Health Hunch All you need to know to stay healthy

March 28, 2009

Tips on stopping food cravings

Filed under: EATING DISORDERS — admin @ 1:20 am

Food cravings are one of the critical, cultured forms of addiction and compulsive behavior that are very difficult to discern.  For us,it is pretty much acceptable to have an addiction when it comes to food.  We all have them and we all treat people with this particular addiction (addiction to food) entirely different to someone who is addicted to alcohol or other drugs.Whereas someone who craves alcohol would be encouraged to seek help, those of us who crave sugary snacks are often – if not all the time – encouraged to indulge in our addictions.  And if we don’t indulge we will often hear the retort “Why to deprive yourself?”.”One isn’t going to hurt your diet”.

The foods that are frequently craved give no nutritional benefit to you and can cause and contribute to a number of different health conditions like excess weight and diabetes.  Why would you want to eat those foods other than for comfort and pleasure?You wouldn’t! It is your addiction to them that makes you eat them.Food has the power to control you in this way.  Sugar, salt and foods laced with fat are emotionally and physically addictive.

In order to rid yourself of these substances from your life, the first step is to admit there is a problem.  This is a very difficult thing for you to do, especially when you think you are eating that sandwich out of hunger.Control has been established  inside you. Even if there is an intense desire to lose weight or a bad habit, there is often failure and discouragement.So as stated you must admit the issue. Now, once you have admitted it and reached a decision that these cravings are not good for you and you DEFINITELY want to give them up for good, you need to COMPLETELY REFUSE to consider them for even a second longer from that moment on.Once you know what you must avoid (sugar, chocolate, coffee whatever it is) and what you must do to improve your health, you should start observing and be attentive to the thoughts that pass through your mind. Just as soon as you become aware that you desire some chocolate or any other food which you have chosen not to eat anymore, as that very moment dismiss it. Completely refuse to give it another second’s thought.|You must be alert at this time, though because quickly the thought can arouse emotion in you and this can result in you becoming weak or inattentive to your decisions. You will find, you start trying to rationalize having that desire food and get caught up in your feelings.Don’t play with this desire! But don’t struggle with it. If you try to use willpower to force it out of the mind it will just accentuate it and make it stronger.

Just simply drop the thought from your attention – get on with a chore, distract yourself essentially. Give this other subject/activity your FULL attention and stay fully immersed in it until you have calmed down.Emotions are much stronger than reason – we tend to rationalize the irrational when we are caught up in then and can talk ourselves into anything. This is dangerous, so don’t play with them just divert your attention.This is one of the first and most crucial steps to being free – Your Fat Freedom is possible but you must have self-awareness if you want to be rid of cravings for good.

No Comments

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.

Powered by WordPress