In order to regain control and stop sweet cravings, you first want to have a clear idea what you are dealing with. Picture the following:
Whenever you see yourself being drawn inadvertently into a habitual or addictive behaviour, just stop for a moment and make a mental note to observe yourself. Become intimately aware of all your actions, your thoughts and your feelings.
Observe dispassionately how your thoughts get increasingly obsessive, your heart beats a little faster, your breathing becoming deeper and faster, your stomach starts growling (as if it was hungry), your saliva production increases, you start foraging in the pantry or refrigerator for comfort foods like lollies, ice-creams, cakes, biscuits, chocolates, etc, and then you start eating.
You enjoy the explosion of taste sensations in the mouth, you revel in the first taste sensations, you keep eating in a trance-like state. Long after the first taste sensations have passed you’re still eating.
You also eat in secrecy, you eat quickly so as not to be discovered, you eat after everyone has gone to bed, you eat like a mad person on a war path, you feel great discomfort in your stomach, you are in severe pain, you wake up to the realisation that you have eaten way too much, you brush aside your physical discomfort, your mood lifts as endorphins flood your body, you have successfully self-medicated your emotional pain with food, you feel a sense of relief, after the initial high you feel guilty, you are anxious, you feel depressed.
Does the above description sound like you? Then you probably have a binge eating disorder. Acknowledging the problem is the first step to transforming this behaviour. Next you have to learn to slow down your lightning fast automatic, almost subconscious thinking pattern and listen carefully to your internal dialogue.
Just keep watching your real-time running commentary very carefully. This awareness of your irrational sugar cravings and your over-reaction to food is enough to start breaking up the pattern of the addiction.
Learning to be a still dispassionate observer of the event as it unfolds is the key to disrupting the sugar habit. As you powerfully slow down your mind to a steady and deliberate pace all the while maintaining equanimity, you will find your addiction gradually losing its vice-like grip over you. Just as light and darkness cannot co-exist, mind mastery and sweet cravings cannot co-exist either. In time, you can stop sweet cravings in your life and regain your health and your life.
Giselle Brand is an accredited practising dietitian and the founder of Concept Nutrition, an online community for people interested in weight management and healthy living. Giselle is an expert in helping people take action to achieve their health goals.