So I have to ask...do you crave salt or sweet? For me it's salt. I like artichoke hearts, some cheese and peppers on stoned wheat thin crackers. Lame! You're probably thinking. What about the nachos, wings, pizza and burgers? Yeah I like those too but I don't really crave them. And once in a while I might have a diet coke with lunch or some chocolate when we go to a movie. Ok now I've got half of drooling thinking about all these snacks. So how do we deal with cravings? How do take foods that should be once in a while and make sure they don't become daily rituals? Well below are the Best Ways to Deal with Cravings. #1 - Get it off-site If something is bad for you don't want it anywhere near you. Think about the fuss people make about nuclear reactors, power lines or any other type of waste or contaminant. NIMBY is the common response. So how come we are so casual about the poisons we stock in our fridge and pantry? I'm talking about the high sugar, high fructose corn syrup and processed foods that we buy and stock at home. Make it a lot harder to resist the urge and indulge but refusing to have the stuff in the home. On the rare occassions you are going to indulge, go out for a treat. #2 - Put delays in place Usually there is a time factor to our cravings. And these can be more psychological than physical. With a bit of a delay there is the chance the craving will pass. Smokers trying to quit are told to store their papers, tabacco, cigarettes and lighters in different locations. Chronic shoppers put their credit cards in a glass of water in the freezer. By creating a diversion or delay in satisfying the craving there is the possibility the urge will pass and you will be on to something else. This leads in to the next point. #3 Disrupt the routine If something is good for us we should try to establish a routine of doing it as frequently as possible. In the same way if something is bad for us we need to disrupt any semblance of a routine that is associated with that craving. For example if our guilty pleasure is a bowl of ice-cream when you watch your favourite show, pvr the show and do something else. Or if on a particular day of the week you drive past a particular fast food restaurant on the way home from work, choose an alternate path. And if the team goes for beer and wings after the game, suggest a place where you can order something healthier. #4 Fill the space When we get hungry we can diffuse this feeling by filling the stomach with something. What would be the best choice? Water obviously. You add zero calories but you fill up the volume of the stomach and there is less room to accomodate food. I can dig up the reference if you're that type of person but a recent study compared two groups that ate the same foods except the one group had a glass of water before every meal. At the end of the study the water group lost more fat and more total weight than the other group. #5 Know thy enemy Thanks to Brock for posting this tip in the comments section. He makes reference to a book The Testosterone Advantage Plan where they suggest reasonings for our cravings. To be fair, Brock admits he didn't agree with everything in the book and mentioned this more out of interest sake than anything. What they say is that if we're tired we crave sweet and if we're hungry we crave salt. I haven't checked the book out yet so I can't comment on this other than to say it sounds interesting. And if there's some truth to it then there is value to evaluating what we crave and whether we are tired or hungry. Then by improving our sleep and our caloric intake we may not be as susceptible to our cravings. #6 Feel the pain For people that are trying to get their finances in order it often recommended that they pay in cash. Part of the reasoning is that we don't feel the pain of our purchase when we pay by credit. We don't actually experience the cash leaving our hands at the time of a transaction and therefore are less likely to change our habits. So how do we apply this to our cravings? We need to write it out. We need to keep an accurate food journal. We need to write out the reasons as to why we think we deserve this snack. We we need to figure out what is the comparable amount of exercise we would have to do to re-pay the caloric surplus this craving creates. And we need to write out in what ways this food brings us closer to our goal. After writing these out it becomes pretty hard to justify having a cheat meal. #7 Exercise first You ever notice how you feel after a great workout? Energetic, strong, confident and happy. And have you noticed you usually make better decisions when you are in this type of a mood? Since this is the case look to do 15 minutes of exercise when you feel a craving for something. There are a couple of outcomes. One is you will feel all of the benefits described above and wonder why you would want to sacrifice your efforts with a poor nutritional choice. The other option is that you still indulge but the little bit of exercise helped increase your insulin sensivity and thereby minimize, ever so slightly, the effects of your treat. Well there you have it, The 7 Best Ways to Deal with Cravings. Does this cure you of all future cravings? Definitely not. But it does give you some real world strategies to help you minimize the degree and frequency of your cheat meals. Have a great weekend. Chris okanaganpeakperformance.com