I love my sugar!

When a friend calls, you turn up. When she is asking you for advice, you give it freely and with her best interest in mind.

So, when a new Belgium friend of mine asked me if I'd like to play guinea pig for her nutritional workshop, of course, I was willing to give her a hand. Turns out the workshops was to be about sugar cravings. No better theme for my huge and insatiable sweet tooth.

Even though my friend's tagline was: "Are you ready to end your sugar cravings?" and my answer would definitely be no, I was still very curious to know where it all starts. Is it a habit, my brain or my body the source of my cravings?

I simply cannot live without sugar. I am the girl who takes two lumps of sugar in her tiny Italian espresso cup. And, no I am in no lack of energy! Still, I want to understand why I cannot finish my lunch without a piece of chocolate melting on my palate.

Well, I got my answers. I found out that three things can cause sugar cravings: nutrition, body imbalance and emotions. I learnt about GI index (although I just needed to google that again). "Glycaemic Index (GI) is a number associated with a particular type of food that indicates the food's effect on a person's blood glucose (also called blood sugar) level."

I knew that spikes in blood sugar level is bad but admittedly never bothered trying to reduce them. However, after being made aware about hidden sugars - have you any idea how much sugar is in milk for example? - we listed ten ways to reduce sugar cravings. I won't go into all ten of them, you need to sign up for the workshop to get that answer - but I will reveal that switching from olive oil to coconut oil helps improve your intake of healthy fats. Surprised? So was I!

My conclusions: homemade granola is unmatched by the supermarket stuff, even the so-called healthy version, Quinoa is something that can actually taste good and I am way above the FDA recommendation of 10 teaspoons of sugar per day.

The one thing we could not agree on, however, is if the Belgian or the Swiss chocolate was better! Thank you my funky, creative entrepreneur-nutritionist friend for teaching me some more good things in life!