Many of us, if not all of us, have spent our whole lives fighting food addictions.  We all seem to crave something – whether that is a nice cup of tea, a chocolate bar or a large pizza with all the toppings.  These cravings set themselves apart from true hunger because we want those specific foods and nothing else will satisfy us the way that those foods do.  The need for them is urgent and it can send us into a bingeing frenzy if we are not careful.  True hunger on the other hand lends itself to patience.  You can be hungry but it will be patient hunger.  There will be no urgency to it and you may be able to go a good few hours without it being a bother.  True hunger is peaceful in a way and won’t leave you overly sensitive emotionally or leave you wanting to gnaw your hand off – or so that is my experience of it.  However, not many people experience true hunger.  They experience digestive distress or addiction, but rarely the hunger that I am talking about above.  It is unfortunate and it can take a good few months or years to reach a place where true hunger becomes the norm for you if you are fighting cravings, binge eating or overeating.  It is possible though but takes patience and time to heal all.

I started out on my journey to better health cutting out things such as dairy, meat and then wheat.  This helped me dramatically improve my well being and I overcame the grips of asthma.  I then discovered the 80/10/10 diet by Doug Graham and this became a bible for me in a way.  I have always enjoyed simplicity and so embarked on adding more fruit into my diet and cutting down on cooked foods.  As my journey went along I discovered a lot about myself and the way I used food.  Food really was something I used to numb myself from emotion and even though I was becoming aware of this I still chose on occasions to allow myself to numb.

Emotionally it has been a roller coaster and as time went by I was able and willing to feel as opposed to being numb.  When you let yourself feel and get over the emotional wave that is taking over you in the present moment, it can feel wonderful afterwards: a beautiful sense of relief and renewal that one does not get from stuffing your face full of food.  It does take time though to be willing to feel each and every time a stressor or a problem arises in your body and mind.  My first few emotional experiences were very intense and I attribute this to years of ignoring them and bottling them up.  Those buried emotions were breaking free and it was a very difficult time when it happened.

As time has gone on and I have felt my feelings more and more and they are very easy to deal with now.  I think though that it is very important to get some support when you first start realising how much you are numbing yourself.  Getting support and being able to rely on someone to help you through an emotional episode can help you feel secure and help immensely in pushing through.  As you experience these bursts more and more, you WILL be able to deal with them alone and they won’t be so bad.  You may even start seeing them as a joyous time.  Negative feelings are good things – they let us know that something is wrong and that we need to take time for ourselves.  You will also learn a lot about yourself and will be able to determine what your feelings are telling you.  In the beginning I used to get fairly frustrated that I couldn’t work out why I so was so upset or so stressed out – something was niggling at me, but I had no clue what it was.  It would take a few days before the real issue would surface but I found it frustrating that I didn’t know myself or hadn’t been present enough to know what really was niggling me.  As time has gone on and I have been through these situations more and more it has become easier and I usually address the issue before it manifests itself – i.e. I am no longer bottling my feelings.

Eating more fresh fruits and vegetables, being present and allowing yourself to feel, all are great steps to overcoming food addictions and bingeing.  However there is one experience of mine that I would like to share in regards to food.  When it comes to the 80/10/10 diet, one can feel quite desperate to make sure they are getting enough calories in.  For me this meant I would buy lots of potatoes and store them, every week, just because I was nervous I might not have enough to eat.  On top of this I was breastfeeding (and still am) so I worried on that level that I needed enough calories in order to have a good nutritional milk supply.  It took me a very long while to let go of the need to hoard food and to overeat it.  One day I just decided that I was going to just eat when I was hungry and not eat for the sake of making sure I got enough calories in.  I simply let go of the fear that had been consuming me the past 2 years and the funny thing is that is what turned me around and pushed me onto a new level of overcoming addiction.  After that one day I started to eat less and feel better.  I ate huge meals still but I didn’t wake up feeling like I had been hit by a train because I had piled in a huge vegan curry with potatoes (no salt) worried I hadn’t eaten enough fruit.  Instead I was raw and eating huge salads everyday as well as mountains of fruit and I felt fantastic.  This shift away from fear was my biggest obstacle and one I seemed to conquer very easily when I just decided to let go of it.

As well as letting go of the fear, I also think that eating a very large salad everyday – without fail – has also helped me overcome the fear of not eating enough.  Fruit is nutritious and wonderful, but without my daily bowl of romaine, peppers, cucumber, sweetcorn and carrot I don’t think I would feel so balanced and light.

My digestion has improved tenfold because I am not stuffing food in anymore and I feel so much better.  This has been a journey for me over 3 or 4 years and only over the past few months do I feel sane about the way I eat.

I am sharing this because I feel it is important for others to know that overcoming cravings or bingeing doesn’t happen overnight for the majority of us.  It can take us years to overcome habits and patterns.  We can make things easier for ourselves by educating ourselves, reading others experiences and being good to ourselves – i.e. not beating ourselves for making a choice to eat something that we want to avoid, or giving into a craving.  We aren’t perfect and we shouldn’t try to be.  Live each day in the present and learn from everything you do, including your food choices.  This is the only way one can overcome addiction and bingeing.

Of course though, it is always good to remember that food isn’t everything but it can be a problem.  Just be aware of that and don’t beat yourself up if you aren’t perfect.  Life is a journey of learning and overcoming food addiction is just one aspect of a much bigger picture.

I am asked quite regularly if my Combat Your Cravings Ebook is available in hard copy.  Unfortunately it isn’t (besides being located on lulu.com but I am not entirely sure about quality on there) BUT over the past several months I have been updating and working hard on it in order to publish it early February hopefully. 

The Cravings Ebook as it stands is a great resource but in the new version that will be released there will be much more detail.  I am sectioning so that there is a step-by-step plan for emotional eating and physical eating.   The emotional eating step-by-step consists of 7 steps to emotional freedom from food to make it easier for anyone to really overcome emotional eating. The physical cravings aspect as 4 easy steps to combat physical cravings that are due to addiction/withdrawal as oppose to emotional eating.

The book is made of pretty much everything that has helped me gain control of my own eating habits.  I have added everything that is in the ebook but MUCH MUCH more, specifically going into more detail about emotional eating than in the ebook.

So as a result of this, I am now offering the Combat Your Cravings Ebook for only $7!  You can buy this by going to the Books & Products tab at the top of the page.  It is, in my opinion, a great introduction to the issues surrounding cravings. 

For more information please go here: http://www.eating-naturally.com/books-products/ or alternative you can buy the book by clicking on this button:

                 $7

I will be updating in a few weeks how the new book is getting along and whether I have a specific date for release.  But for now just enjoy the Ebook!

I just wanted to write this post as a reminder of my post Food Cravings: 5 Lies Your Addiction Tells You.  My desire to write this was sparked today when I was out and about.  As it is a Bank Holiday here in the UK, we went to one of our local markets.  At this local market something caught my eye:

Yes that is right!  START THE DIET TOMORROW!

In my article I explain how 1 of our excuses we give ourselves when it comes to our food addictions is to say “Oh I will stop eating this tomorrow..I will start my diet then”.  Looks like this excuse is being encouraged!

This is just a warning to be careful not to be suckered into your excuses and not to be encouraged by advertisements or signs.  Be aware, have a plan and stick to it.  Don’t give up on your health for a moments taste.

To help you why not reread my article to refresh you on some of the lies you tell yourself to continue your bad food habits: Food Cravings: Lies Your Addiction Tells You

Hope everyone had a great Bank Holiday!

I can’t seem to lose the weight despite continuous efforts to do so; I just keep craving and bingeing…

If you could only put down the fork and back away from the table then maybe, just maybe you wouldn’t have such a problem with food. If you could only walk past the shop without caving and going in to buy a chocolate, then maybe, just maybe you wouldn’t pile on the pounds. If you could only stop going out late especially to buy junk, then maybe just maybe you might not be so miserable.

You feel greedy.

You feel weak.

But honestly, you are neither.

If it was that simple, don’t you think you could have done it by now?

Food cravings unfortunately are a subtle type of addiction in some respects. Society doesn’t recognise food as addictive in the same way that drugs and alcohol are. Where as someone who craves alcohol would be encouraged to seek help, those of us who crave sugary snacks are often – if not all the time – encouraged to indulge in our addictions. And if we don’t indulge we will often hear the retort:

“Why are you depriving yourself?”

“A little isn’t going to hurt!”

It’s why we have the word “craving”. It belittles the whole experience that many of us go through when we need to have a particular food.

Now you may be thinking that the word addiction is a little too strong for your case of cravings or you may be thinking it is exactly what you experience. Either way let’s explore this further.

Most of the foods that we crave usually involve sugar like chocolate, candy, cakes, biscuits and cola. These foods have no real nutritional benefit. The white sugar found in them is an unnatural molecule that has no nutritional value whatsoever. It is completely devoid or nutrients – it is an empty calorie. But this is what we crave.

So why, other than comfort and pleasure, would you crave sugar? Why would you eat foods full of nutritionally empty calories if not for pleasure and comfort? You certainly aren’t eating them for nutrition. And that is a key concept you need to grasp and that is lost in a society that uses food for many more things than just nutrition.

Food has a function and that is to fuel our bodies. When we were babies it did also have the function of comforting us. Mother’s milk is sweet for a reason. When one merely tastes sugar impulses are sent through our nerves leading to the base of our brain. Along the way our pleasure centre is activated causing a release of natural opiates. This is all quite natural. However as we grow we learn to become more independent and less reliant on our mothers. We naturally wean between 4-7 years old. Food then is just a function but most people do not use food in this way.

I am not saying that eating shouldn’t be pleasurable. What I am saying is that pleasure should not override the first function: nutrition. They can go hand in hand, it’s just most people have numbed their taste buds too much to allow it!

Maybe that isn’t enough to convince you that you have an addiction just yet but bare with me…

Loss of Control

Addiction is anything that has become stronger than your willpower to change.

Food addiction is a loss of control over eating.  Loss of control can mean many different things.  It can mean eating in excessive quantities. For some, eating three square meals a day is kept to with out snacking only because the portion sizes are extortionate.

For many not eating at all is something much easier to deal with then trying to quit once started. This can lead to one not eating all day and then bingeing in the evening.

It can also mean that we get strong urges in our head of that craved food that we just can’t resist and no matter what the time we have to go out and get it. The drive can be so powerful yet almost unconscious that we aren’t really aware of what we are doing. On reflection of my own food addictions, once I had more self awareness of my issues, I couldn’t believe how I hadn’t noticed before. I used to obsess over food – picture a nice chocolate cake in my head and could even feel it melting on my tongue.

The Affect On Your Body

Physical dependence or physical addiction to food simply means that something has altered inside you in some way.

When addictive foods are eaten repeatedly, the body adjusts homeostasis to be balanced with the food in the system. It attempts to operate and function normally despite the imbalance created by your sugar/food addiction. Over time the body will become dependent on that substance for homeostatic balance and its removal will cause withdrawal. The body cries out for the missing substance as just intense hunger cries for food

If you have been eating sugary/salty/refined/processed foods, eating irregularly, or eating more than your body needs – your natural appetite is distorted.

Brain Chemistry

As mentioned above sugar, including chocolate, triggers the release of natural opiates in the brain. Sugar isn’t the only thing that affects us in this way. For example, cheese and dairy products contain morphine. In 1981, Eli Hazum et al discovered that cow’s milk contains morphine. This is because cows produce morphine in their bodies (cited in Breaking the Food Seduction). The morphine in cow’s milk produces a calming effect on their young. It is there to help the mother-infant bond and to make sure the infant gets the nutrition it needs.

Many foods also contain heterocyclic amines (HCAs) which are both indirectly and directly addictive. Some of these HCAs can cause sleeplessness, mood issues (ever feel moody after certain foods even a day later?), can contribute to cancer, brain diseases and also depression (see www.waisays.com for more information).

It doesn’t end there though. I have only lightly touched on some of the issues surrounding our favourite foods in this article. There is a lot of consequence in the hidden properties of foods and most of us are totally unaware of them. Becoming more self aware, eating consciously and preparing food ourselves instead of leaving it up to prepackaged foods is something that we all need to do in order to live a healthier, lighter life.

Stop Cravings

Check out my new site: Food Addiction 101

Since I began the process of refining my diet to help myself overcome cravings and health issues, I have often been met with hostility and defensiveness. It has taught me to appreciate that what I know about particular foods and why I choose to cut them out, doesn’t mean that others are ready to hear the truth or want to accept it. We are all on our own paths and we have to make our own decisions, however it is this barrier (defensiveness) people put up that is a common sign of addiction and so I want to address it here.

No one wants to admit or acknowledge that their favorite foods or indulgences are bad for them. So what we do is we concoct reasons and justifications as to why it is ok for us to indulge. We don’t have to feel guilty for our indulgences because we have lots of excuses for them. Facing the reality of the situation is scarey because we may not be ready to face the feelings that our addictions are repressing.

When I first decided to make some dietary adjustments, I thought that I would be able to do it overnight. This sent me into a panic and I ended up having a huge binge. The next day when my new diet was supposed to start, I went shopping. I felt obsessed over food and HAD to buy something junk related just to make me feel ok. It was a security for me. I felt comfort knowing that I had a bag of crisp in my cupboard! Sometimes you do have to take things slowly, but it made me realize how attached one can be to food. I still have justifications pop up into my head sometimes about why it would be ok if I had a chocolate bar or some junk. They are much weaker now then they were in the beginning and I don’t experience them very often anymore, but they are a reminder of how powerful comfort eating can be.

Below I have covered 5 common lies people tell themselves when it comes to their craved foods to help you to acknowledge some of your own lies you may be holding about your craved foods.

5 Common Lies

“It makes me feel good”

Whenever someone tells me that they continue to eat chocolate or junk food because it makes them feel good, my first response is always “But for how long?”. In reality, the good feelings experiences by our favorite foods are short lived. Most of the time your craved food makes you feel bad, but by the time you feel bad you may not associate the food with negative feelings of consequences.

For example for me, despite chocolate making me feeling food in the moment, it would leave me in a state of depression. It would also give me terrible mood swings the next and because I continually fed my addiction daily, I would feel out of control emotionally all the time. I would be angry and upset. I would feel like I was all over the place and that no one loved me. I would put a meaning to my feelings of depression and sadness that really had nothing to do with them – the only thing that did was my addiction to chocolate!

On top of this I spent most of my time obsessing. I would go late to the shops to get some, I would get cranky if I didn’t have some when I wanted it right then. I ruined my relationships with people over my moods and instability.

No one likes to feel like something is controlling us – food addictions like any addiction, makes us feel bad not good.

“It’s how I cope with stress”

From my response to the above lie, do you really that your food addiction helps you deal with stress? It makes more sense to say it adds to it. It is a cause of stress.

Obsessing over it, always craving and needing the craved item then and there is a cause of stress. I never enjoyed my cravings. I enjoyed the indulgence for a split second, but wandering off to the shops every time I needed some, or the after effects were not fun at all.

Food addiction is our way of trying to cope with uncomfortable feelings/feelings of distress. However food addiction is a way of not dealing with something, with not dealing with feelings, that really need to be addressed. By not dealing with your feelings, by allowing them to flow through you, you ultimately leave yourself with a weight on your shoulder, adding to your stress not relieving it.

You will find it far more rewarding to deal with the feelings that arise in you, then to block them. The pain is there only for a little while and the relief you feel afterwards is beautiful – a great feeling you will never get from a chocolate bar.

“There’s no harm in just one”

Unfortunately one doesn’t mean one when it comes to food addiction. It means one after another, again and again and again. Have your ever been able to take one bite of your favorite food and not take anymore? I haven’t. The only way I was successful at giving up chocolate was to completely eliminate it from my life. Even when I have tried to treat myself with one, months later, I have found it traps me in its clutches again.

It isn’t a treat anyway. Chocolate, refined sugar and all the other processed junk foods aren’t treats. Why I ever considered making myself moody, irritable and depressed as a treat is beyond my comprehension now – bit I did.

“I’ll stop tomorrow”

I have told myself this one many times, it is the way my addiction has kept me hooked. This one has even sent me into a binge the night before as thought I felt desperate to cram in as much chocolate as I could before ultimately giving up the next day.

Unfortunately this just turned into a vicious cycle and I got no where. I would make the same promise every day.

“I deserve a little pleasure”

Is it really a pleasure anymore?  Any addiction isn’t really a pleasure – maybe in the few moments of tasting your favored food you might feel pleasure.  Having your faved pleasure once in a while may very well be a pleasure.  But overindulgence on a regular basis is not pleasure.  Eating and bingeing daily is not pleasure.

Do you tell yourself any of these?  Can you add any to the list?  Please share by commenting below

For more information on cravings: Stop Food Cravings

Junk food is alluring in many ways. It’s physically addictive and emotionally addictive. In this post I just wanted to address one reason that I think is fairly common when it comes to junk food cravings and emotions.

The worse time for junk food cravings tend to be in the evening. The evening is the time most people sit in front of the TV to “relax” and unwind from a hard day at work. We kick our feet up after dinner and then not too long after we head to the kitchen to find something to nibble on. Why?

Well we very well may still be hungry because the dinner we threw together was nowhere near to being nutritious or of any substance to keep us full. But the most common reason is boredom. That relaxing time in the front of the TV is not relaxing at all. I mean do you find boredom relaxing? I certainly don’t.

The best thing that you can do for yourself is to either put the TV away for a few weeks (and make it really difficult to get a hold of to watch) or chuck the TV out completely. I don’t have a TV anymore and it has been the best decision I ever made.

You may still be holding on to the idea that TV is relaxing and thus thinking “Well what the heck am I suppose to do in the evening then?” The answer? Whatever your heart desires!

The reason we eat in the evening is to numb our feelings of boredom. We do this instead of actually addressing those feelings and fulfilling our emotional needs. You may have a desire to be creative, a desire to fulfil a passion of yours or just to get up and go out and exercise. You probably don’t even realize you do.

So first things first write a list of activities you can do instead of watch TV. Write down things you have always wanted to do, things that you are interested in. The bigger the list the better. You could start your own vegetable garden, join a yoga class so you can PROPERLY relax after work (or you may even want to start on your own at home) or start reading a book, learning a language. The possibilities are endless and far more exciting than coming home to pig out in front of the TV. Trust me.

So go without your TV for a week or so. Do this one little thing and you might just spark a new interest in life that has long been waiting to emerge.

Stop Eating Junk Food

I was talking to a friend just now about her craving issues and how she struggles a lot with keeping them under control. She revealed that she rarely ever gets breakfast in and ends up drinking coffee all morning, which doesn’t really help with her hunger.  I told her that if she wants to overcome her cravings then the first step is to get a good breakfast!

So this article is just a quick overview of why it is important to eat breakfast and make a regular habit of it. WHAT you eat is just as important as eating. In Neal Barnard’s book Breaking the Food Seduction he mentions a study done where for 1 week volunteers had instant oatmeal and for another week they had regular oatmeal. Volunteer’s cravings and snacking reduced by 35%. The difference in these bowls was the amount of fiber. More refined foods have less fiber so make sure you have a fiber rich breakfast to sustain you until lunch.

A Breakfast To End All Cravings!

Breakfast is considered by many to be the most important meal of the day. Although I don’t necessarily agree with the “breakfast” part I do agree that the first meal you eat of the day is going to have the biggest impact on cravings and energy levels. I know that if my first meal is small and not very nutritious I will tend to crave like my by the time lunch has come around or very soon after. This feeling will often spill into the afternoon as well. If I have a nutritious breakfast then I tend to feel sustained throughout the day. So from my own experience the first meal I eat is usually a fairly hefty size

As stated above having a breakfast full of fiber is important as it keeps you from snacking. I also feel it is important to keep it simple, make it easy on your digestion and also quick for you to obtain the nutrients you need from it. This is why I start my day with a large banana smoothie (5-6 bananas or more! with some added water to blend). My smoothie will give me about 500-600 calories maybe more depending on how greedy I am. I tend to have this after being up out of bed for an hour as I don’t get hungry straight away.

Fruit to me is the best starter of the day – full of fiber, easy on digestion and quickly digested. The key is to eat plenty of it to feel satiated.

So if you want to lose weight and avoid cravings, make breakfast an important part of your day. For me, it was the easiest part to get right about my diet and the most crucial part to get right for my weight loss and well being.

End Cravings

Salt is literally in everything we eat – soup, bread, chocolate, macaroni and cheese, canned vegetables pizza…the list is endless. But it should be avoided at all costs – it is toxic, irritating, stimulating and a potentially deadly poison to us. If you have ever had an open wound and gotten salt in it – you will know firsthand how destructive it is.

Organic salt (sodium) is an essential mineral and can be naturally found in fruits, vegetables, nut and seeds. We only need a very small amount of sodium, which can easily be supplied by these natural sources. The salt found in these natural sources is also complexed with other organic molecules. This causes them to be absorbed slowly. This contrasts with table salt (including Celtic and Sea Salts), which enters quickly through the stomach lining.

Salt, unless in its natural form in fruits and vegetables, is very dehydrating. When excess salt enters the bloodstream, the body is forced to store it between cells until the kidney can filter it. While in between cells, salt causes a burning effect on the surrounding tissue. To protect themselves, the cells release water in order to dilute the excess salt. Giving up their water means the cells lose their elasticity and shrink. This causes an imbalance in the cell’s chemistry as a result of the loss of potassium.

Having low potassium levels causes more salt to penetrate the cell walls. When the sodium level rises, water enters the cell in order to dilute it. This causes the cell to become swollen. This continuous disruption to the cell’s fluid balance, in time, scars, calcifies and destroys the muscles, valves and arteries of the entire coronary route. Salt is an accomplice to one of America’s top killers – cardiovascular disease.

The body has to compensate to maintain homeostasis when you eat salty foods. If you eat salty foods for a prolonged period of time, just like caffeine and nicotine, your body becomes dependent on salt to maintain the balance. So when you begin to reduce salt intake, you may experience physical withdrawal symptoms.

Because salt is pretty much in everything we eat (you may not even notice or taste it because you have become so accustomed to it) it is very unlikely you wouldn’t have some sort of withdrawal from it. This can be one of the factors that prevent you from losing weight – craving salty snacks.

If you want to be healthy, lose weight and improve health conditions you need to simply cut out salt (unless its in your fruits/vegetables).

Your body potentially cannot even handle a little bit of salt and why risk it when salt has been linked to hypertension, stroke, asthma, arthritis, Alzheimer’s, premenstrual tension, cancer among many other diseases.

On top of this you are messing up your taste buds. Salt doesn’t bring flavor to food like so many of us think – what it does do is overpowers your taste buds and deadens them to all sensation other than salt. This causes unnatural cravings and overeating. So if you want to have your taste buds back, enjoy natural foods like fresh fruits and vegetables, then cut out the salt: if not for your taste buds for your health.

The little salt our body does need we should be getting from fruits and vegetables, for example celery. Salts in fruits and vegetables are in a safe natural usable form.

Completely cut out salt from your diet, eat whole fresh ripe raw organic fruits and greens, and your salt cravings will disappear for good. You will also live a much healthier life and foods that once tasted bland will suddenly become awesomely delicious again.

Previous Post: The Truth About Cellulite: What Is It & What Causes It

Food is addictive especially when we use it for comfort and numbing ourselves emotionally. We can instantly turn to food during emotional upsets and get the instant gratification, the feeling of fullness we need in order to numb out old feelings resurfacing or stress we have just been experiencing. The problem is, we often feel extremely guilty afterwards and vow never to cave to food again.

Promising ourselves in the midst of guilt about our overeating and bingeing never works. You can’t just decide to stop and then never will again, especially when your decision is made during guilt.

Bingeing serves an important purpose to you and that is to make you feel better. When you are on the brink of the next binge, your promise to yourself never to binge again would have been forgotten and if it is still in the back of your mind, you will be doing everything to talk yourself into eating. We can rationalize anything when we want to.

This is why the all or nothing attitude to bingeing fails to work. It is too much to ask of ourselves to let go abruptly something we have been using as an emotional crutch for such a long time. It also lends its hand to making us feeling even more guilty when we can’t stay committed.

If you take the approach of more self awareness and observation, making note of when you binge and how you feel before and after you can gain a better understanding of your eating patterns and also can embrace and reflect on them properly.

It is too much to ask of yourself to change overnight. Bingeing and overeating has become a part and parcel of how you work and how you cope with the daily stresses and strains, so it is important to become aware of exactly what you do and to allow yourself time to overcome it. If you slip up and binge – learn from it and accept it as an experience. It’s not the end of the world, overcoming emotional issues especially surrounding food takes time.

Make sure you also acknowledge the small successes with your eating habits. These are just as important as the final destination, the final you you want to be, because without them you cannot reach that end.

Ending your binges and overcoming overeating isn’t easy. By learning to love yourself and having self awareness, you can overcome it. You won’t overcome it by continuously promising yourself not to do it again in the midst of guilt (but I am sure you already know this!).

Take it one step at a time. Learn from the binges that do occur through self awareness and embrace progress not perfection.

For Help To Overcome Binge Eating & Cravings: CLICK HERE

Previous Post: Stop Food Cravings: What To Do In The Midst Of A Craving

Cravings can be so strong that it can be hard to overcome them – I know I have been at the end of quite a few and have given in, only to find myself a little more than miserable.

So I decided to put together a quick blog post about what you should do when you are in the middle of a strong craving and are very VERY tempted to give in and feel like you are quickly losing the battle!

First of all you need to prepare for this in advanced.  Don’t have junk food or your craving items in the house.  Don’t buy them!  This is an important step in overcoming cravings because you need to make it as difficult as possible for your to be able to get a hold of what you are craving.

The harder and longer it takes you to get that craved item, the more chance the craving has of resolving itself before you can give in.

If a craving comes on and you have the craved food in the house (or even if you have managed to stop yourself buying it) – eat fruit.  I find the quickest solution to my problem is to blend 4-5 bananas together with a little water and drink.  This is usually enough to take the intense craving away.  For me, it was never enough to simply let it pass.  I know it is very hard to just find something to distract you sometimes as well, so eating fruit can really take the edge off if you eat enough.

Now you may feel like you dont want to eat fruit (if you don’t want fruit this is a true sign of craving as opposed to true hunger) and want to go get the item you crave.  You find yourself in the car on the way to the store just so you can indulge.  I would suggest that you eat fruit on the way and as much as you can and desire.

You can talk yourself into eating the fruit by saying “If I eat this fruit, then I will allow myself the craved food” (I also use this logic for when the craved food has been in the house).  Make sure you eat plenty of fruit though, because if you just have 1 piece of fruit, it will not be enough to satisfy you and you will most likely (if not definitely) give in to the craved items.

Hopefully by the time you have gotten to the store, the craving(s) you had would have diminished at least mostly if not completely.  This would have happened because:

1.  You provided your body with a nutritious food and plenty of it.
2. Enough time had passed for it to wear off and disappear.

At this point you are then able to reassess the situation rationally.  Whether you choose to indulge or not now becomes a choise as opposed to a craving ruling you.

So to summarize:

• Make it as hard as possible to get a hold of the craved item(s)

• Don’t stock craved items in the house.

• Eat 4-5 (or more) pieces of fruit before allowing yourself the craved item.  It is best that you eat one type of fruit, as this is easier on your digestion and some fruits do not mix well.

• Reassess the situation once you have eaten the fruit/arrived at the store and consider whether you really want the craved item anymore.  If you do, have a small portion and enjoy without feeling guilty; if you don’t, then go home or get on with your day knowing you have successfully combatted an intense craving!

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