Food Craving: An intense desire for certain foods or flavors.
How To Control Your Food Cravings
Self control can be difficult when it comes to food. With that said, I am going to share some tips with you on how to control your food cravings. A food craving is an intense desire for certain foods or flavors. Food cravings can be caused by a variety of things. Keep in mind that the tips that I am about to share with you are to help you control your food cravings not eliminate them.
Avoid Crash Diets
Avoid crash dieting altogether.
The more you restrict your diet, the higher the changes are that you are going to have food cravings. And once you get to your breaking point. It’s going to be really difficult to choose something healthy over something not so healthy.
Oftentimes when we restrict what we eat. We end up overeating when we loosen those restrictions. In order to compensate for having had the restrictions to begin with. So avoid crash dieting altogether. Don’t restrict yourself and eat too little and or go too long without eating.
Chew Gum
Chewing gum can reduce hunger and cravings.
By chewing gum you trick you body into thinking that it is eating something when its not. Chewing gum increases the feeling of being full and in turn that reduces your hunger and cravings. I don’t like to chew gum often. Because I forget to throw it out once the flavors gone. I have chewed gum for hours and only after my jaw starts to hurt do I realize why. However, sometimes I do chew gum to help reduce hunger and cravings when needed.
Eat Smaller Portions
Don’t completely eliminate foods that you like from your diet. Instead, eat a smaller portion of your favorite foods.
For example, if you tend to eat a whole bag of popcorn in one sitting. Rather than boycotting popcorn. Why not buy the snack size portion of popcorn instead. The snack size bags are literally half the size of a traditional bag of popcorn. You still get to satisfy your salt and butter craving without overindulging.
Avoid Trigger Foods
Don’t buy foods that trigger food cravings.
I do not buy any junk food whatsoever. Actually, thats not true let me take that back. I do enjoy popcorn and buy it from time to time. However, other than popcorn. I do not have any foods that trigger food cravings in my house. I am able to stick to a clean diet because everything that I buy is very healthy.
If you avoid buying trigger foods at the grocery store. In the event that you have a food craving. You will only have healthy alternatives to choose from.
Find Healthy Alternatives
Satisfy your cravings with a healthy alternative.
I’ll use myself as an example. I have been dairy free for a while now. With that said, I like to eat chocolate every once in a while. Rather than opting for milk chocolate. Which contains dairy. I have found a bunch of dark chocolate alternatives that I choose to eat instead. Find healthy alternatives for the foods that you crave.
Drink More Water
Most of the time when we think that we’re hungry, we’re really just dehydrated.
A lot of people mix the signals of dehydration with hunger. If you think that you are craving something in particular and just can’t figure what exactly. Drink a glass of water, you may just be dehydrated. Drinking a glass of water will make you feel full and you might not end up eating anything at all. That will eliminate your craving altogether.
For those of you, that do not like to drink water. There are a variety of flavored water options now a days. So that is no longer a viable excuse. I’m sorry to tell you.
Eat More Protein
Protein takes longer to digest than carbohydrates and fat do. With that said, eating more protein can suppress your appetite.
Just like drinking a glass of water will make you feel full. If you eat more protein it will take longer for your stomach to digest it. Making you feel fuller for longer and thus help with eliminating food cravings altogether. You won’t have cravings for food if your stomach is still digesting what you ate last.
Plan Your Meals
One reason, why you may have food cravings. Is because you’re hungry and you didn’t have a meal prepared ahead of time.
I plan all of my meals ahead of time. At least once or twice a week I will meal prep the protein that I plan to eat. Then on the day of, I will cook the sides that I plan on eating along side the protein I already had prepared. I cook the sides on the day of because I enjoy having the sides made fresh. Also because I tend to change my mind from one day to the next on what sides I want to eat. Plan your meals ahead of time to help prevent food cravings.
Get Enough Sleep
Not getting enough sleep at night can affect hormones that impact your appetite.
The hormones that I am referring to are Leptin and Ghrelin.Leptin regulates our satiety, which is the feeling of being satiated. Ghrelin regulates our hunger, which is the feeling of being hungry. When you haven’t gotten adequate sleep your leptin hormone drops and your ghrelin hormone increases. Which means that you are going to constantly feel hungry. So in order to avoid unnecessary hunger cravings. Make sure that you are getting enough sleep at night.
If you struggle with getting enough sleep at night. I wrote a previous blog post on, Tips For A Good Night’s Sleep. Where I share what has worked for me in getting a good night’s sleep.
That is a wrap for the tips that I have on how to control your food cravings. I hope that you enjoyed reading this blog post. If you have any questions feel free to comment down below.
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