Andrew’s (Spring85sigma) BodyBlog

A lot of my colleagues on here are fighting food cravings. They crave certain foods during certain times, for example. They often feel guilty about having "fallen off the wagon." As a therapist, I must say that when one is working toward a goal, that is changing behavior, often there are times when we may have setbacks. The important thing to do when these setbacks occur is to find out WHAT triggered the setback, assess the setting, your emotional state (e.g. lonely, bored, sad, depressed, etc.), any "activating events," (e.g. trauma, argument, celebration, etc.), who were you with, etc. After this is done make sure that you remove barriers, develop "safeguards" and or preventive strategies, and/or change settings to minimize the chance for the setback occurring again. With food cravings, it is often best to not have "tempting" foods in the environment. Once a craving occurs, if one can distract onself for about 5-10 minutes the craving will usually subside. Another strategy is to plan when you are going to eat something that is less than healthy. Have some of the food and then get back to your healthy diet.  Also make sure that there are family, friends, and other supportive people who understand your struggle who will encourage you to stick to your eating plan and NOT sabotage it. Remember, it takes about 21 days to change or acquire a new habit. Be patient with yourself.

I found an article by Jeff Anderson, "The Muscle Nerd" which summarizes some of what I’ve mentioned above. I hope this assists those of you who are continually fighting food cravings. The URL for the article is as follows:

http://www.undergroundbodybuildingtips.com/article_details.php?aid=38

Here is the text of the article:

How To Conquer Food Cravings!
By: - The Muscle Nerd - Jeff Anderson Mmmmmmm!  My wife is baking cookies as I write this article! 

Do YOU have insatiable food cravings? Everyone does, right? 

Maybe for you it’s CHOCOLATE…or POTATO CHIPS…or LIME JELL-O! Whatever it is for YOU, food cravings are one of the reasons so many diets FAIL. 

After a few weeks of depriving yourself, you mindlessly scarf down your “secret sin” food and then wallow around in self-guilt. Sound familiar? 

Well, here are 4 TIPS TO CONQUER YOUR FOOD CRAVINGS… Food Craving Tip #1:  Time Your Indulgence 

The best time to eat your “guilt foods” are shortly after training. This is when your body can actually USE the common insulin spike from eating sugary foods to help your muscles recover from your workout. 

That helps you build or maintain muscle which will in turn help you burn more fat. Food Craving Tip #2:  Find Healthier Alternatives 

Eating the WRONG foods isn’t an “all or nothing” ordeal. So many people say, “If I’m gonna blow my diet, I may as well blow it BIG!” 

Wrong answer! Choose low-fat eggnog over full fat 

…dark chocolate over milk chocolate …bake without the lard, full fat butters, or hydrogenated oils that recipes call for and use “healthy” oils instead. 

One of my favorite “desserts” is sugar-free vanilla pudding mixed with vanilla protein powder! Mmmmm…muscle-building goodness for late-night cravings! 

Food Craving Tip #3:  Cheat, Cheat, Cheat! When you’re trying to lose weight, a “cheat day” can actually HELP you achieve better results! 

If you’ve been programming your body to deal with reduced calorie intake, it can adapt and try to hold on to body fat because it feel it needs to conserve that valuable fuel source. But by adding a “cheat day” in (no more than once a week!), you can jolt your sleepy metabolism into letting go of more body fat. 

Food Craving Tip #4:  Plan Your “Make Up” Too often when falling off the wagon, people see it as “failure” and just give up. 

Instead, when you know you’re going to be “cheating”, PLAN for how you’re going to compensate.  So if you find yourself at a party and the voices in your head are screaming for chips and dip, mentally COMMIT to hitting the gym the very next day with the intention of burning off those extra calories! 

This entry was posted on Friday, December 12th, 2008 at 4:18 pm and is filed under Nutrition, Motivation and Organization. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.