<p>So I have really been doing better for the past few months eating healthier. Tonight, though, I was at my office late and was stressed about getting certain things done, and even though I had eaten a reasonable dinner, by the time I got home I was ready to eat everything in the house (starting with all of the carbs). I settled for a few almonds, a sugar-free hot chocolate, and a shower, and things are back to normal, but I am wondering, anyone have any good strategies for responding to full-blown food cravings?</p>
<p>Nope.
Snicker Bars seems to help me balance out the low sugar along with a COSTCO, half tablet, mature vitamin. </p>
<p>Sometimes even decaf coffee has enough carbs (all soluble & simple sugars) will shoot my BS to much higher levels</p>
<p>There is a trick (forget what the diet gimmick is called) that supposedly keeps your blood sugar levels static and it worked for my H. Put a tablespoon of sugar in a bottle of water and sip at it all day. You won’t get the low crashes and cravings, apparently. But be sure to brush your teeth often!</p>
<p>A chewable vitamin C will sometimes help my sweet tooth</p>
<p>Chewing sugarless gum. </p>
<p>Or you can eat what you are craving, but just a small serving.</p>
<p>I think what you did was perfect. I’ve struggled with this for years. Here’s what helps me avoid getting to the food craving stage to begin with:</p>
<p>1) Eat a fair amount of protein at each meal/snack (I eat egg beaters for<br>
breakfast, a chicken sandwich for lunch, an apple with peanut butter for snack,
yogurt)
2) Don’t allow yourself to get too hungry (this will set me off on a huge carb binge)
3) Don’t keep anything in the house that is a ‘trigger’ food. The only ‘sweets’ I
now keep is sugar free pudding which I mix with lite cool whip
4) A small handful of unsalted nuts or a spoonful of peanut butter is great
5) Drink a glass of water first - that will often help you get past the craving
6) I stay away from diet sodas and anything that’s a carb with splenda. I have<br>
found the more processed the food, the worse it sets off my carb/sugar
addiction. Those 100 calorie cookie and cracker packs - I stay far, far away from
them.</p>
<p>And if you do give in to the urge, don’t beat yourself up * and * more importantly, don’t use it as an excuse to start overeating. It’s okay to give into a food craving once in and while, unless you know it’s going to set you off on a binge.</p>
<p>I’ve been battling with weight issues pretty much my whole life. I recently went to my doctor and started a prescription of phentermine. I’m on a lower dose than is normally prescribed. It has really helped me be successful. My biggest side effect has been a dry mouth, but I’ve lost 10 lbs so far (in about 5 weeks). It’s cut out the cravings and given me the ability to say “no” to temptations. I’ve been able to pass up the krispy kreme donuts in the break room, the pumpkin pie at the church supper, the ice cream in the freezer, etc.</p>
<p>Identify the one or two foods that you MUST reach for first when you are having these cravings - a piece of cheese, a few almonds, slice of rolled up turkey - whatever - and make sure you have these items on hand for when the cravings hit. </p>
<p>The best defense for me (and what I am currently in week two of with great success) is for ONE WEEK to rid of most (not all!) sugar and carbs - bad carbs - so no chips, white bread, big desserts, etc. For me, after one week, the major cravings for those items subsides. I can be happy with other choices and just a small, not-so-frequent addition of those items back into my diet.</p>
<p>The best strategy for me is to not have the bad (good!) stuff in the house. If it’s here I have to fight with myself as to whether to eat it or not and sometimes I win (I lose). For me the cravings hit later on at night and if it’s in the house I’ll likely find it but if it’s not here I’m not going to get in the car and go buy it. By the morning there’s no craving and I’m glad I didn’t succumb.</p>
<p>It’s also helpful to have some alternatives as other posters mentioned. The problem is when you have the healthy alternative right next to the unhealthy alternative in the cabinet prompting that internal fight. It’s best to avoid the fights.</p>
<p>It’s helpful if the other people in your house support this by allowing the bad food to not be in the house. It can be hard to have to deal with the tater chips, chocolate, etc. other members of the household might be eating. Again, purge the house of such things and if they really want it let them get it elsewhere - they’re better off without the junk food as well.</p>
<p>The other thing that can help is exercise. I know that after a long day you might not feel like it but exercise of some type can help eliminate the cravings and might help you sleep better and you won’t eat while you’re sleeping. The exercise can be on an elliptical/bike/treadmill if you have one, lifting some free weights (very cheap to buy, don’t take up much room, easy to use, can have a lot of benefit), situps, pushups, running in place, other types of ‘free’ exercises that don’t require equipment or space.</p>
<p>Long-term, the solution is to find enough positive motivation to get you through the short-term early stages of eating less/moving more. As you rack up successes in the short-term, you will condition yourself to no longer “crave” the junk food and then it becomes much easier to just not buy the stuff. For me, regular exercise, with the both the difficulty that entailed and the results I started to see, was a big part of the equation. I slowly began to see myself as a potentially fit person rather than an “ol’ fat guy” and part of being a fit person is not putting on the junk food feedbag every night.</p>
<p>Tracking calories also helps, but it has to be more than self-deprivation to be sustainable.</p>
<p>Now, I turn to reasonable calorie snacks. For example, eight large green olives is a great snack – very tasty, very filling – for about 60 calories. That and a couple of stalks of celery makes fine late night snack. Microwave popcorn (not the** heavy **butter stuff) is also a decent option.</p>
<p>I personally cannot buy the candy and chips and stuff. If I buy it, I will eat it and eat it and eat it until it is gone. I try my best to just avoid the totally empty junk-food calories in favor of eating really good meals with like, actual meat and real cheese and butter and stuff.</p>
<p>I am another who has to exercise my self control in the grocery store; once it’s in the house, fuggedaboutit. I do usually have dried fruit in the freezer for baking and find the sweetness of a few pieces is usually enough to satisfy me. Also, when it’s frozen, the chewiness is satisfying. Of course, if it’s “dried plums” there’s no way I’m going to have more than a few. ;)</p>
<p>Also, I’ve started keeping dark chocolate almond Silk in the fridge. I heat it up in the microwave so there’s no choice but to sip it slowly. It provides a calcium boost and makes a nice bedtime treat (@ 120 kcals/cup).</p>
<p>Stay out of the Banana Creme Pie thread.</p>
<p>
If there’s, for example, a box of See’s chocolates in the house, my W could actually eat one or two a day until they’re done. I, on the other hand, to use a quote, would “eat it and eat it and eat it until it is gone”. Luckily we seldom have such things in the house. I once found myself eating too many peanuts so I chose a strong moment and threw the whole can in the trash - better there than in me - and told my W to not buy them anymore.</p>
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<p>Not many people know it, but it’s amazingly easy (and cheap) to make your own microwave popcorn. Just take a small brown bag, pour in enough kernels to coat the bottom, fold the top over a few times and staple it closed (don’t worry about the staple in the microwave, it’s a big enough piece of metal it won’t spark like foil will). That way you can actually control the amount of butter in your serving (as well as control the actual serving size). I’ve become a fan of putting either a little bit of Old Bay or Chili Lime salt on my popcorn, though I imagine you could even sprinkle on some non-salt seasoning mix if you’d prefer.</p>
<p>For my cravings I tend to go with carrots. I’ve stopped buying the baby ones since I can eat an entire pound in a sitting, but with a normal carrot they’re usually sweet, have some crunch, and if you want, you can lightly salt them. They’re a billion times more filling than any other salty snack, and they’re pretty healthy too.</p>
<p>
That’s a pretty good strategy - you put some healthful things in your stomach to take the edge off and then did an activity (shower) to redirect your body and mind and it seems to have worked for you. You can try all kinds of variations of this depending on what’s convenient enough for you to actually do.</p>
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<p>I’m sure there have been many occasions when I’ve put on the feedbag and plowed through 1000 calories of Planters dry roased peanuts or roasted peanuts in the shell --** in one sitting!** </p>
<p>Those are the habits that I have finally broken, but I still don’t buy peanuts!</p>
<p>Once I start it’s hard to stop, so I do best when I go cold turkey on the sugar.</p>
<p>I try to stay with low fat foods, and for sweet cravings eat either teddy grahams or the small yok peppermint patties. You can buy a whole big box at Costco.</p>
<p>^ problem is, some of us would go right through that whole big box!</p>
<p>They are individually wrapped. You can take a few and WALK SLOOOOWLY AWAY FROM THE BOX…</p>