Conquering sugar cravings has been a major theme of my journey. It's been a long slow process but they gradually seem to be getting less powerful. I have "cheated" "fallen off the wagon" "gotten off track" "gone off program" more times than I care to count. But I always manage to pick myself up, dust myself off and get the LC thing going again. And the cravings are weakening.
I am slowly learning to recognize what my body really needs and to respect and honour that. For instance, several times during our recent move, I got so busy I forgot to eat. When my hunger grew to the point where it was impossible to ignore, I found the first things that came to mind were sweets but when I
really tuned in to what I needed, I
just knew that what I really needed was protein. So I ate a chunk of leftover roast beef or some rotisserie chicken with salad and was satisfied. I treated myself to a pack of delicious organic strawberries and munched on a couple at the end of meals when I got that "I-want-something-for-dessert" feeling. I am pleasantly surprised I have managed my eating so well over the course of this move. I guess I am making progress, but it sure has been slow.
I do think there is a BIG emotional component to craving sweets, here's a poem I wrote several years ago, was going through a difficult time in my marriage and in retrospect I think I was suffering depression, which m1whowaits mentioned as a factor in her post.
My poem:
I need a little sweetness
some honey
for my tea
a simple word
of kindness
from your lips
to me
Don't know if this answers your question, but I enjoyed thinking about it. Thanks for another thought provoker.
amieK