Is Carb Addiction Real? Here's Everything You Need to Know!
#SugarBalancedLiving
Carb cravings… we all get that horrible, obsessive feeling in those moments when it’s like you can’t live without picking one of those cookies, taking that large slice of pizza, or bingeing on that fresh bread, and you think to yourself, ‘am I addicted to refined carbs’? Well, trust me, you’re not alone, and that’s why I’ve put together simple signs to help you find out whether or not those cravings are in fact carb addiction, as well as the a-z on if carb addiction is indeed a thing.
When thinking about a meal to bring us joy or overcome hunger cravings, nothing makes us feel more cozy, warm and fulfilled than the idea of bowl of pasta, or thick slices of toasted warm bread smothered in butter. You just can't cope with the idea of living without a crusty piece of bread or fries. For most carbs are life, carbs are joy.
Yet, when we try to cut down on carb, or simply when we’re feeling hungry, carbs can seem life the bane of our existence. Endless cravings and yearning for those warm bagels can start to feel like a genuine addiction.😖
Well… these nightmarish cravings may actually be telling you that you’re addicted.
Debunking Carb & Sugar Addiction
While ‘food addiction’ is not yet a coined or clinical term, I can tell you this: I learned the hard way, through an addictive food journey and I'm living evidence that it’s real. You can be addicted to eating carbs if consuming them starts to interfere with your life over a time period and you have difficulties trying to change your behavior in attempt to stop consequences.
Carb addiction is for sure real, and is a massive issue affecting millions of people around the globe.
What may seem like at first a joke-like sentiment of feeling that you can't see yourself living without a crusty piece of bread, can lead to weight gain and even eventually all kinds of health problems and diseases.
Now… this is not to say that all carbs are bad, because this is simply not true. Carbohydrates are the body's main source of energy in a healthy, balanced diet. The human body needs all three types of carbs - sugar, starch, and fiber - to function.
With the exceptions of oils and meats, most of the foods we eat—fruits, grains, legumes, vegetables, nuts, sugars, and dairy products contain some carbs. However, if a specific food is relatively high in carbohydrates (instead of fat or protein), we call that entire food a carb. For example, bread is a carb, and an apple is a carb.🍎
Basically, carbohydrates are essential - a lot of healthy foods are carbohydrates, like vegetables and fruits are carbs.
But, the problem is that not all carbs are created equal. There are forms of carbs that wreak absolute havoc on our bodies and can create food addictions, and there are also certain carbs you shouldn’t eat to many of without potentially harming your body.
Good Carbs, Bad Carbs: Breaking down the types of carbs
Before we get into why carbs can be addictive and lead to negative healthy effects, we first need to categorize which carbs are good and which are bad.
As we know CARBS can be good - healthy - but they can also be really unhealthy… it all depends of the type and amount of carb.
When corrupted, or when certain food groups of carbs are overeaten, carbs act like pure sugar in your body, which is what causes health problems (to a lesser extent, even fruit, but fruit carbs are more complicated, so more on that later), and leads to carb addiction.
I very personally know how carb addiction feels, the painful effects, bloating, endless cravings, and crashes, as I’ve been through it myself. But I conquered it, and you can too and you can come out the other side healthier and happier (which is why I have an entire 8 Step Kick Start Crushing Carb Addiction Mini Guide that works for all my clients, which is included for all my members to use and to achieve healthful bliss, included within my Sugar Balance + Wellness Circle Online Monthly Membership Club©).
Now, lets understand carbohydrates a little more…
There are two main groups of carb: complex carbohydrates and simple carbohydrates.
These sources of carb aren’t created equally, and both of them can be corrupted (and usually these days are corrupted). When they’re corrupted, they spike your blood sugar levels just like a candy bar would.
Let’s take a close look at these two groups:
Sugar and Simple Carbohydrates…
Simple carbs, are made up of either one (monosaccharides) or two sugar (disaccharides) molecules, and contain little to no fiber, which makes it easier for simple carbs break down in the body and be absorbed (as glucose) into the bloodstream.🥐🥞
Basically, simple carbohydrates, are made up of shorter chains of molecules and little or no fiber, which are quicker to digest than complex carbohydrates. This fact means that simple carbohydrates produce a spike in blood glucose, providing the body with a short-lasting source of energy. Because of this, they raise your blood sugar way faster and mostly higher than complex carbs – which is what makes them worse for your health.
The sugars in simple carb can be categorized as:
Single sugars (monosaccharides):
Glucose
Fructose (naturally found in fruit, but also added to processed foods)
Galactose (normally found in dairy)
Double sugars (disaccharides):
Sucrose (table sugar)
Lactose (normally found in diary products like milk)
Maltose (normally found in grains and veggies)
Since simple carbohydrates found in processed foods like sodas don’t have any nutrients, all they do is spike your blood sugar levels, and you simply don’t need them AT ALL.
But don’t worry, we’re not counting simple carbs as only unhealthy just yet.
Simple carbs can be natural and unprocessed, like milk and fruit - containing vitamins, minerals, fiber, and even protein, which we as HUMANS need!🥛
The only thing is, you need to be sure to eat natural simple carbs in moderation, because as I mentioned earlier, they can be a viscous blood sugar spiker if eaten in excessive amounts - even fruit.
When it comes to fruit, if eaten in excess, it can lead you to an energy high and big energy crash cycle.
Let me break this down for you:
Fruit is very high in fructose, a.k.a. sugar, a lot more than other whole foods.
Some fruits have more than sugar than others, though the fiber in the fruit helps keep your blood sugar levels balanced by slowing digestion.
HOWEVER, if you eat too much fruit, the fiber won’t be enough to keep the balance making that the natural sugar has almost the same blood-sugar-spiking effect as candy.
How much sugar you should be, and can be eating from fruit, and what makes sugar in fruit different from refined sugar is a big subject.🍇
It has many variables and is dependent on your health ‘status’ and what your health goal(s) are, so I've written a whole blog post about fruit sugars over here - make sure you check it out to get all the details.
Sugar and Complex Carbohydrates…
Complex carbs are starches, created from longer chains of sugar molecules - this is the reason why they take longer to digest. Because they digest more slowly than their friends simple carbohydrates, most sources of complex carbs will not raise blood sugars as quickly.
Foods in the complex carbs category are starches like grains, legumes, peas. Dietary fiber is also usually understood to be a starch.
The only thing is, these healthier complex carbohydrates, just like simple carbohydrates, have some healthier sources than others.
Great and healthy complex carbohydrates are as un-processed and non-refined as possible. So, whole grains are perfectly healthy while refined grains are terrible for you.🌾
The reason refined carbs are bad for you is because are stripped of their natural fiber, and fiber keeps blood sugar levels from spiking too high. Some more healthy complex carbs examples are brown rice (not white), quinoa, barley, bulgur, oatmeal, and sweet potatoes.
When you eat a food containing carbohydrates, your body will release the hormone insulin to take sugar out of the bloodstream and into our cells - this is fine.
What’s wrong is, that when the carbs are refined carbs or in the form of simple sugars, our bodies digest them quickly and their sugars enter the blood rapidly, causing a super large release of insulin, and leading to a sugar rush and crash - just like with a candy bar.
This is also generally the issue with most high glycemic index foods.
Negative refined simple and complex carbohydrates, include:
🍪 Candy, cookies, muffins, pastries, ice creams and cakes
🍞 Breads, rolls, croissants, pastas
🍦 Commercial sugary or sweetened yogurts
☕ Specialty coffee drinks and milks
🥤 Soda, sweetened teas and juices
🍓 Fruit leathers and jellies
🥣 Most commercial cereals and flavored oatmeal
Why is Carb Addictive?
Now that we can identify which carbohydrates are negatively affecting you, we can now find out why exactly this blood sugar level spiking, high glycemic, effect from certain carbs is so bad for our health and so addictive.
Firstly, carb addiction is the same as sugar addiction because the certain carbs that we want to avoid act like pure sugar in your body, which is what leads to the problems.
And… sugar in your body is an addictive substance.
Actually sugar is even more addictive than cocaine. Yeah, you read that right.
A study in 2007 found that 94% of rats tested would rather choose artificially sweetened water over cocaine (after being sensitized to the drug).
Just think about that for a second!
Sugar fires up dopamine and lights up your brain in the same manners as drugs, and there’s gotta be a problem with that - especially given the issues that come with high sugar consumption, problems I have had first hand experience with. I used to have a full blown sugar addiction - I was in really bad shape, both physically and mentally - so I certainly know the signs of an unhealthy relationship with the stuff.
The same goes for our sugary junky foods like refined carbs; junk food is addictive in the same way that heroin or cocaine is addictive too.
A study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition suggests that high sugar, high glycemic foods are just as addictive as table sugar.
David Ludwig and his colleagues at Harvard, did a study showing that foods that raise blood sugar even more than table sugar such as white flour, white potatoes and refined starch, have a high glycemic index, and trigger a region in the brain “nucleus accumbens” which is the area in the brain that is ground zero for a drug abuse addiction.
Basically, foods that spike your blood sugar are addictive. The don’t even have to be traditional ‘sweets’.
If you’ve ever felt like those endless cravings for bread and ice cream, and thought that they are ‘some kind of addiction or obsession’ the answer is yes, they are… but don’t worry, it’s not your fault, and you’re not alone - many people suffer carb aka sugar addiction everyday without realizing it.
The feeling that you’re always going to be hungry and you’ll never be full without being stuffed with carbs breads and dessert, or the sadness you feel when you can’t enjoy something sweet or carby... well these types of obsessive cravings were once a part of my life and sugar addiction.
I’ve suffered with a chronic sugar addiction - yes I can say it out loud, sugar addiction. Of course at the time I didn’t call this issue sugar addiction, carb addiction or even food addiction because, like most of us, I didn’t take it seriously.
I just told myself I was hungry, greedy or I had a sweet tooth. But to tell yourself you’re just greedy isn’t fair - you’re not greedy. You’re struggling with an issue you’re facing.🍩
Before, when I was in the grips of my sugar addiction, it left me in really bad shape, both physically and mentally - sleep issues, extreme fatigue, difficulty concentrating, hormonal imbalance and irritability were all common for me.
Eventually, in attempt to save my health, I came to realize that all my health issues were linked to sugar and my diet.
No one wants to be addict, and no one wants to constantly be craving bread, chips, fries, muffins, etc. (I certainly didn’t).
Of course, a sugar craving can be normal - it’s not all addiction - there can be a myriad of reasons for your cravings. If you want to learn more about sugar cravings and other reasons why you could be craving sugar, I recommend you head over to my in-depth article on why you crave sugar here.
For now, here are a few small signs you maybe addicted to carbs and sugar:
Your mouth waters every time you think of sweets, and pasta.
You couldn't even imagine the thought of no having pasta, soda or candy in your life, and you constantly use the word "love" when you refer to certain refined carbs or sugar foods.
You try to stay healthy and yet every time you find yourself eating starchy or sugar carbs, you keep telling yourself that you'll cut back later. You always find yourself ‘starting the next day.’
You can’t help yourself but have more than one. Be it candy, soda, cookies, pastries or bread, keeping to a moderated amount is impossible and not stopping until feeling stuffed is a constant issue.
You can’t focus on your day until you appease your cravings. This is more like a fixation rather than hunger.
Your portion sizes are out of control. They get larger and larger and make you feel sick or lethargic after eating.
You’ve tried to cut out refined carbs and sugar and end up up feeling horrible, sick, lethargic, and unwell. If you consume excessively high amounts of sugar on a regular basis, it will cause your body to go into shock if you suddenly stop consuming it, causing you to experience a variety of different symptoms. This is sugar withdrawal. If you want to learn more about sugar withdrawal click here.
Overall, overeating sweet foods, refined carbs, beverages, treats or even any meal or snack, is the easiest sign that you have addiction.
When overeating or binge eating cycles form, it can be one of the most easily recognizable signs of sugar addiction.
However, I don’t believe we have to quit the stuff all together - an occasional treat won’t break the bank - but it is necessary that we balance our intake, control how much we’re eating, break negative eating habits and crush cravings.
Naturally, I know that when I'm telling you to avoid sugar and junky carbohydrates, I realize it’s way easier said than actually done, because like I told you, when you cut out sugar or refined carbs your body is hit with mental and physical issues similar to those experienced by recovering drug addicts.
Of course, illicit drug use is more challenging to overcome, but your brain does crave in the same ways it would crave drugs, and is a common reason why people fail to live with low sugar, clean eating and sugar-free non-diet-diets.
I was once in a constant cycle of cravings and binges: cutting it out for a couple of days, and then binging again. But after a tough journey I eventually worked out a way to balance my mindset with cravings and ease myself through the withdrawal process, mindset struggles, and eventually to find my balance with sugar and junky carbs altogether.
Now I can go sugar free, remove junky carbs, enjoy a little treat once in a while and be totally fine. I’m living the sugar balance lifestyle and loving it!
Willpower Doesn’t Work…
The biggest goal I’ve learned was that willpower doesn’t work forever - you have to deal with your mindset and current diet!
With the right tools, hack and habits you can start creating healthier eating habits, less cravings, and start creating a sugar balanced lifestyle.
3 Steps for Breaking Sugar and Carb Addiction
In an effort to help you overcome this issue and start cutting down on junk food cravings today, I'm going to go through some quick, easy and effective steps you can take right now to help you start breaking your dependence on high glycemic, refined carb and sugars, that are one-size fits all. Yep, they work for everyone, including me! 😎
Here are 3 easy steps for you to start implementing right now:
Step 1: Implement Healthy Fats, Protein & Plenty of Water
If you get yourself over-hungry by skipping a meal, you’ll tend to go and eat (or binge on) a quick and ‘satisfying’ empty calorie and low quality food as a snack (which won’t give you any energy, by the way), just because you didn’t eat a wise and quality meal earlier.
No matter how busy or hectic your usual day is, make sure you stick to a healthy food schedule, and don't attempt dieting as an effort to cut out sugary foods. What you need to do is eat regular small meals of clean natural whole foods with no sugar.
Fiber-rich foods are a great option for combating cravings.
Fiber is more slowly digested than other foods and other carbs, which helps contribute to a feeling of fullness, and satiety. High-fiber foods include veggies, beans, nuts and oats.
Also clean protein and fat will help with stabilizing your blood sugar levels, which will help to curb sugar and junk food cravings.
Lastly, make sure you’re drinking plenty of water and staying hydrated, as water will help you flush toxins and keep you feeling full for longer since dehydration can mimic hunger.
Step 2: Create New Habits
Habits are rituals and behaviors that we perform automatically, such as snacking on a snickers bar at the desk, grabbing a sugary coffee at lunch, eating a muffin for breakfast, drinking a soda after work and eating a bowl of pasta for dinner. But, this has to change.
😫 When breaking a habit, especially an addictive habit, it can feel like the end of the world. Life can feel chaotic, especially when not-so-healthy food is so readily available. This is why it’s so important to form new habits you enjoy that are healthy and stick to them.
While breaking habits and forming new healthy ones can be difficult, it’s not impossible - particularly when you have a solid plan.
That is specifically why I created an A to Z Guide on Getting Started with Sugar-Free/Low Sugar Diet Blueprint in my Sugar Balance + Wellness Circle.
For now, I want you to think about creating new healthy habits like something that took you time to learn, like riding a bike, driving car or learning to write. At first, it seemed difficult and you had to devote a lot of mental energy to it. Yet after you grew comfortable with writing or driving, it became much easier — almost habitual, and you could say you enjoy it.
Thus, as an easy way to start is to small goals and make gradual changes. For example:
Keep your cupboards clear of refined carbs, sweetened, and added sugar foods. Clear out all of your stashes. Breads, pastas, white rice, sodas, candies, baked goods, sugary sauces and dressings — the more you can remove, the better.
Exchange those negative carbs with natural healthy complex carbohydrates, such as sweet potatoes, beans, lentils and steel-cut oatmeal.
Note: If you’re thinking that your family won’t be happy with that, I want to remind you that this stuff is addictive and toxic for your family’s health. You’ll be doing them favor in reducing it in their diet. If you’re expecting pushback, I recommend you sit down with everyone in your house and talk about the struggles and facts of health problems caused by having this type of food in their diet.
Rethink your grocery shopping list. Make a food prep and meal plan for the week - full of balanced meals. Be picky and thoroughly read through menus when you order at restaurants.
Having a plan of what you’re going to eat each week will really help you in reducing overwhelm, choosing the right foods, and keeping you on track.🍴 I struggled a lot with quickly grabbing a bite to eat, without having a meal plan when I had my food addictions, and that is why I make sure I always include them for my clients and club circle members.
Prepare for when cravings hit. Arm yourself with clean, no sugar, non refined foods for when you’re hungry and starting to crave food, and prep non-food alternatives for when you’re not actually hungry (like when you get boredom hunger or want a pick me up). Try taking a walk, reading a book, knitting or engaging in another enjoyable activity that releases those feel-good hormones in the brain, until the craving passes.
Here are other ways to make healthy changes in your eating habits:
• Keep more fruits, vegetables, and whole-grain foods at work.
• Incorporate family meals every day at the kitchen or dining table.
• Place your snacks on a plate instead of eating out of a package.
• Eat your meals with others when you can.
Step 3: Work On Your Mindset
I can’t over emphasize to you enough the power of mindset - it was literally a key pillar in me being able to address my addiction.
It may sound ‘hippy’ but it works.🧘♀️ Using meditations, mantra, mindset activities and breathing exercises daily/weekly literally reprograms those negative habits, addictive mindsets, emotional eating episodes and urges in general.
Plus, doing them specifically when you have an intense compulsion to eat come over you is incredibly effective in terms of curbing and inhibiting it.
When an impulse is triggered, carrying out a meditation, and (or), some simple breathing techniques is the quickest way to send the firm command to your body’s stress signals: ‘NO.’
First, to identify, recognize and disperse additive cravings, whenever you’re creating an excuse to eat something sweet or carby repeat a mantra to yourself, like this one:
“This is just the addictive side of my personality talking, I do not have a reason to be eating this, I care for my health too much”.
Secondly use the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), also known as tapping. Essentially, the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) is a type of acupressure focused around the psychological state of mind, that you apply to yourself on different meridian points, and that can be done anytime and anywhere.
I have to say that when I was first introduced to it to help me get over my anxiety and sugar addiction I was a bit skeptical - but now I can’t recommend it enough!
And, it’s backed up by science for its effectiveness.🔬
So, open up your mind and get to it! Here is a link to my video on how to do EFT that you can follow along with. You too can create sustainable change in habits and behaviors not serving you (and break those tethers that might have been be passed down from your childhood).
Lastly, as my last fave positive mindset activity: mindfulness.
If you’re not already familiar with it, mindfulness is a practice that involves being fully focused on the present moment and bringing awareness to your thoughts and feelings. If you want to read more into how mindfulness works, check out this blog post.
My journey has led me to believe that your mind is your most powerful asset. That your mind has the ability to hold you back or let you achieve success. It’s your mind that controls your body and environment, and that’s why it’s such an important aspect of your life.
Mindfulness has even been shown to enhance weight loss, promote healthy eating habits, help break food addictions, and even produce better examination performance. It’s why I created an entire Mindfulness Library within my Sugar Balance + Wellness Circle membership community of ‘how-tos’, tools, exercises and challenges, not only to teach it, but to keep it up as a super effective method to build and maintain mental resilience and calm no matter what life throws at you.
There you have it: sugar and carb addiction!
Now you’ve identified the issue behind all those cravings and yearnings for pasta, pastries and sweets, you can now move forward into taking the right steps to tackle these negative habits and create habits that are not only healthy but enjoyable for you, by using the power of mindset and balanced foods.🥗
Head over to my blog post with 11 more simple steps you can use to effectively reduce or cut sugar from your diet that I used to break my sugar addiction (and say bye bye to pesky cravings)!
Yes, sugar and carb addiction is scary, but you’re not alone. You can defeat it.
I definitely did, and that is why I am so passionate about raising awareness for sugar addiction and reliance, you CAN beat you love of junk food AND successfully reduce sugar cravings.
Reducing the amount of sugar and junk food in your life maybe one of the most challenging things you can do, but you can do it, and come out even healthier, more vibrant, strong and powerful for it.
No matter how tough something is, the sun will always be there in the morning.
When my health was at its worst, I started researching sugar, everything about food addictions, reliance and how to reduce it in my diet, but no matter how hard I searched I couldn’t find anything that could really help. Out of desperation, I set about developing my own system that would help me heal myself and my sugar addiction.
This is where my passion for awareness over this issue came from.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed by all this new information? No problem, I’ve got your back!😉 Based on my experience I’ve created a safe, online monthly membership club that’ll give you the support, coaching and resources focused uniquely on sugar and junk food challenged mind, body, health, stress care and wellness needs, delivering exactly what is essential that actually fit your unique personality and strengths to empower you to take charge of your life to become and feel your best self.
My Sugar Balance + Wellness Circle, is a community with high-touch support, coaching, personal feedback and tools;
to escape the sugar and comfort food cravings rollercoaster for good, gain vibrant energy, heal your body, drop excess weight, boost your metabolism so that you can embrace a life that you love living within a positive, private, accountable and supported group.
I know how carb addiction feels - the painful effects, bloating, endless cravings, and crashes - as I’ve been through it myself.
But I conquered it, and you can too! You can come out the other side healthier and happier, so I’ve included an entire 8 Step Kick Start Crushing Carb Addiction Mini Guide that works for all my clients, for all my members to use and to achieve healthful bliss, included within my Sugar Balance + Wellness Circle Online Monthly Membership Club©).
You deserve to feel like your best self.
Come on by and join here! 🤗
P.S Grab your free special gift. This special free ‘Ultimate Guide to Crushing Your Sugar Cravings’ to help you get started on beating your sugar addiction (or reliance) for good, and to show you that you CAN live in harmony with sugar without cutting it completely out of your diet.
It’s your turn!
Do you experience carb cravings? Do you want to break your carb addiction? Do you have any advice? Are you looking for healthy support?!
Let me know in the comments or on Instagram @itsisabellem using #SugarWithIsabelle!
That’s it from me, 👋
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