Have you ever experienced a sugar craving in the afternoon? Blood sugar imbalances can cause fatigue and sugar cravings. I recommend practicing steps 1-10 of this 7-part blog series to balance your blood sugar. If you haven’t read the blog series, start with Part 1.
Here are 4 tips I recommend if you are waiting to eat something sweet! I hope these strategies can help you enjoy your favorite desserts guilt-free!
Tip 1: Eat your Dessert after the Meal
If you’re having a sugar craving, especially for sweets, it’s best to wait until after dinner to indulge. This can help with blood sugar control, as your blood sugar is naturally going to rise after a meal. It’s the perfect time to enjoy a dessert without causing a big spike in blood sugar.
The fiber, protein, and fat from the meal will help prevent the dessert from causing a sharp increase in blood sugar.
Tip 2: Move After you Eat something Sweet
It’s a good idea to eat your dessert after your meal and then take a 10-15 minute walk. This movement can further help stabilize your blood sugar. Another benefit of eating dessert after your meal is that it makes it harder to overeat—your stomach is already full from the meal, so you’re less likely to consume large amounts of the dessert.
Tip 3: Never Eat your Sweet “Naked”
If you’ve been practicing some of the blood sugar strategies I recommend, your dessert will not cause as high of a spike in blood sugar as it would if you ate it by itself. When you eat a dessert alone (as a snack, for example), it leads to a rapid rise in blood sugar because the carbohydrates (sugar) are consumed without any protein, fat, or fiber to slow the digestion.
If you eat something sweet with something high in fat or protein, this will help prevent the blood sugar from spiking as high. For example, if you were to eat high-fat yogurt with cake, it will help prevent the carbohydrates from the cake from spiking your blood sugar as much.
Tip 4: Eat a High Fat Dessert
Another strategy is to opt for a high-fat dessert like chocolate avocado pudding or keto peanut butter cups. These desserts are naturally low in sugar and high in healthy fats, which helps prevent a blood sugar spike.
You can have dessert as part of a healthy diet. I want you to have the freedom and flexibility to choose the desserts you want. There’s no need to demonize sugar, desserts, or carbs and think that they are bad.
Wrapping Up
I hope that you will have more energy the next time you enjoy your favorite dessert by trying one of these tips! Remember, it is okay and normal that you blood sugar rises after you eat food. There is no need to take extreme measures to prevent blood sugar spikes completely. We just want to prevent high blood sugar spikes and low blood sugar dips.
In this 7-part blog series, we learned 10 simple steps you can take to balance your blood sugar. We learned how blood sugar balance is key in reducing sugar cravings, improving energy, and reducing energy crashes.
I recommend on mastering 1-3 of the steps. There is no need to take these steps and turn it into a diet or list of rules. Even by consistently practicing 2 or 3 of the strategies I teach in this blog series will reap dividends in your health.
What steps do you want to incorporate into your daily routine?