Sugar Panic is an independently built iOS app for stopping sugar cravings in the moment. This page exists because the app was made for a specific person with a specific problem, and that story shapes every product decision we make.
The origin
Sugar Panic was built by Bogdan Dragomir for his wife. She knew everything there was to know about nutrition. She had tried elimination diets, tracking apps, meal plans, fasting, and every piece of sugar-free advice on the internet. None of it helped at the moment she actually needed help: the 3pm kitchen visit, the after-dinner biscuit, the stress-cookie during a hard workday.
The missing piece was never information. It was a structured response to the 90 seconds after a craving hits — the minute when you are alone, your prefrontal cortex hasn't caught up, and willpower is a race already being lost.
The first version of Sugar Panic was a physical button on our kitchen counter that played a breathing exercise. It worked well enough that it became an iOS app. The "panic" in the name is not metaphor — it names the specific feeling the app is built to interrupt.
What we believe
Willpower is the wrong unit of analysis
Cravings fire from older, faster circuitry than conscious choice. An intervention that expects willpower to win is designed to fail. An intervention that gives willpower a 60-second head start and a substitution option is designed to work.
Substitution beats restriction
Restrictive rules have the worst long-term compliance profile of any dietary approach studied. Sugar Panic uses substitution — "better than the cookie" — as the core move, because that's the one that holds up under real life.
Shame is the thing that reliably triggers the next binge
The abstinence-violation effect is real. Every logging surface in Sugar Panic is deliberately non-judgmental. Wins and slips are both data. Streaks preserve forward momentum; they do not punish a break.
Speed matters more than elegance
The craving window is 3–5 minutes. Any intervention that takes longer than 60 seconds to start loses. We optimise for tap latency, minimal decisions, and "good enough now" over "perfect later."
Privacy-first, no dark patterns
Sugar Panic works without an account. Data stays on-device by default. Optional sign-in via Apple or Google syncs across devices, nothing more. No ads. No third-party tracking SDKs. Nothing sold.
Who we build for
Sugar Panic is built for people whose cravings are driven by more than willpower:
- Women with PCOS or insulin resistance, whose cravings are hormonally and metabolically amplified
- People on GLP-1 medications (Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, Zepbound) whose physiological hunger dropped but whose head-hunger didn't
- Women in perimenopause and in the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle
- Shift workers and jet-lagged travellers with circadian-disrupted cravings
- Stress and night-time eaters who know exactly what they want to stop doing and need an interrupt, not a lecture
We explicitly do not build for people whose eating patterns fit clinical Binge Eating Disorder, bulimia, or anorexia — those require professional care and are beyond what a wellness app should claim to help with. Sugar Panic is not a medical device and not a substitute for a clinician.
The method
Everything the app does runs through a single named framework: the 5-Step Panic Button Method. Panic, Breathe, Describe, Swap, Choose. The product is the Method made fast. The Method is free and public — you can run it without the app. The app just automates each step and gets better at swap suggestions with use.
Contact
For support, bug reports, partnerships, or press, email support@sugarpanic.app.
For how your data is handled, see the Privacy Policy and the Delete Account page.
Download Sugar Panic →Also read: How to Stop Sugar Cravings — the science-backed guide · The 5-Step Panic Button Method