Listen, if you’re craving sugar to the point where it feels like a “drug addiction” (and even drug addiction is complex & widely misunderstood), then you’re too hungry. You’re too hungry!
The pleasurability of sugar and the reward that sugar creates in the brain is much more pronounced in what the literature calls “restrained eaters” than it is in intuitive eaters. Sugar is usually pleasurable for most people, but in non-restrained eaters its appeal will be highest at our hungriest and decrease significantly with satiety. Restrictive eaters don’t experience satiety, because they constantly maintain an energy deficit, and that’s why sugar feels like a “drug.” Dietary sugar is fast, efficient energy for a deprived body, and our smart bodies drive us to it powerfully for that reason, to rectify the energy deficit.
Dietary sugar is great. It’s not a threat. It doesn’t cause disease. It’s not a drug. It’s a healthy part of a pleasurable diet. But if it feels to you like you’re completely out of control around it because of the intensity of its pleasurability, you need to be eating more calories, period.
