How can I control my sugar cravings?

Thanks Dan,
I start the day with a

8am - bowl of muesli 42g
10.30- banana small
12:30 - protein shake and rice cakes and a fruit salad
3/4pm crash and eat sweets easily whole large packet of haribo
6:30 - spin class or run
8:00pm - chicken salad or lean meat I.e steak

Hi Tinkie,
There's now some evidence that people naturally become sleepy in the early afternoon. Often when we're tired, we reach for foods that are high in sugar to give our bodies the energy we need. In fact, it's been shown that people who get less than about 6 hours of sleep a night are more likely to be overweight or obese, and it's probably because they're tired from not sleeping and are eating high calorie, sugary foods to compensate for their lack of energy.

So what you're feeling might just be a part of your normal physiology. That being said, try to consider your habits during the day to see if you can identify anything that might be making you tired. For example, are you getting enough sleep? Are you working under very stressful conditions? I'm not a dietitian, so evaluating your diet in detail is outside of my scope of practice, but it looks like your eating habits are pretty balanced and healthy. My suggestion is to try getting up from your desk; go outside for a “sunshine break” and take a quick brisk walk, or walk from one end of the office to another, go visit a coworker, climb some stairs. If leaving your desk isn’t an option, bring in some small dumbbells, and do maybe 5 minutes of weight lifting – one set of 10 reps of a couple of exercises (i.e. bicep curls, calf raises, leg extensions in your chair can all be done pretty discretely at your desk) should be plenty to perk you up and you’ll be expending calories rather than consuming them.

Remember: you need to expend energy to gain energy!

Thanks for your advice fairly active as I'm a teacher, how would y

How would you suggest over coming sugar cravings?? I always get me sleep 7 hours a night maybe I need more but no time. Thanks for all your help this site is fantastic!!

Hi Tinkie

The glaring thing for me is that you don't have any significant protein at your first meal. Ensure that you have a protein shake or eggs (or some other high-quality protein source) first thing just before your Muesli. Some people mix up a shake and pour it on their cereal instead of milk. This omits the excess carbs and fat from the milk and gives you a much higher dose of protein.

The other thing you could improve is exchanging the rice cakes (which are very high GI) with oat biscuits, an apple or some other high-fibre carb. Rice cakes are very low in calories so shouldn't have any major effects on hunger but if you eat enough of them, they could do.

A good plan would be to have a healthy, high-protein snack at 2:30 before you get your sugar craving and therefore avoid the craving in the first place. Protein is research-proven to decrease appetite more than other foods.

when I craves sugar, especially all the cookies, donuts and brownies around the office , I grab a cup coffee and add some stevia , non dairy powder and walk away from the breakroom
Also, this may sounds weird, but smelling the cookies, decreases my cravings