cravings for sweets, help??

So basically i find myself wanting to do something about being overweight. I try to be more active and eat the right things and it doesnt seem to work because i crave sweets. Like really crave it to the point where i'm searching the whole house for something, anything thats sweet until i find it. Anyone have any idea on what i can do to stop my cravings?  

On the subject of trying to be active its kind of painfull for me right now. I have heel spurs or the tendons on the bottom of my feet are drawing themselves away from my heel bone causing me intense pain. Standing for long periods of time isnt an option most days. I do basic chores around the house like cook, clean and play with the cats and some stretching for my feet prescribed by my doctor but i'm not sure what else i can add to keep me active.

So i need help, not sure what kind but some kind of activity i can do from a sitting/laying down postion might help with my goal of loosing some weight. If nothing else just some encouragment or recipes for things i can make that arnt going to be too terribly sweet or expensive.

So thanks for looking and hopefully no one is having as hard a time loosing weight.
Tasha

Well, one thing I want to say that is if you give up sweets, it only takes about two or three weeks of detox for those cravings to go away. You just gotta fight it a little. And if I can do it -- I LOVE sugar -- YOU can do it!

That said, sometimes I will make some fat-free/sugar-free chocolate or vanilla pudding and put a dollop of fat-free Cool Whip on it. YUM! If you add a couple slices of banana to the vanilla pudding it's almost like banana cream pie. Also, there's sugar-free Jello -- have that with the cool whip as well. The thing is, if you keep eating sweets, even sugar-free ones you will never lose that taste for it. I try to avoid these treats as much as I can myself.

Raisins and carrots, believe it or not, really satisfy the sweet tooth! Try to wean sugar out! You can do it!

There are some exercisies you can do for Plantar Fascitis -- look them up on Google. They should help.

I also struggle with sweets and find myself looking for sweet things that aren't too 'bad' for me.  I agree with someone else's comment that you try to avoid sweets to lose the taste - something I'm still working on.  I do like plain yogurt with pineapple - very sweet and an apple strawberry crisp with frozen yogurt on top - also because some of my worse sweet cravings are after I eat, I brush my teeth - this seems to help.  Other things I try is the 15 minute rule or law of distraction, try doing something else or tell myself just 15 more minutes and then try and find something to do like phoning a friend or going outside to distract me.

For exercise, have you tried yoga?

Hey Celticcross and other posters ~

If you all have sweet tooths, here's a great solution, it's something I eat almost every day, as I follow a low-sugar eating plan:

Plain low-fat or fat free yogurt, mixed with frozen mixed berries, and add a little vanilla extract and some stevia.  YUM!

Don't know what stevia is? I didn't either until I started going to a nutritionist. Stevia is made from a plant of the same name and can be found online, in health food stores, and places where you buy vitamins, like GNC and the like. Here's a link w/ more info: http://www.stevia.com/

Enjoy!

~ Colleen

Ah, I can totally feel your pain. I have a condition called Pes Cavus (EXTREMELY high arches) and being on my feet for a long time is very painful.

Is swimming an option for you? I apologize, as I dont know much about your condition, so forgive me for sounding ignorant

I have a terrible sweet tooth, it nearly consumes my life.  The cravings for me get so bad that I sometimes feel I will lose it if I don't get it.  Sometimes it's soda, york peppermint patties, chocolate peanutbutter oatmeal cookies, rocky road, pop tarts, cold stone ice cream...
ect =_=;;

So to battle it I make sure none of the most common things I crave are in the house.  I also don't drive so that's an added bonus to not being able to go somewhere to get the fix.

In the morning I have a fat free 6oz strawberry yogurt light by yoplait, 100 cals.  It's sweetend by aspertain, which I hate, but in small amounts it's okay. 

If I crave sweets in the middle of the day I'll have a snack pack cup of sugar free strawberry jello, 10 cals. 
OR a Strawberry Special K Bar, 90 cals.

If I need chocolate they have Jello Chocolate pudding for 100 cals.  So I'm stocked up on all of these.

I also pick a decent cereal like Smart Start (I like the blue box kind) and put them in little baggies of about 100 cals each, they have a sweet granola in them, and the flakes are good, so that helps too.

I personally hate carrots and raisins,  sometimes a banana will subdue me.

I would also suggest low cal instant hot cocoa for a chocolate fix, I don't know how many calories are in there.  I'm spoiled on godiva hot cocoa... made with milk.  I love whole milk.

I guess my plan is to keep things on 100 calorie marks so that I don't over eat.  I have terrible will power so I had to quit sodas all together, I can't even fool myself into believing I'd be okay keeping these things in the house, because at this point I can't resist saying *just one*.


Good luck, it takes time, I slipped a lot at first, but I'm doing it.

I just started back on the road to thin today.

For me, especially when I'm dieting, I think about food all day.

So, what I am going do try this time is:  eat all day!....well, actually eat every hour for 10 hours, starting at 8am.  150 calories at a time.  (My daily target is 1500 calories a day.)I'll drink water and clear tea in between. 

Today it was great.  I had a little oatmeal and a cup of tea for breakfast, then I had a moccacino latte, that I made from soy milk, then an apple and some carrots, then a small amount of cheese and a couple of crackers, then another moccacino,  a banana, 2 small salmon patties and some corn (that was 300 cal, so I only ate 9 times today), a granola bar, and an orange with a little cheese.

Anyway, this is my new plan, graze all day, eat as often as possible and avoid feeling hungry!

Good luck to all of you!

currently 153  goal 137

I was a See's candy baby, so sweet tooth was an understatement for me.  After about 8 weeks of dieting the tooth has been pulled and the cravings are finally going away.

One thing that helped me was the South Beach diet bars.  Chocolate or Cinnoman Roll flavor (Wal-Mart).  Having one of them and a glass of NF milk in the evening (while the kids had cookies), helped me overcome those killer cravings.  According to the wrapper (and I haven't had reason to not believe them), they're around 140 calories with a 10g. protein.  Reasonable sugar and carbs.  And they're really, really good.

As a side note, through trial and error, I also buy into the philosophy that Diet pop keeps the cravings going instead of satisfying them.

Good luck!

Hi Tasha, I also crave sweets.  The more you eat them, the more you crave them.  Since trying to lose weight I have kept a food log which shows me that I was eating like a small child, sweets all the time!  I'm in Italy and the big thing here for breakfast and snacks are little cakes and cookies which are so good especially with a cup of coffee.  I was starting the day eating like a child, having a couple snacks in the mid morning and a couple again in the afternoon.  Because it was there.  They are still there, in the house, but I'm more conscious about it and rarely eat the "merende" (cakes), one reason being that it looks bad in my food log!  hah!  Talk about empty calories, too!  I don't miss it but sometimes when I start, I have a hard time stopping.  The previous suggestions are great!

Hiya, I find it easier to allow myself sweets - just not in massive quantities.  I don't buy bars of chocolate any more but I get single chocolates or mini snack packs (kid/fun size are only 75 cals).

Sugar free mints are good too as are the low fat hot chocolate packs (40 cals).

Last night the cravings hit and I killed them with a hot chocolate, a kids pack of chocolate buttons, 2 x maple syrup candies.

why do you crave the sweets?
when you do get a craving, try and find out why you're craving. if you find the root of the craving (not just that you "are" craving the sweets) then you can work towards solving that problem.

you can always choose fruits over "sweets" as fruits have natural sugars.

My favorite sweet snack are the Edy's Whole Fruit bars - they come in lots of flavors, and I think they are around 60 calories, or they have sugar-free ones that are only 30 calories! yum yum!!

Oh, and the cinnamon raisin South Beach bars are AWESOME, I agree roadguy!

I have a HUGE sweet tooth. Not even joking. I LOVE chocolate, and I used to "need" something sweet every day. But the most satisfying thing I've found is clementines!!!

I'm not sure what it is about them, maybe that they require peeling and so you're forced to eat them slowly, or maybe that they're fruit and so it's more of a natural sugar, but I find them to be very satisfying. Whenever I have one, I find myself not craving sweets anymore.

When I crave sweets I have a banana. Bananas have lots  of natural sugar in them, are healthy and satisfying.

I have that sweet tooth demon to deal with two.  I find that if incorporate non-sweet snacks in my diet -- carrots and celery primarily -- the cravings go away.  But if I start back with the cookies and ice cream on a controlled basis (say a 1/2 cup serving after dinner) I soon find sweet tooth recovering and demanding to be fed -- like that plant in "The Little Shop of Horrors".

In terms of exercise, Pilates is definitely an alternative that you should explore.  You might also want to look into a home gym machine -- Bowflex is the only one that comes to mind at the moment but most sporting goods stores carry a variety to fit space and price-range requirements.

You could consider weights.  If you use a weight bench you can stay off of your feet for the most part.

You can adapt yoga, tai chi and other martial arts to your situation.  For example, you could do a vigorous punching workout (aerobics) while sitting on the floor.  You could do one karate form, which takes about 1 minute, rest or work for a while and then do another one.  I suppose for that matter, you could take pretty much any aerobics workout DVD and work your way though it using mini-sessions that are well within your tolerance.

in terms of sweets...

sometimes if i'm craving something one day, like chocolate cake, ice cream, or donuts, etc., i will let myself have some a few days later if i'm still really craving it.  Usually i just forget about the craving, but sometimes even several days later i am still thinking about the chocolate cake. 

Instead of keeping it in the house, which is really dangerous for some people (like me), i will go out with a friend for coffee and dessert.  That way you sort of make it special and you make an event out of it.  You could also share it with whoever you're with and still take care of the craving.  And i don't know about you, but i rarely go overboard with sweets when i'm out at a restraunt (that only happens when i'm alone at home, usually at night). 

Or keep some nice quality dark chocolate (but don't buy in bulk) in the house and make yourself something special for dessert if you feel the need for something sweet.  Just work it into your calories for the day, or whatever system you use.  I sometimes make banana boats where you slice a banana in half lengthwise (keep it inside the peel) and put some dark chocolate in the slit, wrap in tin foil and bake at 350F for about 20-30mins.  It's super satisfying and because i took the time to make myself a dessert, i'm less likely to raid the house for anything sweet later. 

Try as many different strategies for the sweets cravings as you can.  Just find something that works for you.  And maybe something will work one week and then not the next.  Find a few different strategies in that case.  I know, my patterns are always changing.  Just don't give up!

Julie

I too am a sugarholic. I love sweet things and I crave them. First of all, they do get better and less often as time goes on. Second, the best thing I have found are dates. They are super sweet and I only eat a couple to tame the cravings. They are high in calories but they are healthy and just a couple do the trick. Also Kellogs fibe plus cerial mixed with low sugar/low fat yogurt. 100 grams of yogurt and 30-40 grams of cerial is about 100 calories. The cerial tends to make everything sweeter. If your calories allow it you can add a tsp of honey or some banana for added sweetness. There is no miracle cure and small things will help you along however time and perseverance will gain you control.