Winning Against Your Cravings

Do you feel powerless over your cravings for junk foods?

It is sweets? Salt? Soda?

It turns out that your cravings aren’t all your fault and the people who manufacture packaged junk foods have been purposefully making your snacks physically addictive.

No, they aren’t lacing them with cocaine like they used to but many soft drinks are high in caffeine which is another addictive chemical.

Every day we spends loads of money on unhealthy junk foods knowing that it isn’t good for us. Full of chemicals fats, salts, and sugars. Why then, if we know its bad for us, why do we do it?

Because we are addicted. And that addictive property in your food has been carefully applied by the manufacturer to ensure your addiction to it.

Food Addiction is Not Your Fault

Over the years a common practice to try and eliminate sugar from the diet has resulted in using a sugar substitute. It now seems that the sugar substitute actually compounds the problem with sugar and can be why a person using sugar substitutes can actually gain MORE weight than ones who don’t.

It also seems that people who eat a lot of junk may be more prone to depression. Once a person is in the cycle of junk food, depression, then feeding that depression can result in massive weight gain.

You can fight these cravings with a few changes. Be warned however, it might get uncomfortable for a few days. After a few day though you will probably notice that you feel better and aren’t suffering from unmanageable cravings.

What Addictions Are You Up Against?

Studies indicate that sugar addiction is as bad (or worse) than cocaine addiction. Chocolate too has been shown to cause withdrawal symptoms when people who eat a lot of it try to abstain.

Other addictive qualities to the junk foods we eat have been purposefully added to processed foods to make them more addictive.

Additives and food combinations is a science employed by processed food manufactures to make us WANT their food. Everything from added seasoning to make our mouths water more, like salt and MSG – to – how the food acts in your mouth and digestive system; like melting faster or being calorie dense.

Taste and mouth feel are the two top addictive qualities that are manipulated by food scientists.

In this book Why Humans Like Junk Food there is full explanations of what the food companies are doing as well as how you can get away from your own food addiction and cravings.

Why Cheat Days are Bad

Almost every diet on the market talks about scheduling cheat days so you won’t feel “deprived” of your favourite foods. With all the knowledge that we now have indicating how addictive most of the junk foods are – a cheat day only hooks you again.

If you were trying to quit smoking or alcohol everyone knows that you cannot have a “cheat day” for that. Similar you cannot have a comfortable cheat day for the highly addictive foods.

You can test this theory out for yourself by going a week eating good clean food. Take note of how you feel on day four. Cravings are less and the ones you do have aren’t as strong. But within hours of having your cheat foods the cravings are back and stronger than ever.

This doesn’t’ mean that you can never have junk food again, it does mean you now know to expect to start the cycle again every time you do indulge.

How to fight Food Cravings Forever

The best way to quit wanting junk food is to quit eating junk food.

Often times we feel like we are punishing ourselves by giving up the things we enjoy. Because junk food is so tasty it is often used a s a reward. Kids get ice cream, we get fast food, even the most common of diet programs promote a “cheat day” every week.

One of the best ways to stop craving processed foods is to replace them with healthy foods.

Agreed! A carrot does not have the same satisfying feel that a slice of pepperoni pizza has. The good news is that you don’t have to eat whole healthy foods for too long until the junk food cravings become less intense and eventually you will start to crave healthy foods.

What Does a Healthy Meal Look Like?

Focusing on health as opposed to just losing weight is the better way. If you are overweight you will drop pounds of fat when you switch to healthy whole foods.

Your healthy meal plan could easily be very different than someone else’s healthy meal plan, which compounds the difficulties associated with changing one’s diet.

Allergies, food sensitivities, even money problems can make it difficult to know what a healthy diet should look like for YOU.

Off the shelf diet programs often don’t address your specific and personal dietary needs but there are helpful things you can do for yourself. One is to check with your local YMCA, hospital, even the neighbouring grocery store. These are places that have healthy cooking classes, dietitians, and nutritionists. Often times you can attend and get consultations for your dietary needs when making the switch to a healthy meal plan.

One word of caution would be to be extra vigilant when consulting with the nutritionists that plan out diet programs from a franchise diet clinic. Often times their true focus is to promote their designer chemical meal substitute and not a REAL FOOD meal plan.