How to beat food cravings in 4 steps

In the weight loss game, cravings can be a huge challenge. After all, it would be easy if you just didn’t need those chocolate-chip cookies. With willpower being finite though (we have a limited supply) trying to deny the body something it is crying out for is pretty much impossible.

If you’re tired of battling cravings, here’s what to do instead.

Image: http://www.today.com/id/49392017/ns/today-today_tech/t/cookie-monster-spotted-mercury-nasa-thinks-so/#.Ui4I4Rasjww

1. Eat mostly nutrient-dense, whole foods

Junk food is self-reinforcing. It’s often designed and even advertised that way. It’s made to be hyper-palatable – super tasty and super stimulating. The more you eat it, the more you crave it. Usually this tends not to be the case with whole foods. We tend not to get mad cravings for carrots or butternut squash. Or asparagus.

Industrial foods also generally don’t contain as many nutrients as real food. They have fewer vitamins and minerals. So you could be eating plenty of calories but without the nourishment you require, your body might keep sending those signals to eat.

The first step in beating cravings then, is to base your diet around nutrient dense foods. Food made by nature. Food that can be prepared at home. Not only is it less stimulating, you’ll get more nourishment – and reduce cravings.

2. Eat enough food

Most clients who come to me for weight loss don’t eat nearly enough food. It sounds backwards I know. But too many people are trying to starve themselves thin. This is a recipe for disaster. Starvation makes people become preoccupied with food. So not only is it totally unsustainable, it will only serve to increase cravings. Inevitably they binge and they blame their lack of results on a lack of willpower, when really it was a lack of food in the first place.

Understand this: hunger doesn’t exist to make you fat. It exists to keep you alive! Yes, to lose weight we need to create a gap between energy consumed and energy burned, but that gap should be subtle. Eat!

3. Listen and adjust

Ok. So the majority of your diet is made up of nutrient-dense, whole, filling foods, you feel as though you’re eating enough food …but …you still have cravings. It’s time to listen to those cravings.

Your body is smart. It knows what it needs. Us, on the other hand, we think we’re smart. We think we’re spot-on with our diet, that “this time” we’ve found the answer. But it’s so easy to fall for the diet fads and food tribalism. Before we know it, we’ve bought into some ideal and forgotten to listen to our body.

If you crave sugar all the time, consider that you might actually need some sugar! If you’ve been swept along by the recent fear of carbohydrates (which are ultimately sugar), this could very well be the case – especially if you exercise hard.

Listen to the signals your body sends you and adjust your diet accordingly. This is called ‘intuitive eating’.

4. Practice moderation

The scarcity principle says that if something is limited, we perceive it to be more valuable. This happens all the time with food.

We have our mental lists of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ foods and vow to stop eating the bad ones. But all we’ve done is increase the value of those forbidden foods. We’ve made them scarce. …And so we just crave them even more.

In reality there are no fattening foods. What matters is the overall context of the diet. So if we quit trying to willpower our way to healthy eating, and realise that chocolate can be enjoyed in moderation, we might find it loses it’s power over us.

BIG IDEA: Using willpower to beat food cravings is like trying to run a marathon every day. Pretty soon you’ll burn out.

TAKEAWAY: Reduce food cravings by