Sugar cravings: Excessive consumption of sugar leads to lethargy and sleepiness. (JP/Arief Suhardiman)

Whenever she works overtime in her office, or whenever she is stressed out by her work, Maya (not her real name), a 31-year-old woman who works at a financial institution, often craves sweet cakes, such as black forest, imagining the cake’s sweet flavor and its soft and creamy texture.

These cravings often come uninvited, especially late at night, according to her, so she always keeps some biscuits and wafers on her desk to munch on.

However, after a while, she has started to feel lethargic and sleepier after eating so many sweets and attributes the unpleasant body sensation to her consumption of the sweets.

Maya’s friend Sandra (likewise a pseudonym) also has sugar cravings, but they are different from her friend’s. She is not craving sweet foods, but — in her own words — the “sickeningly sweet” Thai tea, after being influenced by some of her friends who often go out and drink the beverage and post the images on their social media accounts.

“I often crave the Thai tea after I finish eating because in the past two years I developed a habit of drinking the Thai tea after eating my meal and I often crave it during long meetings, when my brain is being used to full capacity,” Sandra explains.

She has also started to be concerned about her own health because not only does she know that the Thai tea uses a huge quantity of sweetened condensed milk, but her demanding work schedule has also caused her to do less vigorous physical exercise than she used to many years before.

Thus, Maya and Sandra are beginning to think of ways to manage their sugar cravings.

Sound familiar? Perhaps most of us have pictured sweet muffins or pastries or ice cream out of the blue, especially during the evening or when we are stressed out as an attempt to soothe ourselves, but then what is so attractive about sugary drinks and foods that we crave them so frequently?

First, there is an evolutionary reason. In his book, The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health and Disease, author Daniel Lieberman writes that “sugar is a deep, deep ancient craving”, as it offered more than just energy to our ancestors to conduct their hunting and gathering or to flee predators. Sugar also helped them store fat.

Thus, sugar stimulates the feel-good chemical dopamine in our brains, according to Lieberman, and the brain structure persists even today as most modern-day humans no longer exert themselves physically as much as their ancestors did.

Sugar can also alter your taste bud sensitivity, says clinical nutritionist Fiastuti Witjaksono. “If you habituate yourself to eat or drink sweet snacks or beverages after eating your meal, then you’re bound to crave sugar after a meal,” Fiastuti says, explaining Maya and Sandra’s experiences.

Also, modern-day urbanites often eat industrialized, processed flour-based foods, such as bread, spaghetti or cakes, which contain simple carbohydrates that are metabolized rapidly by the body, thus making you hungry again faster, says Fiastuti.

Fiastuti says that when one does not have a nutritionally balanced meal, featuring a proportional amount of all vitamins — minerals, as well as fat and proteins — one is also bound to get sugar cravings as most of one’s nutritional needs are met with simple carbohydrates.

Unfortunately, this is the case for most people living in big cities, as their hectic lives can cause them to neglect proper nutrition intake as well, Fiastuti says.

Sweet foods and drinks are of concern as they can increase one’s likelihood of developing noncommunicable diseases, most commonly heart disease and type-2 diabetes, she continues.

“So better to make sure you get all the vitamins and minerals you need, especially from fruits and vegetables, and think of trading simple carbohydrate foods with those containing complex ones,” she advises.

Foods that contain complex carbohydrates — thus are metabolized longer by the body, satiating you longer and keeping cravings at bay — include wheat bread, oatmeal, corn and green peas, she says.

Maya says she has traded her wafers and biscuits for fruits — such as mangoes and grapefruits — although they also contain sugar, but “at least these are better alternatives”, she says.

Sandra, meanwhile, has substituted her Thai tea with plain tea, while using a smartphone application to monitor her sugar intake, and she has her own unique way of tricking her brain to beat her Thai tea cravings.

“I use bright-colored tumblers that change colors when you pour hot water into them. So I can pretend to myself that I drink colorful beverages when in fact it is just plain hot tea that I drink during my long meetings or after meals,” she says, laughing. Want to try her method?

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