If craving sweet stuff after your evening meal sounds familiar to you, in this episode we’ll explore the reasons why it happens, (some of them maybe surprising), and, what you can start doing differently from today to start switching things up.
I'm sharing such a useful message with permission from one of my clients Louise today. For a bit of background Louise is fairly early in into her “The Other Way” journey, and yet, she really felt that she was making progress. And then boom. An old habit raised its head and her confidence in herself and in what changes she was making came crushing right down.
Here's what she said to me;
“Sarah, uggh! I thought I turned a corner. But I’ve come crashing back down to earth. Last night, I had a lovely Sunday dinner. I was totally full. I didn't need anything else. And then what did I go and do? I opened a packet of biscuits and consumed half of them. And then so much mint, choc chip ice cream that I had stomach ache all night. I felt so full. Why, why, why do I do this to myself?”
Can you resonate? I certainly can.
First of all, it's really important to say that The Other Way, this non diet approach to living at your happy weight is rarely linear. It doesn't go in a straight line. You know, progress will be up and down and back and forth. And that's okay. It really is.
And, with regards to this issue specifically, Louise is far from alone. This is so, so common. So let's dive a little deeper;
First of all reading between the lines of Louise's message, I could hear the frustration with herself. And it's so important that we quit the blame game, drop the expectation of changing overnight. And come from a place of compassion. And if you can't quite do full on compassion yet. At least from a place of curiosity.
So maybe instead of “why, why, why do I do this to myself?” Maybe a more useful question would be “ah, interesting. I wonder. I wonder what's going on for me here?”.
Secondly, there's nothing inherently wrong with eating sweet stuff. Diet culture has done a fantastic job and I mean, a fantastic job in making us believe that we shouldn't eat sweet foods. But all that that restriction does is make us want to eat more. And then it gives us a serving of guilt on the side because it's in some way, “naughty”. And we all know how that particular little rabbit hole ends up.
So it's really important to recognise that eating sweet food isn't a weakness it isn't naughty. It is what it is. Food is great. We are meant to eat and it's okay to eat a variety of foods, including sweet stuff.
If we're trying to resist eating sweet stuff just because of somebody else's rules around sweet food, then that's not a reason to resist.
However, if we want to tweak our intake of sugar down a notch or two, because too much of it doesn't feel good to us or because it leaves us feeling unhappy or physically uncomfortable or both, then that's a different matter.
So let's go there.
Let's look at why we can crave sugar even after a perfectly ample meal. And there are some very, very good reasons – and none of them are because you're weak or you're stupid or you're greedy.
First of all, a teeny bit of science, just to give us some background understanding;
At its most basic level. Eating sweet stuff is a built-in survival mechanism to help us choose sweet over bitter; Gazillions of years ago, when we lived in the wild, sweet over sugar meant safe versus toxic or safe food versus poisonous food.
Also, when we eat and digest sugar, it gives us a reward. and hey, who doesn’t like a reward? Sugar activates the reward centres in our brains. It releases opioids and dopamine and serotonin, all known as “the happy hormones”. And so it gives us pleasure. And what this does is nudge our brains to be more motivated to repeat that again and eat more of it. It goes like this: “well, that works, that felt good. So the next time this situation happens, let's do this again. Let's eat sugar. Let's feel great”. And then, eventually it becomes a habit.
There are additional layers of why we might crave sweet food after a meal.
It might be just pure habit. So our clever, clever brains are programmed to be on autopilot as much as possible. To prevent unnecessary work or efforts on our behalf. The part of the brain responsible for planning and thinking and problem solving and decision-making is called the prefrontal cortex. The part of the brain responsible for habits is the basal ganglia. And when our prefrontal cortex, remember, the thinky bit, is tired after a typical day of work and social media and planning and thinking how to balance everything we have to balance, then the basal ganglia takes over.
Phew!
It thinks it's doing us a favour. It goes, “Hey, you take a rest, rest up, take a break from all that decision making and thinking stuff here. Rely on your habits to take over and take some of the load. They'll just run on autopilot”.
And while this is happening, if you have convenient or easy access to sweet stuff, then your basal ganglia may just lead you, on autopilot, to those easy calories, that easy pleasure over and over again.
Also, the later in the day it is, the more thinking and decision-making, we've had to do. Our energy, our mood, our capacity to use that more logical parts of our brain diminishes. We literally get tired.
So, interestingly, have you ever noticed, that craving sugar after a meal is often the strongest sometimes after lunchtime, but most often strongest after your evening meal. It's not usually after breakfast so much. That's because traditionally we've probably been more likely to eat something sugary after lunch or dinner, not so much breakfast. Time and again people say to me “I can be good all day and then I blow it in the evening”. And this is a major reason why; All the “thinking stuff” that we deal with all day. And the later in the day it gets literally the tireder, our conscious brain gets, and the more our habits are chomping at the bit to step up for us. us. And like I say, our brain thinks it's doing us a favour.
The second reason why you might crave something sweet, even after a meal is what you've just eaten in that meal may be just a bit out of balance.
So uneven blood sugar levels after a meal can trigger the cravings for something sweet. If your meal comprised mainly of carbohydrates, especially simple carbohydrates, it can result in an immediate spike in the blood sugar levels which then drop suddenly again after the meal.
And your body can freak out at this sudden dive in glucose levels and sends you on a hunt for something else, ie a sweeter food to make you “feel better”. And it helps you feel better in that moment by giving you back the high again.
Now, what do I mean by simple carbohydrates?
There are simple carbohydrates and there are complex carbohydrates. Simple carbohydrate are things like white bread, white pasta, any white flour products, fruit juice, full sugar fizzy drinks, things like that. Simple carbs are easily digestible and the energy they contain is readily available. The science bit is that the molecules in simple carbohydrates are really tightly entangled.
In more complex carbohydrates, the molecules are more tightly entangled. And what that means is that the energy that's contained in complex carbs is released more slowly, over a longer period of time and therefore keeps us fuller for longer. More complex carbohydrates are typically whole grain products. So brown bread, whole grain bread, brown pasta and rice, beans and other plant based foods.
Sweet cravings can also arise as a complimentary need to off-set a very salty meal that you may be just have eaten. So if you eat something very salty, the body’s cravings for something sweet is its way of trying to compensate for the over saltiness.
Those are some of the reasons why we may crave something sweet after a meal, so how do we change things up?
The good news is that now that you know all this, there are easy steps you can take, If you want to, to lessen the sugar cravings after a meal.
Step one, do not cut down on sugar completely.
Craving sugar after a meal is natural. Dropping all sources of sugar from your diet and suppressing the sweet cravings completely will only intensify those cravings. With you ending up thinking of nothing but sugar, sugar, sugar, sugar.
So there's no need to go harsh on yourself.
You will crave more of what you ban or restrict or say that you can't have. So don't ban it. You will be setting yourself up for failure.
Secondly balance out your meals.
But, rather than cutting back on things or taking things out completely, try and add things in.
Yry not to carb it alone. If you've got a meal that's made up of a lot simple carbohydrates, try tweaking it by adding in more complex carbohydrates, things like brown rice, pulses, veggies. Also try adding in some more fats and proteins to your meal, or to your snack, this will work wonders. You don't have to cut back on things or cut things out, just try adding things in, and also be really mindful of foods that have a very high salt content as well. Try tweaking the salt down a little and see if it makes a difference.
Step 3 is changing up the habit.
The third bit of great news is that you can retrain your brain. So, how do we do this? First of all, again, don't ban yourself. Don't say to yourself, “I'm not having that. I'm going to resist this. It's I'm not going to have this”. Say to yourself. “Okay. I'm going to give myself 30 minutes, grace. And if I still feel like this at the end of 30 minutes, I'm going to have some and I'm going to enjoy it”.
You see, I don't believe in depriving myself. It's counter-productive.
It really helps to think of cravings as a wave. Waves come and they go. Now, I don't know about you, but can you imagine a time in the past when you've been perhaps paddling in the sea and you've gone perhaps a little too deep? And it's quite choppy. And you kind of ducking and diving through the waves, but all of a sudden, a really big wave comes and knocks you off your feet.
And in that moment you're gasping for breath and the wave feels all consuming and so, so powerful. For a few split moments, you think “Will I be able to stand up again? Am I ever going to be able to break out of this wave and come out of the water because it feels so strong?”.
But, if you stop fighting and just ride that wave a little bit it always dissolves into nothing. It always goes out again. Because waves come and waves go. They always pass and much quicker than you think.
And the same goes for the craving wave or the urge waves.
It also really helps to understand the three main components of a habit.
A habit consists of three things: the cue, the routine and the reward.
Your cue in this scenario is the end of your dinner. You've eaten your dinner, you put your knife and fork down and you get this craving for sweet stuff. So that's your cue.
The routine is eating the something sweet. And the reward is the feelings of pleasure that that produces.
Now in this example, your cue is the end of dinner. But it might equally be the time of day, like getting home after a long day's work or when you finally flopped down on the sofa to unwind after a long, busy day,
So identify your cue.
The routine is eating something sweet.
The actual physical reward is the sweet stuff, but the internal reward from having that varies from person to person. So it may be that surge of dopamine and serotonin, the pleasure. It might be extra calories If the dinner wasn't enough. Or it might just be the feeling of being relaxed or de-stressed from the day.
A great tip for changing a habit is to change just the middle bit, the routine, whilst keeping the cue and the reward the same.
Let's see what that looks like:
First of all, remember, you're giving yourself full permission to have whatever it is that you’re craving if after 30 minutes it still feels like something that you really need to have or want to have.
We're keeping the cue the same, which is the end of dinner.
Next you need to find a new routine that will give you the same reward.
Now, there's nothing more annoying than some health experts telling you just to go for a walk or have a bath, so I'm not going to say what that might be for you, because it's going to be different for everyone. It might be taking a gorgeous, bubbly relaxing bath. It might be sitting down for some mindless Netflix or it might be playing Wordle on your phone for 20 minutes. Whatever would give you some pleasure in that moment, do it. And then after 30 minutes or so, after you've done this new routine, if you're still craving the sweet reward, If it's still calling your name, have it.
But have it and flipping enjoy it. Don't have it in kind of a regretful or sneaky way. Fully enjoy every morsel, the whole experience. And then just carry on with your day.
But the chances are, (and research suggest 80% of the time), you won't even be thinking about it. Because that all-consuming wave has crashed to the shore and has dissipated. Dissipated away to nothing. Just as all waves must and all waves will.
Now this takes practice. But if you can delay that gratification until the craving subsides, you will break the habit.
Identifying your habit loop, (the cue, the routine and the reward) and being able to do something different that gives you the same reward is the key. And, you can do this.
If you're curious about the other way, which is my non-diet approach to living at your happy weight, you’re very welcome to join my free Facebook community where I give lots more tips and strategies and host, live trainings and coaching sessions. I’ll pop the link in the show notes.
Until next time, love yourself lots.