Something Sweet

It’s Sugar Awareness Week here in the UK which follows on well from last weeks topic which focused on Stress Awareness, as these can go hand in hand.

Have you ever had a really long day, things just seemed to be going against you, you get home exhausted and all you want to do is drink a glass of wine and eat something sweet?!

If you have you are not the only one! I certainly have done it many times and I find my craving for sweet foods are worse when I am stressed. Why is that?

Well when we are stressed, our body releases the hormone cortisol which increases our blood sugar levels to fuel the body. The cortisol levels will return to normal when the ‘threat’, aka stressful situation has gone. In the hunter gatherer days, this would have likely reduced quite quickly, however in the modern world we live in, our body can actually get caught in this stressed response because we are constantly on the go.

During a stressful time, our body quickly needs to be re-refueled and therefore you are more likely to reach for something processed and sweet. Eating these types of food can also provide the feeling of comfort, and this encourages the release of our happy hormone serotonin. Serotonin helps to boost our moods and feel better, and because we get this feeling, our brain creates a behavioural pattern which means that when we are stressed, we instantly want the comforting sweet foods, because we know it will make us feel better…temporarily. And the cycle continues.

I thought it was important to cover the ‘why’ because when we understand why we are doing something, it helps us to become more aware and we can then start to make a conscious change.

So let’s talk about sugar itself. Sugar occurs naturally in foods that contain carbohydrates such as fruits, vegetables, and grains. When sugar is in this form, our body can process the sugar quite easily. Let’s take fruit and vegetables for example – they both contain high levels of fiber, essential nutrients, and antioxidants which helps us to process the sugar and supply the energy at a steadier rate.

The bigger issue is the processed sugar, which is purposely added to foods to make it taste sweeter or to extend the shelf life of products. For example, biscuits, fizzy pop and cakes! Sugar is also hidden in many products that we wouldn’t typically associate it with, such as our bread and soups. Based on the fact that many of our foods we buy contain added sugar, it is not surprising that in 2018, Public Health reported that the average person in the UK consumes 20 teaspoons of sugar a day.

How does our body deal with sugar?*

Your body’s cells need sugar (glucose) for energy, and this is helped to be absorbed from the blood via insulin. This insulin is released from your pancreas and it is like a key, it helps to unlock the outer layer of your cells so they can get the glucose needed. The foods we talked about earlier – carbohydrates such as fruits and vegetables, help to keep the insulin working correctly and stabilise your blood sugar levels, whereas the simple sugars from your biscuits and pop and the highly processed foods like bread, for example, causes your pancreas to release large amounts of insulin due to the high sugar levels in our blood. If there is too much sugar in our blood, our body moves it to our liver for storage and if this continues over a long period of time, can result in issues with our liver called fatty liver disease. The high insulin levels can also cause the body to store more fat, which would normally have been flushed out of our system. This is when we start to increase weight and can lead to prediabetes or diabetes. The increase in insulin can also increase our inflammation in our body, leading to painful joints for example, and generally causes our body to work harder.

The Sugar High

Do you remember the comforting feeling I talked about at the beginning of the blog and the ‘high’ you feel when you eat that sweet treat? It makes you feel good because it releases our serotonin. But sadly, this feeling doesn’t last long and can soon turn the opposite way, leading to feelings of anxiety, depression, irritability, lethargy, and poor concentration to name a few, because it has an impact on our brain.

So when you are feeling stressed and want to reach for that glass of wine and bag of crisps what can you do instead?

• Be prepared – it can be easy to come home after a long day, look in the cupboards and realise they are bare, or the only things you have in will take a long time to cook. Therefore, make a plan at the start of the week of the meals you are going to eat. My suggestion is to batch cook some meals over the weekend, then they are all ready for you during the week! Prepare your lunches and snacks the night before each day also. It can seem like a tedious task, trust me, I’m right there with you and it’s often the last thing you want to do! But it is well worth it when you are into the next day, and you have some nutritious food ready for you. If you would like to see what sort of foods we eat to keep our blood sugars stable and hunger at bay, check out our previous blog here. I would also like to add that we are by no means perfect, and do enjoy a treat!
  
• Exercise – research shows that exercising improves our blood sugar levels and weight. Simple exercise like walking can help, and if you are able to, walk as if you are in a hurry to get your heart rate up! Try and include some strength work also, a study showed women who reported no strength training to those who did reduced the incidence of Type 2 diabetes by 30 percent.

• Cinnamon – this sweet and savory spice has a number of benefits including the health of our brain, and also our fasting glucose levels and insulin sensitivity. It has been suggested to have 1-6 grams a day as a supplement, but if you are on medication to control your blood sugar already, check with your GP first as it may lower your levels too much.

• Set boundaries – if your diet consist of a lot of processed and high sugar foods, how about setting some boundaries as to when you are going to have them? For example, what if you set yourself one day in the week when you will allow yourself that treat, but for the rest of the week you will stick to your plan and eat and drink well? That is not to say that on the day you do have a treat, you binge all day. But sugar is addictive, and like anything it will take time for your body to reset. Having some days off products that contain high sugar, will allow you to control your cravings more, and going back to point 1, if you are prepared, even if those cravings do come, you will reach for the nourishing food as you were ready for it!

There are many things out of our control at the moment and naturally that can lead to increased stress which makes it even easier to go off track with our diet. But as I have discussed, if we keep reaching for those sugary treats and processed foods, it unfortunately ends up in a vicious cycle, where we feel good for a short time, then we end up feeling worse, and it only builds on our stress rather than alleviate it. Controlling what goes in your body is key to your body functioning at it’s best, and being mindful of the amount of sugar you are consuming is a great place to start.

Here is to ending the year strong.

With Love,
Sarah

*I would like to reference and acknowledge a fantastic book called ‘The End of Mental Illness’ by Daniel Amen MD which I used as a source for this blog.