If you can’t seem to get through the day without coffee, chocolate, sugar, or processed ‘treat’ foods, every day can feel like a bit of a hamster wheel. If you want to step off – and to crush your cravings for good – you need to address the physical, emotional, habitual and psychological aspects that lead to cravings. If it sounds hard work, it isn’t really. Once you understand roughly how food works in the body, you will be able to stop the physical need for treats, and you can start looking at creating healthier habits around treat foods.
Why can’t I stop the cravings?
Physiologically, your body needs a steady flow of energy throughout the day. When you eat too many foods that turn quickly into sugar (whether it’s sugar or starchy carbohydrates), this creates a blood sugar spike. The body then produces insulin to transport that sugar into your cells to be used for energy and any excess gets stored as fat (hence why insulin is known as the fat storage hormone).
Sometimes insulin can get a little over excited and remove too much of this sugar, which leads to blood sugar levels dropping too quickly, resulting in tiredness, low mood, a drop in concentration – and cravings.
The cravings are nearly always for sugary foods or starchy carbs; anything the body can quickly convert to sugar to get blood sugar levels up again. This constant up and down in blood sugar levels is like riding a rollercoaster, and whilst that might sound like fun, it actually leaves you feeling exhausted, moody, irritable, sensitive to stress, prone to weight gain, and unable to concentrate, not to mention playing havoc with your hormones.
Signs of blood sugar imbalance
All those symptoms you may have been tolerating because you think they’re just a normal part of being in your 40’s, could actually be down to dysregulated blood sugar control. Here are some of the key ones I see in my clients:
- Cravings for sugar or carbs
- Feeling hangry and lightheaded between meals
- Weight gain around the belly
- Energy slumps between meals (3pm cravings for chocolate anyone?)
- Mood swings
- Headaches
- Waking in the early hours around 3am
- Painful periods and PMS
- Frequent thirst or excessive urination (if this is you, do visit your GP to be checked
The impact on hormones
There is a close relationship between our blood sugar and our hormones and it can become a bit of a viscous cycle.
- Too much insulin can increase levels of a protein called sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG). This protein binds to testosterone meaning there is less available for use in the body. This can impact our energy, drive, motivation and libido!
- In perimenopause, women are at risk of becoming more insulin resistant, meaning our cells don’t respond as well when insulin is knocking on their door to get the sugar in. Insulin resistance can increase levels of aromatase, an enzyme which converts testosterone into oestrogen. Again, this can affect testosterone levels if too much is being converted to oestrogen and, at the same time, lead to oestrogen dominance.
- When oestrogen is high in relation to progesterone it can become unopposed and we miss out on the balancing and calming effects of progesterone. Cue symptoms such as PMS, irregular cycles, anxiety and sleep issues.
Long term blood sugar dysregulation can also contribute to conditions such as insulin resistance and diabetes, heart disease, cognitive illness, cancers and the general ageing process. This is why getting control of your blood sugar is so important, beyond just curbing your cravings for treats.
How do you get balance?
Switching to a low-GL (glycaemic load) way of eating based on whole foods like meat, fish, eggs, tofu, nuts, seeds, beans and pulses, vegetables and fruit, with smaller amounts of wholegrain starches like brown rice and wholemeal bread will help enormously.
These foods ensure that your body gets a steady, small supply of glucose to fuel your cells. The result? No blood sugar spikes and crashes. Simply, you feel more energised and on a more even keel.
Along with eating these types of foods in your diet, follow these simple principles:
1. Aim to eat three meals a day and no snacks in between. While your energy levels rebalance themselves, it may be helpful to have a small snack to keep your blood sugar levels balanced but the same principles outlined below still apply. Think of your snack as a mini meal!
2. Aim to eat all your food in at least a 12 hour window (which means waiting 12 hours from your dinner one evening to your breakfast the next morning). This gives your body the chance to process the things you are eating and rest in between, which is important.
3. Eat protein with every meal (meat, fish, eggs, tofu, nuts, seeds, beans and pulses). The protein slows down the speed at which sugars get broken down, stopping a blood sugar spike.
4. Include healthy fats with every meal (olive oil, avocado, nuts, seeds). These also slow the release of sugars and help keep you feeling fuller for longer so reducing cravings.
5. Fill up on non-starchy veg – focus on eating the sort that grow above the ground, such as leafy greens like spinach and kale, salad leaves, broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, garden peas, aubergine, courgette, asparagus, cabbage, peppers, and squash.
6. Eat fewer starchy carbs and switch those you do eat to brown or wholemeal varieties, like wholemeal bread, brown rice, wholemeal pasta and opting for quinoa over cous cous. Carbs are by no means the devil but women do become less able to tolerate carbs as we hit our 40’s and the reality is, we have to move away from the highly refined types that we may have got away with in our 20’s.
That might seem a long way away from where you feel you are right now, and that’s not unusual. When you work on your diet as a whole, your cravings and energy levels will come back into line if you focus on eating real food, always having a source of protein and plenty of veg, and scaling back starchy carbs.
It’s more than just diet
When my clients tell me that they’ve made changes to the way they’re eating and they’re following all the principles above but they’re still feeling tired, moody or struggling to lose weight, I have to remind them that they can eat the perfect diet but if they don’t also need take a closer look at other areas of their life, they may not get the results they’re aiming for.
Stress – if you’re constantly dealing with the relentless micro stressors of everyday life, from the never ending to-do list, overflowing inbox, long work hours, juggling family commitments etc., then your body will be producing a constant supply of cortisol. And what does cortisol do? It raises blood sugar levels so you have the fuel to ‘fight or flee’ and as we’re not using that fuel to run from the sabre tooth tiger, insulin comes along to store it away as fat. If ever there was a time to prioritise self-care, it’s now!
Exercise – moving our body makes us more sensitive to the effects of insulin so when it knocks on the door of our cells they’re more likely to open up and let in the blood sugar. This doesn’t mean you have to be going hard in the gym every day but looking for more opportunities to move your body is so important to reduce the risk of insulin resistance.
Sleep – more and more research is showing an interconnectedness between sleep and blood sugar levels and it may not be a coincidence that the decrease in the average number of hours sleep each night has occurred alongside the rise in obesity and diabetes. Do not underestimate the power of a good night’s sleep!
Balancing your blood sugar is often a good place to start when you’re looking to improve your health. If you would like help with getting your blood sugar under control, do get in touch for a chat about how I can help.
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