Balancing Sweet Cravings and Health: Finding the Middle Ground with Sugar
- Paulina Hupka
- Mar 17
- 8 min read
The dilemma is real!
Everybody is trying to be healthy, lose weight, live longer, be beautiful and have a flat stomach – or a similar version of that.
To accomplish these goals, sugar almost always comes up as the “bad guy.”
Indeed, sugar contributes to weight and fat gain, increases inflammation and lays the ground for serious illnesses.
So, reducing sugar to improve health is logical.
But the sweetness of sugar and its use in so many pastries, candies and desserts is also delicious, tempting and almost impossible to resist.
The Dilemma is real!
Sugar is both:
Contributing to illness
Tempting & Delicious
Especially modern food uses a variety of sugars to enhance their products. It’s not just in candy and sweets.
You find sugar in sauces, bread, dressings, prepackaged meals, frozen meals, juices, pop, soda and even water (yes, some waters are sweetened), protein bars, pastries, dairy products, cereals, ice cream, energy drinks, fast food and so many more.
This environment makes it easy to overconsume sugar.
Since my focus lies on emotional eating and binge recovery, where all foods are permitted, you might wonder if there is a way to enjoy sugar and treats in moderation without sacrificing health.
Let’s look at the science of sugar and its effects.
We can find pure sugar in nature. Therefore, it is indeed a natural product. In fact, it’s a byproduct of photosynthesis and can be found in fruits. Honey – a form of sugar – is produced by bees.
Sugar is often categorized as a simple sugar or simple carbohydrate. This is based on its chemical structure and how quickly your body breaks it down.
Simple Sugars are monosaccharides and disaccharides.
Mono stands for one and saccharide for sugar.
One monosaccharide is the individual building block of carbohydrates. The number of monosaccharides determines if it is simple or complex.
So, Disaccharides mean two monosaccharides.
Oligosaccharides refer to “few.”
Polysaccharide means “many”.
The three most common simple sugars are glucose, fructose and galactose.
When you eat sugar, your body breaks down those long chains of monosaccharides. This is part of the normal digestive process. The breakdown of complex carbohydrates takes longer than simple sugars.
Imagine you are given a pearl necklace (Polysaccharide) and you want to ‘break it down’ into individual pearls (monosaccharide) compared to being given a single pearl.
Pulling the necklace apart to finally have a pearl in your hand takes longer and requires energy.
Receiving a pearl takes little time and no effort at all.
The same applies when your body digests simple sugars (monosaccharides) or complex carbohydrates (polysaccharides).
In nutrition scientific language, we speak of the glycemic index to measure how fast the consumed sugar raises your blood sugar level (blood glucose). Based on their effect, the foods are categorized into three groups:
Low GI: 55 GI and lower
Medium GI: 56 to 69
High GI: 70 and higher10
Why is knowing this important?
When your body receives easily digestible sugar, the monosaccharides can be quickly and with little effort absorbed into your bloodstream. This means your blood sugar levels increase quickly.
As a response, your body reacts with a burst of energy and you feel motivated and energized.
The presence of sugar also triggers the release of insulin to do its job.
Insulin helps with the absorption of sugar into muscles and adipose tissue but also triggers a reaction to turn glucose into its stored form, glycogen.
As insulin is working away, storing glucose, and ensuring that it gets absorbed where needed, the amount of sugar left in your blood decreases.
Your blood sugar levels drop.
But once it drops too low, your body also has another mechanism in place that allows that stored glucose to be released again so that your blood sugar levels can return to a normal and balanced level.
However, when your blood sugar level is down for a long time or you go for long fasting periods, your body continues to use up stored glucose as fuel until your storage is empty.
This, then, triggers the release of stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline that stimulate hunger and drive cravings for more sugar. This mechanism ensures that your body receives the energy it needs to function normally and to have its energy stores refilled.
This loop explains where sugar cravings come from and why we feel so jittery when we are hungry.
Your body responds with adrenaline to activate you so you find food.
If you go without food for too long, you can’t concentrate, feel depleted and low, and your mood declines as well. You get hangry.
So, to avoid these deep blood sugar drops, fatigue, low energy and bad mood, it’s important to maintain normal blood sugar levels.
Choosing balanced meals containing protein, fibre, complex carbohydrates, and high-quality fat is the key. Fat and protein keep you full longer, and foods high in fibre, like vegetables and fruits, act as a buffer and reduce the speed of breakdown and absorption of carbohydrates.
This helps to reduce physical cravings and ensures that your body remains balanced and regulated.
But sugar has another effect and role!
Some people have learned throughout their lifetime to use sugary treats as a response to negative emotions. Think about the movies where women eat ice cream after a breakup or indulge in sweets when they're sad to comfort themselves.
Other people may be lacking a sense of internal awareness to recognize their body sensations. These people might confuse their negative emotions with hunger instead of regulating their emotions.
Some people who have internalized the desire for thinness and to meet society’s body standards might develop a very rigid mindset. They follow strict all-or-nothing thinking and any form of violation can have an opposing effect.
Rule: "I will never eat sugar again"
Effect: "I already ate sugar today, so I might just eat all of it. I already messed up today."
Lastly, nature designed the sweetness of sugar to be an indicator of ‘safe foods to eat’ while bitterness usually implies that a food is more likely to be toxic. Not just humans are drawn to sweet flavours, but so are animals in the wild.
Sugar and Dopamine
In this context, we need to talk about the sweet reward of sugar: the release of dopamine.
The sweet pleasure and happiness that you feel after you indulge in candy and treats, results from dopamine being released as a response to sugar.
This rewarding feeling makes you feel satisfied quickly and crave more when it fades.
Naturally, you crave pleasure and good feelings when you are sad or frustrated. You soothe those emotions with sugar so that you experience a sugar high.
So not only does your body crave energy but your brain craves dopamine.
When we pair these natural biological reactions with the amount of sugar in our modern foods, it makes a lot of sense that many people struggle with overconsumption of sugar, sugar cravings, mood swings and energy crashes.
But why should all foods be permitted during recovery?
People who struggle with binge eating and emotional eating need a holistic approach.
The physical part explains that eating balanced meals reduces the biological reactions in the body.
When your body is nourished and satisfied, the likelihood of more cravings diminishes.
But we also need to address the emotional and mental parts.
People who have strict health and weight goals tend to have strict eating rules which fosters all-or-nothing thinking. They usually eat perfectly healthy during the week but might binge on weekends.
So, finding a balance between thoughts and mindset is an important aspect as well, especially because we are usually alone with our thoughts.
As mentioned above, emotions are often addressed through food. Sugar and treats can bring short-term happiness and cover up overwhelming emotions. These strong emotions need to be heard, though.
When something in your body is neglected, it starts yelling. Those emotions are how your body communicates with you.
So, should sugar be avoided?
The key is finding a middle ground, a balance that works for YOU.
When you struggle with binging and emotional eating, completely avoiding all sugary products might reinforce all-or-nothing thinking.
At the same time, some people feel, that if they eat any sugar, they fall back into their binge cycle.
What’s important to acknowledge is that the journey looks slightly different for everyone.
Yes, too much sugar can make us sick.
But, rigidly avoiding all sugar products can lead to mental imbalances and rigid thoughts.
So, how can you find the middle ground with sugar?
Work with your body and not against it.
As you have learned, your cravings and sensations are normal biological reactions to blood sugar swings and dopamine ups and downs. To discover your path to your unique middle ground with sugar, try the following action steps.
To reduce physiological cravings long-term
Choose balanced meals for your breakfast, lunch and dinner to reduce the likelihood of your body reacting this way.
Choose mindful indulgence and opt for more natural candy, like fruit or dark chocolate.
Read labels to identify hidden sugars.
To navigate your thoughts and emotions you can
Start journaling and write down what you experienced during the day and how you felt about it.
Name the (negative) emotion and ask yourself what this emotion is trying to tell you.
Then reflect on how you can meet that need the next time.
For a generally more positive outlook on life, I recommend writing a gratitude journal
Name down 3 things that you are grateful for
Name 3 things that were good today
Make sure to not repeat any items on the list throughout this exercise.
In the long term, it is important to build health habits that work for you and your life as it is right now. This often requires slowing down and assessing your current situation.
What habits aren’t suitable anymore?
How can you ensure that you are eating balanced meals?
How can you swap out foods high in sugar for healthier options?
Is meal prepping and home cooking an option for you?
Following these steps and questions are great first steps toward change and your transformation toward a resilient, balanced and confident woman who feels great in her skin and who can succeed in her busy career without giving up treats.
Conclusion
All in all, balance is key – not elimination because this can reinforce rigid thinking. Small and mindful changes that feel doable are the first step. Be patient and experiment with what works for you.
I invite you to revisit the suggested tips in this blog, choose one or two items to implement in your life and discover what works for you.
Are you ready for the healthy sugar swaps?
You can get my sugar guide here.
The guide goes deeper into the science of sugar, its functions, why we are drawn to it and most importantly what alternative products you can use to create more nourishing treats and desserts.
[1] Reichenberger, J., Schnepper, R., Arend, A. K., & Blechert, J. (2020). Emotional eating in healthy individuals and patients with an eating disorder: evidence from psychometric, experimental and naturalistic studies. The Proceedings of the Nutrition Society, 79(3), 290–299. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0029665120007004
[2] Silverman, J. (2023, August 15). How sugar works. HowStuffWorks. https://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/edible-innovations/sugar3.htm
[3] Blum, K., Thanos, P. K., & Gold, M. S. (2014). Dopamine and glucose, obesity, and reward deficiency syndrome. Frontiers in psychology, 5, 919. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00919
