Cravings After Eating Sweet Foods

[tom]

Hey, does anyone else get cravings after eating food, particularly sweet foods?

For example, after I have a piece of cake or chocolate of whatever, I suddenly get the craving to eat more, even if I am feeling full. I am guessing this is due to dopamine or due to some other mechanism in the brain.

I was just wondering whether these cravings will ever go away or reduce or are they something I (or everybody) will always deal with?

It can be quite annoying. For example, tonight I had a snack, felt full partway through but decided to carry on eating cos of FOMO of the cooking I had done. Afterwards I had the realisation that I could just cook it again when I was hungry for it, that way I get to eat enough and also get to have it again.

However ever since eating I have just had cravings to eat more and more. I dunno what to do, I am just lying in bed and can't sleep.

Sometimes I get cravings that go away after a while but right now this is a long craving.

Anyone else get these?

[polina]

Hello Tom! Yes I get cravings (at the beginning I suppose these are not even URGES to binge but just an overwhelming desire to eat more and more) for more sweets after I ate just some, even if I'm full. I'd say, especially when I'm a bit more than full (like when I ate a little or much more than I should've eaten), because then it's harder to control myself and stay in mind food-wise. For me sweets are one of the hardest parts of recovery, it's extremely hard sometimes to stop on one or two or three? portions, I just want to devour the whole thing at once no matter how full I am (because these things are so delicious?!). I think it's nothing more than a binge-created pattern: when I was severely restricting I couldn't allow myself even a tiny piece of sweets and when I couldn't resist the desire and eventually ate just a tiny bit, my brain thought smth like 'this is the chance to eat! there could never ever be another one!', so I lost control and ended up bingeing and then feeling guilty and purged it all. Soon this became a pattern because I couldn't control myself anymore. Even though I stopped purging a while ago and at the moment I'm quite alright with controlling my urges, I still find it hard to stay in control when I eat smth sweet.
There are some things that help me to control myself:
I try to buy less sweets
I try to avoid being around sweets when I'm super hungry, actually it's better to never get to this point and make sure you eat on time
When I decide to have some sweet snack or some dessert, I find it helpful to measure my portion before I start to eat and then put the package away from my sight. And when I finish my meal, I understand that i want more but i dont think that i really need it, so I go from the kitchen to another room and try to engage in some activity at once (like watching videos or plaiyng an instrument, even just surfing the internet may go) - the point is to distract yourself so you forget that you crave sweets
Also I drink water or tea (much of it if needed) after a meal, so I feel fullness faster and also don't feel the taste of food in my mouth!
It's very important to allow yourself to eat all kinds of food that you want including sweets. Gratefully, I seem to be past that period when all I wanted to eat were sweets (that time I ate much of sweets because I really felt that's what I needed to calm my brain down, idk how to explain it - the thing is to listen to yourself and understand how you really feel). Don't deny in your favourite food. There could be a situation where you find yourself craving this and that and a bit of that and a while bunch of that and you plan to go to the store and you want to buy it all and ate at once, so my advice here is not to buy everything at once and pick just one or two things and buy the rest of them the other day or week - this way there's less risk you overeat.
Well, these words are not so new and surprising, but what more can we do? Sorry if I went too further from the question stated...
These cravings will sure reduce gradually, you just should do your best and don't stop Sweets are tough to stop eating , even those who don't have an ED often have hard time controlling theirselves over sweet food! It will be alright with time, I'm sure
(please excuse my English , if there are any mistakes)

[clare]

Hi Tom
I'm exactly the same
I've tried intuitive eating many many times and something I noticed from that was when i let myself eat anything i was fine...until i started eating sugary things throughout the day. I just wanted more and more
When I first brought the brain over binge book and gave it a go i also found that the more sweet things i was eating in a day the more i'd want to eat sweet things and the more urges to binge i would eventually have
I don't know if it's the habit and the fact that most binge foods are sugary...or if it's the sugar itself.
Funnily enough when i don't eat that much sugar i don't even crave it very often, unless i'm being restrictive about it!
anyhow good luck, i don't have any advice but i hear ya!

[powerless]

YES! it is this way for me with sweets or carbs. I CANT GET ENOUGH!! until I am so full I am sick and in pain

[jessilynn]

YES! I was just talking about this the other day. I RARELY ever eat any sugary / artificial / high fat food anymore, but I do eat a lot of substitutes... i.e. KIND bars, organic protein bars with chocolate, vegan protein cookies or brownies (i.e. Lenny and Larry's, etc), etc. After I eat substitutes, I don't get cravings. BUT... after I eat the real high fat sugar calories versions (i.e. a REAL brownie or a chunk of chocolate), I get the urge to keep going. It's weird. It's definitely the old habit feeling coming back.