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Addicted To Sugar? The Craving-Control Technique A Dietitian Recommends Most

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I’m a sucker for chocolate, cake and biscuits. Lord help me if there’s a brownie in my eye-line.

Despite knowing full well such sugary treats aren’t great for my health (a diet high in sugar has been linked to everything from dementia and tooth decay to cancer), my brain still caves whenever one finds its way in front of me. Or even if they’re sat in a cupboard nearby…

If, like me, you give in to cravings at the drop of a hat, a dietitian has shared a relatively simple mindset trick that might just help you finally combat them.

Why do we get cravings?

Food cravings happen for several reasons, one of which is our brain chemistry, according to The Temple Clinic.

When we eat something tasty, our brains release the feel-good hormone dopamine. Your brain then wants to repeat this feeling, making it all too easy to reach for the sugar in future.

Your body might also crave sugary foods or carbs when your blood sugar levels drop – although often, reaching for a biscuit can simply result in a blood sugar crash not long after.

Hormones can also play a part in our cravings, added the clinic. Cortisol, our stress hormone, can encourage us to reach for dopamine-boosting foods.

Speaking to Today.com, registered dietitian Joy Bauer noted we’ve got “two systems running” at the same time – one signals our biological need for food, while the other is fuelled by our “hedonic system” (which centres around pleasure and reward).

“In a world where tempting food is everywhere (ahem!) on every corner, in every feed – that reward system can get loud. Loud enough to drown out the signals telling you you’ve already had enough,” she explained.

If your brain easily takes you to temptation central, Bauer wants you to try one simple reset.

The mindset trick that can help beat cravings

The expert recommends for snackers to “pause before you pounce”, giving yourself five or 10 minutes before you grab something to eat “because cravings tend to rise like a wave and then soften on their own”.

During those empty minutes, she advises naming the feeling behind the craving – are you tired, stressed or maybe even bored? – as determining “the real driver takes a surprising amount of the power out of it”.

This trick has been recommended by the NHS, too. A patient leaflet from Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust calls it “urge surfing”.

“Some people notice waves of desire; the way urges can build and then diminish has been compared to a wave in the ocean and this is where the name urge surfing comes from,” they explain.

Five other ways to fight cravings

If that doesn’t work for you, here are some other techniques to try:

  1. Have a drink of water – Healthline noted that sometimes thirst can be confused with hunger or cravings.
  2. While you’re ‘urge surfing’, find alternative activities to pass the time until the craving or urge has passed – this could be going for a walk, messaging a friend, completing a task at work, doing something you enjoy (ie. knitting or colouring).
  3. Increase your fibre intake. There’s been a bit of an obsession with fibremaxxing in recent times – and it seems the trend could help curb sugar cravings. Miranda Pascucci, Head of Clinical Education and dental therapist at TePe, previously shared that “when meals are more filling and fibre-rich, people are often less likely to graze on sugary snacks throughout the day”.
  4. Chew gum – there’s some research to suggest chewing gum can help combat cravings for high energy snacks.
  5. Get plenty of sleep – sleep deprivation can disrupt your hormones which can, in turn, result in cravings.
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‘He Should Be Ashamed’: Lammy Tears Tory MP Apart For Joking About Arson Attacks Targeting Starmer

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David Lammy told the Conservatives’ deputy chairman he should be “ashamed of himself” after he mocked the arson attacks targeting Keir Starmer.

Two Ukrainians set alight to the prime minister’s family home and his car in 2025 after being recruited online by a Russian-speaking Telegram user “El Money”.

Roman Lavrynovych, and Ukrainian-born Romanian national Stanislav Carpiuc were convicted of conspiracy to carry out arson attacks on Monday.

But on Tuesday, Matt Vickers joined Talk’s Peter Kyle in laughing at the incident.

The Tory MP joked about the far-right conspiracy theory that the two Ukrainian nationals found guilty of conspiring to carry out the attacks on Starmer’s property and car were “rent boys”.

So when Vickers stood up to ask about the high rates of unemployment during deputy prime minister’s questions, Lammy hit back by pointing out the MP had been “laughing and joking” about the arson attacks against Starmer only yesterday.

Standing in for Starmer, Lammy said: “I must say to this Tory deputy chairman, yesterday he was on television laughing and joking about the arson attack on the prime minister’s home.

“Laughing about a firebomb targeting the prime minister and his family.

“Not only that, he joined with promoting conspiracies about the attack and laughed along to demeaning, homophobic remarks.

“He should be ashamed of himself.

“My advice to him is to grow up, apologise, and do considerably better.”

Vickers just shook his head from the Commons’ opposition benches.

Labour chair Anna Turley later said: “It is frankly sickening that anyone would seek to laugh and joke about an appalling attack on a fellow politician’s family home.

“To do so on the same day as we stood in unity to mark the anniversary of our dear friend and much missed colleague Jo Cox, is beyond the pale.

“Matt Vickers is not fit to be an MP and if Kemi Badenoch had an ounce of integrity or respect for the safety of those who seek to serve the public, she would do the right thing and sack him today.

“Just two days ago, Kemi Badenoch rightly called out the perpetrators of the vile attack against the Prime Minister. Some issues go beyond the rough and tumble of Party politics. If she fails to act now, her words clearly will have meant nothing.”

When asked for his take on the story on Talk on Tuesday, Vickers did begin his interview by acknowledging the serious concerns around Russian influence in the UK and the subsequent impact on security.

However, he soon added: “The idea that there some secret Russian effort to destabilise the country via the prime minister… I mean, you’d leave him in office!”

Kyle laughed loudly while Vickers continued: “Let him destroy the country! Don’t distract him, because he’s doing a pretty canny job of blowing himself up.”

Referring to the false rumour spread by Russia around the attacks, Kyle asked: “Were they rent boys?”

“I’m not familiar with them,” the MP replied, smiling.

Kyle said: “His front door was firebombed wasn’t it? Why are you laughing? It wasn’t his back door, it was his front door.”

The presenter then turned to the backlash to the PM’s attempts to introduce a social media ban for under-16s, adding: “He’s trying to bring a social media ban in through the back door quite quickly, isn’t he?”

Vickers struggled to stop his laughter.

A Tory Party spokesperson said: “If you’ve got an issue with the content of the programme, I suggest taking that up with Jeremy Kyle.”

He said party leader Kemi Badenoch had outright condemned the arson attacks on Tuesday.

The spokesperson said: “If you listen to what he actually says, the content of his words isn’t actually saying anything wrong. He laughed on that part, he was purely polite to the host of a radio programme.”

Watch the Talk interview here:

Listen to Commons People, the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week’s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what’s going on at Westminster.

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Peter Capaldi Just Shared Why He Really Left Doctor Who

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Peter Capaldi, who was the 12th Doctor on BBC hit Doctor Who, has spoken out about his exit from the show.

The Thick Of It Star left the franchise in 2017. In a recent appearance on YouTube series 100 Questions with John Simmons, he claimed that he decided to leave the role because “I just wasn’t sure that it was going to go in the direction that I… everybody was leaving that I’d worked with.”

He added, “Everybody was leaving. Jenna [presumably Jenna Louise-Coleman, who played the Doctor’s companion Clara Oswald] had gone, and Steven [probably former head writer Steven Moffat, who also left in 2017] was going, and Brian [likely Brian Minchin], the producer, was going, and those are the people that make it work for you.

“We’d had some talks about the direction. I wasn’t sure that that was where I wanted to go with the show. And I also thought, I’m not sure I could come up with anything new.”

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Peter continued to say that while his regeneration, which saw the actor replaced by Jodie Whittaker, was “very sad”, he thinks that the biological process the Doctor uses to survive serious damage has become “diminished”.

Calling the concept “a very, very powerful death motif,” he said, “To be perfectly honest, I think there are too many regenerations.

“I love all the Doctors, but I’ve lost count now of how many of them there are, so the weight of this kind of regeneration is diminished. Whereas when I grew up as a kid, the first time it happened it was: ‘What just happened there?’ It was mysterious and strange. It holds the mystery of the show, the regeneration.”

It’s not the first time he’s expressed his feelings about the show, of which he was a super-fan in his youth.

On the Half Of The Picture podcast this year, he claimed: “The show became very, very big. And it was never like that when I loved it. So it became a different thing.

“I think the show is a little bit of a victim of its success. You know, the show that I loved was a tiny thing, a little small thing that survived. It just survived, but nobody knew that it was warming its way into the culture in such a deep way. And I think that’s what I have an affinity with.”

In the ’70s, the Doctor Who fan club received so much correspondence from a young Capaldi that then-president of the group, Keith Miller, said he felt “haunted” by the Doctor-to-be.

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