RD, LDN, CBS
Certified in Maternal and Infant Nutrition from Cornell, Angela’s mission is to help people reach their wellness goals. She also helps run a program that teaches pregnant women about how a healthy lifestyle optimizes prenatal and postnatal care.
Do you have a sweet tooth that just can’t be satisfied? Perhaps you are finding it harder and harder to resist that piece of cake? Whether you’ve had a sweet tooth your whole life or whether it’s something that reared its head during pregnancy, we know that the desire to indulge in something sweet can be strong and difficult to manage.
While experts agree that there are no definitive reasons why we gravitate towards sweets, there are several things going on in our bodies that may leave us with a hankering for that sugar rush. From birth, sweet is the first taste humans prefer. Sugar and other carbohydrate containing foods stimulate the release of the feel-good brain chemical serotonin. Naturally, our bodies enjoy that sensation of pleasure, which may leave us wanting more and more of our favorite indulgences.
Sweets and other refined carbs digest rather quickly, causing our blood sugar to rise and fall rapidly, leading to a “crash and burn” feeling without much satisfaction.
Depriving ourselves of foods that we enjoy is not the answer; yet we know that giving into our cravings too often may interfere with recommended weight gain recommendations during pregnancy and healthy postpartum weight loss. Don’t let your sweet tooth get the better of you, read on for tips on how to keep it in check!
Drewnowski, Adam., Mennella, Julie A., Johnson, Susan L., Bellisle, France. “Sweetness and Food Preference.” J Nutr. 142. 6 (2012): 1142S–1148S.
<https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3738223/>
Singh, Minati. “Mood, Food and Obesity.” Frontiers in Psychology. (2014) <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4150387/>