5 Tips for Conquering Your Sugar Addiction

I've got a monkey on my back.  He's mean and shakey, groggy and mood-swingy... his name is Sugar.

I'm not one for "cleanses".  They usually mean you have to drink green juice and/or maple syrup/cayenne/lemon water for a week and/or poop your brains out.  I mean, i'm all for a good poop but no thank you on the liquid dinners.  I'm someone who gets cranky when I don't eat, I'm someone who can't make decisions or even be nice to you if I haven't had my breakfast and don't even get me started about post-workout snacks.  I'm on a schedule, I need fuel and not the kind that comes out of a blender or through a straw, okay?

Enter October.  October is a lot of things: my birthday, my best friend's birthday, my anniversary (and annual weekend away) and hello, the most important event; Halloween!  All of these things mean cakes, pies, dinners, roadtrip snacks and tons of fun sized candy bars all up in my face.  Apparently I went a little overboard indulging myself this year and I've ended up all bloated belly acne face tight pants.  To remedy this, and my crazy addiction I've decided to go back to where I was happily floating somewhere around summer: unprocessed and unsugared.  More specifically, nothing that comes pre-packaged, nothing that has added sugars and nothing sweet basically that doesn't come out of the ground that way.  YEAH THAT COUNTS AS A CLEANSE.

So if you're in my boat, that ill-fitting bottoms boat, here are my top five tips for making it over the mountain that is sugar addiction.  

1- More sweet vegetables in your daily diet.  It's cold out, so luckily there is a bounty of delicious harvest veg at your fingertips.  Roasted sweet potatoes, squash and carrots all give you that zing of sweetness and actually keeps cravings at bay at other times of the day.

2- Add sweetness where it's unexpected.  I always have a box of golden raisins to add into super savory stuffings and sauteed bitter greens.  Sometimes, offsetting that salty or fatty taste right off the bat with some sweet keeps you from craving it when the meal is done.  Start your tomato sauce off with a batch of caramelized onions to counter balance the acidity or use apple cider as the liquid in your plain oatmeal rather than relying on processed sugars.

3 - Experiment with sweet spices.  Cinnamon not only helps in regulating blood sugar levels but it also adds a sweetness to your dish without any sugar at all.  Adding it to your breakfast is a no brainer but try it in savory dishes to give a little "hmm" to your humdrum.  Nutmeg, cardamom and cloves all also have a sweet note!

4- DATES!!!!  No, I don't mean the kind you have to shave your legs or wear spanx for, i mean the sticky little middle eastern staple food with the big, huge caramel-like taste and satisfying texture.  You can certainly pop these pretties right into your mouth from the package or use them to make raw food crusts when you pulse them in the food processor with say a walnut or almond friend.  My favorite preparation is to combine them with some nut butter, cinnamon and almonds and grind them up into a paste, roll them into bite sized balls and pop them when I'm feeling the craving hit around 11pm.  

5- Get plenty of rest and water.  Being sleep deprived or dehydrated are sometimes the only cause of a craving.  When you feel the rush for a sweet food give yourself a big luscious glass of water or re-evaluate your sleep from the night before.  If your body isn't getting what it needs it will always look for the quickest and most cherished form of comfort, which unfortunately for most of us is anything but a nap or 20oz of poland spring.

Good luck, guys!  See you on the other side!