Whenever you start a new diet, cravings are pretty much inevitable. It can get to the point where you feel as though you'll literally stop existing unless you cave in. Countless diets are broken due to cravings, but there are a few techniques that you can use to retrain your cravings and keep your diet on track.
First, before you even start your diet, you'll need to figure out what your trigger foods are, the ones that you simply cannot do without, the ones that always derail your diet. By looking at this process logically, you can skip a lot of the problems that can happen when you first start your diet.
Whatever diet you pick, you'll most likely find that you'll have to give up these trigger foods. You're brain is convinced their necessary and it will start sending out the signals that start the craving process when it doesn't get them.
In order to retrain your cravings, you're going to need to start gradually. As an example, let's use sugar soda to illustrate this process. If you currently drink 3-4 sodas a day, you're dealing with two major triggers, caffeine and sugar. Cutting out soda is a great way to lose weight, but it can also be very difficult.
Personally, I like diet soda which has caffeine but not sugar and there are some varieties without caffeine. First try switching to diet soda from sugar soda. The taste will grow on you. Then you can move on to caffeine free diet soda. However, if you simply cannot diet soda. Then here is another technique you can try...
Let's concentrate first on dealing with the craving for caffeine. Soda does pack quite a punch in this department, but not as much as tea or coffee. Instead of reaching immediately for a sugar soda, try a cup of tea (no cream or sugar) or a plain cup of coffee. You're getting the same amount of caffeine you're used to, without any of the calories in soda.
Now, let's move on to handling the sugar problem. Since there are literally at least ten teaspoons of sugar in the average can of soda, your body is used to quite a bit of sugar at this point. Sugar cravings are some of the hardest to face, and your best bet is to avoid going completely cold turkey.
You can start by cutting back on one soda a day (replacing it with a cup of coffee or tea) and then gradually keep cutting back until you're completely off it. This gradual method helps your brain and your body retrain from relying on this burst of sugar. You'll get more time to adjust and it will be much easier to completely get it out of your life with this technique. You can also try substituting with something that has a little sugar but fewer calories.
The key to retraining your cravings is to take it slow and avoid going cold turkey. Sugar and caffeine are quite a bit like serious drugs or even cigarettes. They can be addicting and without help, it can be very hard to simply stop. Weaning is by far the easiest method to try and it will help reduce your risk of failure.
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caffeine, healthy eating, sugar, trigger food
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best bet, brain, calories, cold turkey, cup of coffee, cup of tea, diet, diets, mistake, punch, signals, soda, sodas, sugar cravings, teaspoons, trigger foods
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3 comments ↓
I know the diet vs. regular pop battle was HUGE for me.
It was no big deal for me to go through a two liter bottle of Dr. Pepper over a day and a half.
The switch to diet (after years of protesting that I hated the stuff and I’d never switch) has been a pretty big part of my weight loss so far when I think of all the calories I consumed drinking normal pop.
Great advice.
People jump straight into a diet without thinking how their normal eating patterns are going to assert themselves when the hunger pangs kick in
A little soul searching, perhaps even keeping a food log for a week prior to starting a diet can tell you a lot about your eating patterns.
The problem I have with diet soda is that it uses artificial sweeteners. I know they have been FDA approved, but does that make them a good thing? They are highly acidic to the body and a lot of folks are sensitive to them. The research I have done on them has led me to conclude that they are not suitable for consumption by myself or anyone in my family.
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