Twelve Ways To Control Cravings

How to Lose Weight and Get Healthier without Quitting the Foods You Love

As you know, if you read the articles on our site, we believe that a consistent and conscientious diet low in sugars and empty carbs is the most effective way to lose weight quickly. Of course, multiple weight loss strategies can be effective, depending on how you live your life, the things you enjoy, and your resolve.

Lack of Pleasure can Make Dieting Difficult.

Many people struggle with a diet that revolves purely around caloric restriction and consistently eating healthy one hundred percent of the time. Other people simply enjoy the foods they like in moderation.

Many people think that dieting means giving up the delicious, albeit unhealthy, foods we so often enjoy. This means no beer, french fries, cream sauces, candy, nothing fun ever.

The problem with a diet void of these sorts of guilty pleasures is that for many people, the lure of these foods becomes impossible to ignore, and an unhealthy obsession develops around intense cravings. Many dieters simply aren't capable of ignoring these cravings and give in and give up on their diet in shame.

Indulging Responsibly Can Make Dieting Easier

Many weight loss experts agree that it is possible to have a sensible diet while also making room to give in to these cravings in a responsible and manageable way. One professional, Dr. David Grotto, even suggests that avoiding guilty pleasure foods is a bad idea that can hurt more than it can help.

Dr. Grotto believes in a dietary plan known as structured cheating. This type of diet revolves around eating a healthy diet most of the time.

The most important aspect of maintaining healthy eating habits is keeping control of your diet and understanding your habits and how to limit their negative impact on your health. The key is to recognize that many foods you love are unhealthy and treat them with the necessary caution.

Maintaining Control is the Most Important Aspect of Dieting

You must control your diet, you can't let food control you, even if it means indulging yourself responsibly from time to time. Another doctor, Carolyn O'Neil, feels the same way. She believes that indulging responsibly is the key to a healthy diet and a healthy way of living.

She explains that anyone can engage in a problematic diet for a little while, but the problem with highly restrictive diets is that temptation eventually becomes too great, and all people but those with a strong constitution will likely fail and give in, splurging heavily on the foods that they've been avoiding and quickly reversing the gains they worked so hard to achieve.

The logical way to prevent this form of overindulgence is to recognize that to diet effectively, it may be necessary to cheat from time to time in a way that does not wreck your diet altogether.

The key to all of this is control and self-realization. You understand that your brain will drive you to certain foods, and you recognize that you can enjoy these foods safely without ruining your diet.

For example, if you love cookies, always pay attention to the number of calories in a serving and limit yourself in a sensible way. The more you understand about yourself and the foods you enjoy, the greater control you will have over your diet and the more success you will likely experience.

Twelve Ways to Manage Your Diet through Cheating: Know Your Food Weaknesses

• Understand what foods tempt you and accept your desire. Especially in the early months of your new lifestyle, your cravings for the unhealthy foods you enjoy will only increase the longer you deny yourself the pleasure. By recognizing the foods that trigger you to potentially overeat, you can take steps to mitigate the risk that these foods pose to your diet.

  Eat Filling Foods to Reduce Cravings

• Eat foods that are filling. Another way to increase the success of your diet and reduce your desire for foods that will hinder you in the long run, is to eat foods that will fill your stomach while not contributing too heavily to your daily calories.

• Fib and protein are the nutrients that achieve this goal most effectively, with the lowest contribution to your calorie count. Some examples of foods that can fill you up quickly are seafood, lean meats, salads, soups made from broth, vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and eggs. Even low-fat milk and dairy products can be good choices.

• If you fill yourself up with these foods, you will limit your feelings of hunger and desire for foods that are more unhealthy for you. Another way to control your diet and cravings is to pack healthy snacks with you so you can quell your hunger with a low-calorie treat before it revs up into a full-blown craving.

  Don't Settle for Junk When Indulging Yourself.

• Instead of going for diet forms of the food, you love that can be just as unhealthy as the regular foods, choose foods that fulfill your cravings with big flavor rather than significant calories. For example, if salty foods are your favorite snacks, consider taking some kosher salt or sea salt and sprinkling it over a delicious and ripe tomato.

• This way, you satisfy your desire for salt without turning to carbs or sugars and add a nutritious, low-calorie snack to your day. It will taste fantastic, and you'll quench your desire even more effectively than you would with a handful of peanuts or a pack of crackers.

  Enjoy Your Meal with All Five Senses

• Stimulate all your senses when you eat. This applies to healthy meals as well as dietary indulgences. You will eat healthier if you ensure that all of your senses are fulfilled in a meal, even sight. When you make a meal, garnish it colorfully and arrange it in a way that pleases your vision.

• Also, eat the meal slowly so you can savor every bite's taste, smell, and sound. Take time to dwell on your meal, don't just gulp it down. Your brain desires satiation just as much as your stomach, and when you eat slowly and purposefully, you really let your brain in on the fun. Many people overeat because they simply don't take the time to enjoy their meals.

  Plan Out Meals from the Very Beginning

• Always plan your meals. For example, if you are the type of person that absolutely loves desserts, don't eat a complete and dense meal, then decide you can't leave the restaurant without dessert. Come to the restaurant knowing you will be getting dessert, and ask for a dessert menu before you order your entree.

• Knowing that you will get dessert allows you to plan your caloric consumption around the entire meal, rather than giving in and tacking on more calories at the last minute. Planning your entire meal conscientiously will allow you to eat a healthier dinner to compensate for the splurge of the last course.

  Eat What You Love, not Just What's Close.

• If it doesn't fit your diet, eat only what you truly love. If you are going to cheat, don't just stick your hand in a bag of greasy potato chips; choose something that sates your craving in the best way possible.

• Don't eat something unhealthy haphazardly just because you're hit with a craving; choose something that will truly make you appreciate your snack. For example, instead of buying a box of donuts to tempt you all week, go for a small piece of that pecan pie that you love and take the time to savor and appreciate it.

  Make Your Own Treats

• If you want it so bad, bake it yourself! If you want to splurge, take the time to make want you to want on your own time. This way, you can make it in the healthiest way possible and appreciate the work put into making the food you love so much.

• If you like to eat blueberry muffins for breakfast each morning with your coffee, take the time during the weekend to cook up a week's worth of breakfast. Don't just throw in muffin mix; make it yourself with whole oats, fresh blueberries, and whole wheat. This way, you get a higher density of nutrients and fill yourself up more effectively.

• If you love pizza, don't call the local pizza place and sit on the couch for an hour; learn how to make it yourself. Pizza is a food that is precisely as healthy or unhealthy as you make it. If you make it yourself, you can be sensible with toppings like cheese and tomato sauce and splurge on the foods that can make it a truly healthy meal, such as cherry tomatoes, spinach, grilled chicken, and artichokes.

• You can even make foods that sound indulgent to their core, such as cheesecake, and take steps to make them much more sensible. For example, you can add less sugar to your personal batch or substitute eggs and heavy cream for egg substitute and light cream cheese. You can even forgo the thick crust entirely for a modest base of cookie crumbs or broken-up graham crackers. You can also add low-calorie ingredients to your dessert, which add a real zing, including lemon zest.

  Don't Eat Where You Work, Where You Rest, or Where You Cook.

• Eat in specifically designated zones. How often do you find yourself zoned out at your office or on your living room couch, eating far more than you intended to mindlessly, just because it was there? You eat hundreds of calories, and thirty minutes later, you can barely even remember stuffing your face with cookies.

• One big problem with how Americans eat is that most Americans don't give the food the respect it deserves. We are also so obsessed with maintaining productivity that we have a tendency to eat as an afterthought. By only eating in particular, designated zones, you force your brain to think about the foods you eat, whether you savor them or simply entertain the importance of a healthy diet.

• In keeping with this theory, don't eat in the kitchen! Eating in the room where you keep all your food is just asking for trouble because nothing stops you from preparing seconds or moving straight on to the freezer to fix some fatty ice cream as a dessert.

  Control Your Portions

• Portion control is central to indulgence. You have to understand that you can eat the things you genuinely enjoy, even if they aren't healthy for you; you just have to eat them in small, sensible portions. If you eat smart, there is absolutely no food that should be considered off-limits to you so long as you remain cognizant of the importance of calorie control. Even dense foods like ice cream can be perfectly okay if you limit yourself to a small bowl and don't eat it too often.

• You can also choose small portions which provide maximum flavor for the slightest bit. If you love chocolate, don't buy a milk chocolate candy bar daily; buy some exquisite dark chocolate and keep it in the freezer. When you have a craving, open the freezer and grab a couple of bites to consume slowly and deliberately to enjoy the escape responsibly.

  Learn to Compromise with Your Cravings

• Make compromises when necessary. If there are certain things that you absolutely love or can't live without, meet your cravings halfway to create a balance where your indulgence isn't exactly healthy, but it isn't game-breaking either.

• Take sweet tea, for example. This staple Southern drink is packed with calories the way that it is popularly brewed and consumed. Rather than dump sugar into every glass of tea you drink, start cutting unsweet tea with sweet tea to satiate your craving while also limiting your calories.

• Also, think about carrying an artificial sweetener with you, such as Stevia. Be very careful with these sweeteners, however, because most popular substitutes stimulate hunger, making dieting more difficult. Stevia is one of the few unique brands of artificial sweeteners which sate your desire for hunger without unwanted side effects.

• In terms of food, think about ways to minimize the unhealthy portion of your meal while emphasizing the healthy part of your dinner. If you love pizza, make yourself a thin-crust pizza instead of ordering a hand-tossed pizza. This way, you can add healthy toppings to your pizza while not consuming too many unhealthy calories from thick bread crust. The compromise puts you in control of your vices in a powerful way that will go a long way toward helping you lose weight successfully.

  Don't Change Your Whole Diet at Once

• Make changes incrementally. Don't try to drastically change your diet over the course of a single day or week. Alter your diet a step or two at a time, getting your body acclimated to the changes you are making.

• So much of eating doesn't have to do with hunger but habit. Your brain will start to rebel if you change too quickly, demanding that you go back to your old, reliable schedule, which just happened to involve overeating.

• Also, implement small changes to your daily habits to encourage a more sensible diet and increased metabolism. If you occasionally indulge in a piece of chocolate cake, go for a walk around the neighborhood afterward. If you like to eat a burger for lunch twice a week, think about just buying the burger and cutting down the fries, or keep the french fries and only indulge once a week. There are a lot of little commitments that you can make, which will eventually add up to consistent weight loss gains.

  Stick with Your Diet Even if You Slip

• Don't give up just because you slipped up. It is nearly impossible to diet perfectly. Accept your infallibility and recognize that you will screw up from time to time and splurge irresponsibly. Simply take it on the chin and stay true to your long-term sensibility and weight loss goals.

• So many people diet for a bit, then overindulge for one meal or one day, and think everything is ruined. Either that or they lose all composure and go back to overeating and eating unhealthy foods. Rather than give up, simply recognize your mistake and try to get some meaning out of it.

• What made you back-step? What made you overeat? Understanding why you do what you do is incredibly important to a healthy and prosperous diet. By taking these conscientious steps, we are confident that you will find the inner composure to lose the weight and keep it off!

Word Count: 2447