Sugar cravings are a familiar challenge for many, often signaling underlying nutritional deficiencies that need attention.

Understanding the root causes of these cravings is a crucial step toward enhancing your health and well-being. You can build a pathway to a more balanced lifestyle by identifying and addressing these deficiencies.

The Eating Enlightenment Food Journal App is a supportive tool that can guide you through this journey. It helps you track and understand your cravings while also managing emotional eating and binges. Uncover the signals your body sends to embrace a healthier way of eating.

What Deficiencies Causes Sugar Cravings?

Sleep Deficiency

A lack of sleep can lead to craving sweet food. 

Even on a few nights without quality rest, it becomes impossible to resist sugary treats.

The main reason why sleep deprivation impacts sleep is energy.

Your brain lacks energy and so turns to sugar to get that energy.

Plus, your brain is desperate. So, it wants quick sugars, often candy, junk food, or fast food.

Additionally, when you lack sleep, you can’t process information, making decisions harder.

When sugar cravings hit, your brain tells you the only way to eliminate them is with a sugary treat!

This is why sleep deprivation causes cycles of food addiction or overeating.

People receive messages from their brains saying to eat sugar. But that’s because they don’t sleep enough hours in bed each night!

But there are ways around this cycle, such as giving your brain enough rest time. This way, your brain processes information better 🙂

How To Stop Lack Of Sleep? 

If you’re not getting enough sleep at night, then try these things to help eliminate a cause of sugar cravings:

• Get on a schedule!
• Try going to bed and waking up at the same time every day.
• Don’t nap during your days off from work or school
• Don’t drink caffeine later than 4 pm
• Have a dark, quiet room
• Use a weighted blanket

Relaxation Deficiency

Sometimes, people say stress causes sugar cravings, and that’s true.

But another way of looking at stress is thinking about how stress is typically a lack of relaxation.

We all have days when we’re relaxed and feeling good.  Some unfortunate news can happen on those days, but we remain unshaken. Our mood and eating habits don’t change in response to stress.

But if we are already stressed and lack relaxation, lousy news can hit us like a train. We start craving sugar and binge on processed foods and other things.

The worst part is how easily you can forget that you need relaxation. We think we can work all day long and never lose focus.

We tend to think of relaxation as a luxury, not something we need. But the more we work without taking breaks, the more stress we experience.

There is a tipping point when we have too much stress. When we have too much stress, our bodies start becoming fatigued. This is when our sweet tooth starts tingling!

Fatigue is the body’s natural response to feeling overwhelmed. Like a desktop computer, it cannot stay ‘on’ all day and night.

Instead of sleeping and relaxing, you push through the stress and never slow down.

Since your body isn’t recharging, it needs an alternative fuel source. Your body then turns to sweet foods to power itself through the day.

And sugar cravings get nasty when you lack both sleep and relaxation.

How To Stop Lack Of Relaxation

So, how do you combat sugar cravings from lack of relaxation?  Try implementing some calming techniques, such as:

• Deep breathing exercises (see below)
• Meditation/yoga practice
• Take a 10-15 minute break every hour
• Go on a walk during phone calls
• Or anything else where you learn better ways of managing stress

The body needs relaxation (in addition to sleep) to work well. Without proper recovery time, our bodies become depleted.

You can’t treat your body and mind like a computer. A computer can run all day without breaks, but you can’t do the same!

Lack Of Proper Nutrition 

Nutrition doesn’t need to be complex, but you can’t expect to eat bread all day and not crave sugar.

Your body needs fiber, protein, and healthy fat to feel full and satisfied.

If you’re not eating enough fiber, protein, or fat, your body will crave sugary foods as a substitute.  

See, when you lack protein, fiber, and fat, this usually means you are eating too many carbohydrates.

When you eat simple carbs such as bread or cereal, your body converts the carbs into sugar.

In other words, your blood sugar levels rise, which triggers insulin release.

How To Stop Nutrition / Low Blood Sugar Deficiency

Changing your eating habits can be difficult if you consistently consume carbs.

Of course, it’s best to eat whole and unprocessed foods.

But if that is difficult, try protein shakes until the habit becomes more natural! 🙂

There are a few other ways to avoid blood sugar spikes and crashes.

You can eat more protein with your carbs, like combining nuts and oatmeal in the morning instead of plain oatmeal.

If you are a vegetarian or vegan, try adding avocado, nuts, and seeds to your meal, for example, a salad. Of course, you can also do this even if you eat meat!

Unsweetened Food Deficiency

We often hear about artificial sweeteners. We’re so used to them that we’ve become deficient in liking or wanting unsweetened foods!

Yes, the American palate has become desensitized to eating too many processed and artificially sweetened foods! Artificial sweeteners seem to be in almost everything.

The sugar industry is worth a crazy amount of money. Why? Because they get you and me both to eat way more sugar than we should.

Usually, eating sugary sweeteners makes you think this is how normal food tastes. This is how you develop a sweet tooth over time!

So when you eat food that isn’t artificially sweetened, you feel like something is missing. Then, you start to crave sugary treats because this is normal to you.

Even with savory or salty foods, something is missing if there isn’t enough sugar in the recipe.

No wonder why so many people find themselves with a nasty sugar-craving proclivity! Because what else do their bodies know?

How To Stop Unsweetened Sugar Craving Deficiency

To stop desiring sugar, your body must get a steady stream of glucose, which it does by eating wholesome foods on a regular basis.

Glucose is the energy your body produces after it digests foods. Another word for glucose is blood sugar.

After your body digests carbs like white rice or muffins, your body quickly turns the carbs into glucose. 

But glucose is also found after you eat protein, fat, or fiber!

Protein, fat, and fiber are different from sugar or carbohydrates because the energy from these sources is converted into glucose slower than with carbohydrates.

This is one reason why many people crave sweet foods. They eat lots of carbs, get a quick glucose energy release, and then quickly use this sugar energy in their blood.  

Now, they are at low blood-sugar levels and craving more quick energy for their brain or muscles.

To cut down on these intense desires, eat healthy snacks with protein. Have nuts to help stabilize your blood sugar so a sugar craving doesn’t spike hard afterward. 

If you want something sweet, try dark chocolate. Dark chocolate is pretty darn good for you (in moderation)!

Try to pick a chocolate with less sugar, and you will be 100% good to go!

What Hormone Makes You Crave Sugar? Lack Of Serotonin!

A lack of serotonin in the brain is one cause of food cravings.

Serotonin also affects mood stability, sleep, and appetite control!

Serotonin is like the ‘happy’ hormone. But many things can cause your brain to become serotonin-depleted.

Here are some ways you exhaust your stores of serotonin:

• Being lonely:  loneliness can lead to depression
• Lack of sleep: not getting a good night’s rest also decreases serotonin levels.  
• Too much caffeine: coffee is high in stimulants, interrupting your sleep cycle. Sound familiar?
• Starvation: dieting to lose weight means your brain doesn’t get enough nutrients to produce serotonin.

Yes! That’s right! Diets, especially very restrictive diets, can deplete your serotonin.

I work in an eating disorder center, and we often treat patients with anorexia.

People with anorexia don’t eat enough food and they often report ‘brain fog’.

Brain fog is when it is difficult to think. This difficulty doesn’t go away by getting sleep or taking a break, either.

How To Stop Lack Of Serotonin

Since serotonin is the ‘happy’ chemical, you can boost serotonin by doing self-care.

You can boost your serotonin levels by doing activities like meditation or exercise.

You can also go on a walk, cook yourself a pleasurable meal, or visit with a close friend.

Other self-care practices include journaling, reading a book, or listening to music.

If you have low serotonin levels, it may be time to seek professional help from your doctor or counselor!

Conclusion: What Causes Craving For Sugar?

To stop sugar cravings, you need to be honest with yourself. Where are your deficiencies?

• Sleep?
• Relaxation?
• Nutrition?

If you are deficient in all three areas, tackle them individually.

If you continue to have sugar cravings after tackling one of these, then you are still deficient!

The same applies to food cravings in general. You are missing something important, like sleep, relaxation, or enough nutrition!

These deficiencies are not always easy to spot, so keep trying to be honest with yourself. What does your body need?

It’s easy to overlook things like rest and sleep. However, understanding these needs is essential if you are serious about cravings.