Overcome Food Cravings – How To Replace Cravings With Healthy Diet?

Food craving is a strong desire to consume a particular food. It’s a feeling you get when you just have a strong urge for a specific food. This kind of urge is not due to hunger or comes from the stomach but is from the brain. Your brain craves a particular food and wants it. But you need to overcome food cravings for a healthy life.

According to a Nutritionist and lifestyle expert, Liz Tucker, there are 2 reasons why people have food cravings. Either they need a shot of energy or they are miserable.

Relating her reasons to weight loss, when you go on a diet that over restricts calorie intakes, you will likely be short of energy and may crave food for a shot of energy. When you follow a diet that restricts a particular group of food for too long it may trigger cravings for those food.

People hardly crave for unsavory foods. They tend to crave for high carbohydrates, high sugar and fat foods because these foods sends a ” feel good” message to the brain and give a fast burst of energy. These feelings on the other hand vanishes very fast and also signals your brain to want ” more”, then you consume more and likely overeat. Then you mess up your diets and may feel discouraged to continue.

You can overcome food cravings by :

• Limiting restriction of a particular food for too long and not completely eliminating a class of food from your diet for a long period of time.
• Shifting your focus. Intentionally distract your brain by thinking of other things apart from foods that also gives you pleasure.
• Going for a healthier type of the food you crave. For example, if you crave sugary foods or drinks, you can settle for banana, pineapple or watermelon, juice them and drink.
• Chewing gum instead of eating. Pop a gum in your mouth and chew away till the cravings suppresses.
• Drinking water and wait it out by getting busy doing other things like cleaning,playing a game you enjoy, or taking a walk around.
• Going for it if the cravings refuse to go away. Portion out a normal size of the food you crave, put the rest away before eating and do not go over your daily calorie intake.

In summary, self control is the key to overcoming food cravings. Remember, one bad food once in a while cannot make you fat just as one good food once in a while can not make you lose weight.

Indulge but do not over indulge.