot of the other calories and carbohydrates that can be detrimental to your diet.
2. If you are too tempted by that sweet dessert and you simply must have it, have only a nibble or a bite or two. Just that little bit may satisfy your craving without adding too many calories to your diet. And you won’t feel so deprived either, which may enable you to continue to diet successfully.
3. Brush your teeth after dinner instead of having a dessert. You can’t deny that toothpaste tastes sweet. The minty flavor and fresh feeling in your mouth can satisfy your sweet craving.
4. Use vanilla-scented lip balm. This can give you a hint of vanilla flavor that can help stop a sweet craving.
5. Read your food labels. There are cookies and other products available for dieters that contain few calories or carbohydrates. But you need to be careful and read the food labels to be sure which ones contain the least amounts. And be careful of the suggested serving sizes. Some packages will tell one cookie is a serving, while for others it may be three.
6. Eat any sweet things early in the day so that your body has a chance to burn off those extra calories.
7. Use artificial sweeteners in your coffee or tea, or when baking.
8. Having a artificially sweetened cola or drink instead of having a dessert of baked good can help satisfy a sugar craving.
9. Stay away from sauces and foods that contain high fructose corn syrup—like ketchup. High fructose corn syrup can neutralize the enzyme that tells your brain you are full, so that contributes to all sorts of other cravings and you can have a greater appetite all day.
10. Use your mind to control your cravings. When you are watching T.V. and those ads come up for all the great looking high calorie sweet foods, make your mind focus on what you want to look like instead of the food shown. It is simply a form of ‘mind over matter’. What you tell your brain to do is the most important.

You can have real physical needs for sugar-sweet things, or you can simply have ‘I want’ cravings. Of course the physical cravings are the hardest to overcome, but it can be done. Your body is probably used to having those sweet items, but after a few days of withdrawal you can win out over these cravings. Brace yourself and prepare yourself in how to deal with those cravings and believe that they will get better with each day you are on your diet.

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