Help for Sugar Cravings
by: Jonni Good
Many people have asked me what foods they should eat in order
to cut down on the sugar cravings. And in the
past I've always had to say "I don't know."
Now, maybe I can actually offer something more hopeful.
Kicking a sugar habit is no easy chore, especially since
we're surrounded by the stuff. Almost every packaged food or convenience
product is made from sugar, (or white flour, which is about the
same thing).
We struggle to overcome the initial reluctance to change, then
we live through the two weeks of mild withdrawal symptoms, and
then we have to worry about relapse when we let down our guard
on a stressful day.
Sometimes it just doesn't seem fair.
Dr. Ron Rosedale may have the answer for us. He says that our
sugar cravings are associated with a leptin insensitivity. Leptin
is that hormone that researchers were very excited about a few
years ago. They discovered that giving a small dose of this natural
hormone to laboratory mice caused them to eat less, and they lost
weight.
Researchers hoped that they could use leptin as the magic pill
that would help obese patients get thin again, like those mice.
But when they started looking at humans, they found that overweight
people often have more leptin than thin people - and obese people
almost always have too much.
Eating too much highly concentrated carbohydrates over a long
period of time can cause an insulin insensitivity that can lead
to diabetes and other health conditions. According to Dr. Rosedale,
it can also lead to leptin insensitivity, so the message that
leptin is sending out ("stop eating") is not being heard
by the overweight dieter. In fact, when we have a liptin insensitivity,
we tend to crave even more sugar, even though our bodies are desperately
trying to get rid of, (or store as fat), the excess sugar we've
just eaten a few minutes ago. And we go on craving sugar, even
years after we've given it up - like the cravings that many ex-smokers
get when they're around people smoking.
To combat leptin insensitivity, Dr. Rosedale created a diet that
is a lot like a cross between the Mediterranean diet and the Okinawa
diet. Both those diets have been proven to help people avoid the
big killers - cancer and heart disease - and they help people
live longer, more productive lives. Dr. Rosedale believes that
these diets keep the leptin levels low, and this keeps people
on these diets from aging as quickly.
He claims that just a few weeks on his diet (which is really
quite easy to follow) will put your leptin levels back where they
belong, making it easy to lose weight, and putting an end to the
sugar cravings. It sounds like a perfect solution - go on the
Rosedale diet when you've made the commitment to give up sugar
- your commitment makes it easier to stay on the diet for two
weeks, and the diet makes it easier to give up sugar - for good.
The Rosedale diet includes lots of fish, for the Omega 3 fat,
and is much higher in fat than most of us are used to. I've never
been that excited about fish, but I'm tired of having to fight
sugar cravings, even three years after going cold turkey. This
is the first diet I've seen that is specifically designed to change
our body's reaction to sugar and other refined carbs, reducing
the cravings, and helping us keep the weight off without the constant
struggle. From now on, I'm going to recommend The Rosedale Diet
to my readers.
About The Author
Jonni Good is the author of a self-help book to help people addicted
to sugar, and the owner of Stress-Free-Weight-Loss.com, which
is filled with articles on natural, medication-free weight loss.
http://www.stress-free-weight-loss.com
Jonni's blogger can be found at http://www.howtothinkthin.com/blogger.htm
jonni@stress-free-weight-loss.com |