A few things....
If you are looking to break that "sugar addiction" that you may be dealing with, the best thing to do is to totally eliminate sugar for 7 days. That means all fruits, all sweets, and pretty much anything that has any amount of sugar in it. The first 3 days will be the hardest, but there is still plenty you can eat and focus on. For instance you could have eggs and black beans rolled in a corn tortilla for breakfast with salsa, and lunch could be a grilled chicken salad with sliced veggies and some sort of low sugar dressing. Dinner is as easy as a lean cut of meat on the grill, and grilled veggies of your choice like zuchinii and eggplant and red peppers, alongside another small side salad with a dollop of hummus on top.
If you can cut out the sugar for at least 7 days, you will find that when you slowly return to a piece of fruit or a dessert, your craving for it will be less. Have you looked into a "candida cleanse"? It's highly possible that your sugar cravings could be caused by this sort of yeast overgrowth in your colon....
If you are just looking to limit your sugars and desserts and try to find some alternatives to eating bowls of ice cream every night, there are couple of things to look at... you may not be getting enough healthy fats earlier in your day - things like avocados, oils, olives, salmon, and other omega 3 rich fish. Sometimes when you limit your fat too much, sugar cravings can take over to try to make you eat something that might have fat and unfortunately also comes with sugar (like ice cream). If you body does not get the nutrients it needs earlier in the day, cravings can take over at night and make you feel out of control as your body seeks to find the nutrients in needs in any kind of craving.
If you just need some substitutions, try more nutrient dense sweet treats like adding walnuts and blueberries and cut up strawberries to melted peanut butter(just one tablespoon). Or try banana sushi: cut banana chunks and top with a dab of peanut butter and lay them out on a pretty sushi plate! Another sweet treat is to make a low carb banana nut bread, by substituting the flour with almond meal, and subsituting the sugar with stevia or splenda (stevia is more natural.)
What about greek yogurt which is very thick and creamy and you can add a favorite sweetener and just a few mini chocolate chips or carob chips?? It's very creamy and decadent like ice cream.
Maybe you need to keep your hands busier in the night so you aren't tempted to snack...maybe scrapbooking while you watch tv or giving a massage to your significant other?
One last thing...if you love ice cream, having a little every now and then isn't the worst thing in the world. Just try not to have it right before bed, use the smallest serving bowl you have and a small spoon, spoon out only the recommended serving size, like 1/2 cup, and no more and then take small bites and savor it. You might also take a walk afterwards to use some of that sugar you just took in.
Hope those are some suggestions that can help you.
