Stop Cravings | Ways to Curb Cravings for Unhealthy Foods
by roboppy
Cravings, oh dear, they’re the devil on your shoulder telling you to go and get a huge cookie or lose yourself in an enormous bag of chips. They spur you on to go on the prowl like a bear looking for a calorie-laden treat to devour. Bad for your health and disastrous for your resolve, not to mention your waistline, is there a way to stop cravings?
I have developed number of strategies that have helped me over the years and these ways to curb cravings for unhealthy foods have definitely helped me get rid of the excess weight and stay slim.
There’s no magic bullet, no one-size-fits-all but my hope is that in reading this article you will find useful suggestions that will work for you.
We will first look at what cravings are and then look at a number of strategies to deal with them effectively.
What is a Craving?
A food craving is usually either physical: your body is genuinely requiring something e.g. there’s a blood sugar imbalance or emotional: your brain has linked up pleasure with a certain food and decided that it wants some.
How to Stop Cravings of Either type
In general, the first type can be prevented by having a nutrient-dense diet and eating regularly and drinking water throughout the day so that your body is being supplied with top-quality fuel and your blood sugar doesn’t spike up and down. This way, if your body has all it needs it won’t even need to nag you.
The second type of craving, however, can hit you even if you’re physically satiated and don’t actually need anything because the trigger is purely emotional. The good news is that this type of craving can also be prevented but you need to do two things: first, making sure you eat properly (as outlined above to prevent physical cravings) but secondly, you also need the apply some psychology to deal with it properly and permanently.
Physical Solutions fro Cravings
If you’re not already doing so then you need to adopt a healthy eating and exercise program because the best way to stop cravings is to keep you body adequately nourished. This means a varied diet with plenty of fresh vegetables, fruit and whole grains so that you not only feel full but your body is getting the nutrients it needs.
Also, eat every 3 hours. This is a technique used to boost metabolism for the purposes of burning maximum fat while conserving muscle tissue, I do this and can recommend it highly. If you eat a proper breakfast, a hearty and healthy lunch, a light supper and build in two nutritious snacks between then I think your body will not have much opportunity to get hungry. Plus you’ll have bags of energy and amazing, sustained concentration all day long.
Drink enough. Yes, yes it’s boring and everyone goes on about it, but it’s so important! Many times your body thinks its hungry when , in fact, it’s just dehydrated. Make up bottles of your own ice tea with herbal tea infusions made with filtered water and sip though the day.
And let that little voice inside tell you that you don’t have the time- you have the time for anything you are committed to, and you’re not going to get the body of your dreams without some serious commitment. You can do it, just imagine how proud you’ll feel to finally conquer cravings and melt off that excess belly fat.
Mental Solutions for Cravings
Let’s take a quick look at emotional cravings. Many times when we get these cravings it’s because we have, at some point in our lives, attached a happy feeling to a certain food. For me it was chocolate fudge cake; I used to see it and think pleasure, reward, happiness, OK I want some, now! Then one time (or maybe after several times!) I began to notice that I would have this sweet treat and feel just awful afterwards, and that was what I needed to debunk that particular craving. These days I look at a slice of junk like that and all I think is bloated, headache, gas- no thanks! Rather a different focus isn’t it? And that’s precisely my point: try to see these foods that you crave for what they really are.
If you feel like a treat then find other ways to get that hit- for some it’s having a massage, going to the movies or relaxing with friends. What are some treats that you enjoy that don’t involve eating?
I hope you found this useful and can make use of some of these techniques.
In the next article in this series I’ll let you into my techniques for dealing with cravings in a low blood sugar crisis.
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