The Weekly Sugar Rush - 10 Reasons why you might be having sugar cravings. Reasons 5-7

I hope you enjoyed reading last week's edition of the weekly Sugar Rush. If you remember last Monday I covered the first four reasons why you might be craving sugar and this week I will be covering reasons five to seven. So read on and enjoy!

Reason number five. Are you drinking too much alcohol?

Firstly there are empty calories and extra sugar in alcohol which can play havoc with your blood sugar levels. However what we might not appreciate is the pressure that alcohol puts on the liver. Having a healthy liver is key to managing our blood sugar balance because the liver stores excess glycogen.

Glycogen is a stored form of glucose deposited there when there is too much glucose in the bloodstream. If your liver is overworked, whenever your blood sugars drop, it won’ be able to release the glycogen back into the bloodstream quickly enough. So when your blood glucose levels drop you find yourself craving sugar rather than utilizing the stored glycogen that is in your liver. Try reducing alcohol consumption to 2 nights a week to give your liver a chance to work more efficiently.

Reason number six. You might have a yeast overgrowth in your intestine.

A healthy functioning intestine is crucial to blood sugar balance. If you struggle with bloating or slow motility through the intestine you might have an imbalance of gut bacteria and some yeast in your intestine.

Yeast is activated on sugar. There is a direct link between your intestine and your brain, so if the yeast in your intestine demands sugar it will send a message to your brain to eat more sugar. This means that sometimes your sugar cravings are out of your control. By cutting back on sugar consumption you can starve the yeast of their food and therefore they die back and cravings subside.

Reason number seven. Your liver is under functioning.

We've already talked about alcohol putting pressure on the liver. Your liver is the main detox organ in the body, clearing all the toxins out of your system through the night. If your liver is under functioning it will bring you into a lighter phase of sleep between one and three. The result is poor quality sleep. Insulin that doesn't reset and cravings the next day. If you go back to last week's edition of The Sugar Rush I talked about poor sleep as being a key reason why we have sugar cravings.

I'll be sharing reasons number 8 to 10 with you on next week's weekly Sugar Rush.