I second grapes in the freezer.
For me, hot chocolate always does the trick.
Technically still a sweet, but much less dangerous than your average fatty craving, especially if you get a light brand.
Is this a real sweet tooth, or just the sweet taste habit? If it’s a real sweet tooth, you probably need a small hit of sugar and fat to quell it. A couple of crackers and a TINY piece of cheese, for instance. Or a small serving of rice with a pat of butter. If not, fake sweetened drinks are a good way to go. Stevia, in my subjective opinion, is okay for making lemon juice, but taste like plastic in coffee and tea.
Glad to see chocolate chip corn cakes and chocolate soy milk (I’m a vanilla fan, too) mentioned – I buy way too much of those.
Also, cottage cheese with bananas and honey (or artificial sweetener) is a great snack that fills you up really quickly.
Become diabetic. That’s what it took to get me to quit eating sweets and junk food and to finally get into a gym. Heh… I think it was right around the time my doctor told me I was close to experiencing the joys of kidney failure (and without health insurance, no less) that I decided I’d best make some changes.
On the other hand, I’ve discovered the joys of Sorbee sugar-free hard candies. Eat too many and they’ll give you gas, though. Yechh!
Eat more protein. There are some theroies that your body has certain cravings because of defiencies, like ice chewing is low iron. Sweet craving is supposed to mean low protein. Try adding more protein, like soy- or a great one is edamanie beans, it is a complete protein.
any ideas for curbing cravings for nachos or chip and dip?
Several points arising, here. First of all, join the club. Some of us have a sweet tooth, and other people will never know what it’s like. As burdens go, it’s not the worst in life by any means, but it can be tough!
First of all, if you’re concerned about your weight or keen to lose a little, don’t get confused about whether something is ‘fattening’ and whether it’s sweet. If you eat or dirnk something that contains sugar, your body metabolises the sugar instead of raiding its own stores of on-board fuel (carbs and fat), so it’s not helping you to trim down. I used to drink oceans of fresh fruit juice, thinking it was ‘healthy’. Well, it is, in some ways. But at the same time I wasn’t losing any weight. Then a friend explained the sugar thing…
Secondly, you might like to give some thought as to whether you should be solving the problem or just papering over it. I’m not getting preachy… believe me, I’m on your side and can write from experience. If you are regularly experiencing sweet cravings, this could be a sign that you hae diet/exercise issues to sort out, and it’s as much about the mind and emotions as it is about the body. We all know the demons that can haunt… comfort eating, compensation eating, displacement eating and so on. And I used to suffer from the entire damn cocktail of them!
However, if you don’t want to bother with all that, or reckon you don’t need to, then you’ll just want something that either diminishes the craving or kills it. Here’s one solution:
2 teaspoons of fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon of maple syrup
1 pinch of red pepper
Put in a cup or mug, fill up with hot water as if you were making instant coffee. Stir well, and drink when it’s cool enough. Sounds disgusting. Isn’t. Will beutralise sweet cravings instantly.
ianzin…well, I know eating sweets is fraught with complex issues for me…part of my desire to cut down on sweets is just a general desire to eat less unhealthy foods, although sweets are pretty much my one vice at this point (I don’t smoke or do any kind of drugs, rarely drink at all and then usually limit myself to one drink, and as far as romance…well, let’s not talk about that for now). It’s not purely a caloric issue, although I wouldn’t mind losing 10-15 pounds. Somehow I don’t have a hard time limiting my consumption of other high-fat foods; my dad, for example, found it really difficult to cut down his cheese intake, whereas for me that would be a snap.
Sometimes I eat sweets or hardcore carbos (pasta, that kind of thing) because I’m ravenous and it’s the handiest thing to chow down on. Sometimes I eat them because they taste good. Mostly, I eat them because they make me feel good. They are comfort food to me. And yes, probably the other excercise/well-being stuff plays in as well; the last couple of times I started a new and intense romantic relationship, I lost 10 lbs. inside of a month without even thinking about it, much less trying to.
I’m trying to balance out the other dietary stuff; I just filled the fridge and freezer with fresh veggies and fish, canned beans (a favorite convenience food) and some yogurt and juice, so there’s plenty of quick stuff to munch on. Maybe this will help. My one concession to junk food was a pint of lemon sorbet, which isn’t perfect, but at leat it ain’t Ben & Jerry’s New York Super Fudge Chunk…the hardest part, though, is shaking the feeling that sometimes a meal just isn’t done until you eat something sweet.
I’ve seen a couple of suggestions here to take chromium supplements. Try a combination of chromium and L-Glutamine (an amino acid, available quite inexpensively at Wal-Mart). Take the chromium daily, and 2 L-Glutamines with each meal. The first of this year, I gave up refined sugar, white flour, white potatoes and rice, and the L-Glut was what really helped curb the cravings. But for nights like tonight was for me, when only something sweet and decatdent will do, I whipped up a parfait:
1 and 1/2 C. mixed berries, sweetened with 2 packets Splenda
1 pkg. sugar-free vanilla pudding, prepared
Layer in glasses and chill until set.
Totally excellent!
If you feel like baking, try these – I dunno where all you can get 'em, but I usually find them at my local Trader Joes. Low-fat, lowish-sugar brownies, and best of all, instructions for making them one individual serving at a time, in the microwave!
I’m right with you on the sweet tooth, Eva – I love sugar in all its myriad forms. I love it too darn much.
Generally, I stay away from sweets by just plain not having them in the house. It takes a lot of willpower for me not to buy Ben and Jerry’s or Ding Dongs in the store – I have to wrestle myself out of the aisle when I see those things (and don’t THAT look funny in the middle of the supermarket). But I thank myself for it when I’m hungry at home and I don’t have any sweet foods that are entirely too easy to snack on.
And the water trick works for me, too – I have my water bottle with me habitually and I’m usually so full from drinking water that my stomach really doesn’t want anything more in it. O’course, you pay for that by having to go to the bathroom every 10 minutes, but what system’s perfect, right? 
**Zanshin, ** Ding Dong? You seriously consider Ding Dongs worthy of the calories? Eeeeew! (Ben & Jerry’s, of course, is anther story.) If you’re going to eat sweets, at least make them the good stuff! I think Ding Dongs would survive a nuclear holocaust, what with all the preservatives.
This morning I remembered that protein, preferably with a bit of carbs, at breakfast certainly helps. Yogurt with some granola mixed in seems to be a good combo in terms of not making me want to down a pint of Ben & Jerry’s by lunchtime. Water is good if it’s actual hunger I’m combatting, rather than just a craving, but that’s rarely the case when I have a compulsion to eat sweet stuff. And I could never do the Atkins thing; I don’t feel like I’ve eaten if there are no carbs whatsoever.