A craving is an intense desire of longing for a particular substance. About 70 percent of bulimics attribute their binge eating to food cravings and about 50 percent of binge eaters report cravings - usually for sugary foods.Once we are firmly in the grips of a major food craving, it can be extremely difficult to get out of it. The key is recognizing that a major craving is coming on, and avoiding it from developing fully. Today, I want to talk about how to nip this in the bud, but first, we have to look at how a craving develops.
Advertising companies know what they are doing folks. The latest Dominos ad makes the pizza look so good you can smell the high-def scents coming through the screen. This just plants a seed. Rarely do we see the ad, and by the time it's over, we're on hold with Larry, the pizza guy. What happens more often; we see the ad, continue sitting there while that seed begins to grow.
The more we dwell on those thoughts, we start to relive the last time we had that particular food and the stronger the craving becomes. The more you relive it in your mind, the seed grows bigger and bigger. Your mouth starts to water and negative emotions begin to pile on. Eating suggest and escape, at least temporarily, from pain, boredom, anxiety, sadness and loneliness.
A craving needs to be interrupted early on, before it grows out of control. Here are some techniques that if consciously applied, can help to stop the spiral before it sucks you down with it.
Leave or Avoid The Temptation Arena
- If the ad is on TV, change the channel, or get up and leave the room. The idea here is that simply doing something will help actively push your mind from the temptation to the self-discipline of doing something more constructive.
- Go to the kitchen and drink a big glass or two of water or tea. Doing this will fill your stomach and give your mouth something to do while you move away from this temptation to cheat.
- Remind yourself that you will be eating at the regular time. This is huge! We have talked many times about eating every 3 hours. Simply put, if it's not time to eat, you must wait. Just that in itself can be enough to help avoid a craving. You are imposing discipline on yourself, which is actually an action, which, in turn, moves you a step in the right direction, not the wrong one.
- Thought stopping involves noticing the beginning of a craving and taking immediate action. Action doesn't always imply movement, but in this case, Mental Action. Conscious thought forced by your "right" mind that will drag your "wrong" mind along.
- As soon as you start to ruminate about a certain food, tell yourself, in conscious thought, "No. Stop thinking about that. Think about __________" Fill the blank with anything you can devote 100% attention to for even a few moments. That's often how long it takes to brake this cycle.
Depress the Sensory Longing
- Another way to make the thought or image or the tempting food item less compelling is to disrupt your own sense of taste or smell. Popping a strong mint, gargling with strong mouthwash, brushing your teeth, dab some cologne or strong smelling ointment under your nose work beautifully. This may sound a bit out of the box, but I assure you, I personally do this one often, and it helps nearly 100% of the time.
- Use our timing system here. If you know that it's only been 2 hours since your last snack, you still have an hour to wait. Force yourself to wait. You can use that time to plan a healthy alternative to eat, then when you're done with it, you have to wait another 3 hours to eat again.
- Urges fade with time. Drink a huge glass of water and force yourself to wait.
- Take a walk
- Take a shower
- Practice music
- Call a friend
- The key here is... DO SOMETHING! If you just sit on the couch, the craving will continue to grow, until finally, you have a weak moment, and it wins. Get up and move. Simply taking a shower has bailed me out more than once this week to be honest.
- If you have delayed a craving and distracted yourself, you may permit yourself a single serving of the food that you are thinking of. Use portion control here!
- You won't feel deprived and the measured portion is a vast improvement from a full-out binge. This may help in the long term of stopping the All-Or-Nothing approach that descends to binges.
- Personally, this one doesn't work for me. It might with time, and more effort, but I have yet to control a single serving of a cheat food. This is why I don't do cheat meals, cheat snacks or cheat days.
- If you're going to attempt this, follow 3 rules. First, you must have already delayed it until the next eating time. Second, you must have distracted yourself with 2 different techniques. And most importantly, you must only buy a single serving of the food that you are going to eat. No matter how much cheaper it is in a 10 pack... understand if you buy the big family size, more than likely, you will consume the whole box. If ice cream is your crutch, then buy a single small ice cream sandwich and leave the store.
- This is the hardest one for me to swallow. However, I believe it's the most important of all of them.
- Eating a single brownie or occasional ice cream cone won't make you fat, but huge servings of guilt WILL.
- Believing you failed due to one cheat can trigger finishing the entire box due to failure and self-loathing.
- Eating one snack is NOT a sign of loss of control. Realize that and stop hating yourself.
- Delay at least 10 minutes (or I suggest until your next scheduled eating time slot).
- Distract yourself by doing something active.
- Distance yourself from the temptation. Leave the room and don't bring the crap into your house!
- Determine how important it is for you to eat the food you're craving and how much you ACTUALLY want it.
- Decide what amount is reasonable and appropriate. Eat and enjoy only that amount with no guilt.
Yours,
Steve
