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Does that juicy burger make your mouth water? Or perhaps those crispy fries that you can’t resist? Well, as yummy as they are, you have to be careful with such cravings.
If you’re not careful, hankerings like that might get the better of you, prompting us to overindulge and deviate from your healthy eating objectives. So, are you wondering how to stop food cravings? Let’s get started!
Firstly, don’t feel bad about consuming something that isn’t necessarily good for you. We all give in from time to time and fully denying ourselves of what we desire might take the fun out of meals. When eating cravings overwhelm us, we may jeopardize excellent nutrition and a healthy weight.
Pangs may occur for a variety of causes and learning how to control those urges when they arise — or at least ride them out in a healthy manner — can provide you with a solid barrier against their enticing ways.
We’ve all had the impulse to indulge our sweet appetite – we need sweets, and we need them now! We may also experience a desire for pizza or other fatty, salty foods.
Hunger pangs occur whenever we least anticipate them and, more often than not, while we are unprepared to manage them.
Why Exactly Do We Crave Food?
Although sugar cravings may appear (and even sometimes sound) to start in your stomach, your brain is the primary culprit. In reality, our desires for fats, sweets, and salt appear to have existed since the Prehistoric Era. Our Human ancestors often ate meat, pleasant plants, and salty things, but these meals weren’t always easily accessible.
As a result, whenever our forefathers did enjoy them, their brains encrypted the message that they had done something good, training them to seek more as a method of survival.
Fatigue, tension, worry, isolation – how we feel can also influence when cravings emerge. Specific foods, as well as lifestyle decisions, can affect our neurons and thus our cravings. These neurons act as chemical messengers that send information throughout the body.
While eating might provide some people with solace, the food itself can affect our mood. Carbs, for example, can help us relax by raising serotonin levels.1
Leptin and ghrelin are two very efficient hormones that inform the brain when we’re hungry and whether to store extra calories as body fat or use them for energy. When blood sugar levels fall, ghrelin levels rise.
How to Stop Food Cravings?
Any food item has a place in a well-balanced diet if it is consumed in moderation. However, if you feel that it is time to get control of your food cravings because they are interfering with your weight loss or other health-related activities.
Here are 7 ways to control your sweet tooth, sweet cravings, or midnight hankerings2:
1. Drinking Water
The easiest thing you can do to curb your cravings is to have a (large glass of water) and all you need to do after is wait, wait for a couple of minutes.
Even if the craving doesn’t completely go away, the intensity of the food craving would be less.
2. Gaming
Did you know that playing your favourite game on your phone might help you reduce cravings? Whether you drink a glass of water to reduce cravings or not, it is indeed critical to keep your attention off the desires for a few moments.
3. Coffee to Your Rescue
Caffeine may have a greater impact on your appetite and food consumption than water. Although additional study is needed, it appears that coffee can reduce acute calorie consumption.3
What does this imply? People eat less after drinking a cup of coffee than they might have otherwise. So, even if you do succumb to temptation, you have a better chance of keeping your reward size appropriate and not going crazy.
According to the other study, coffee consumption may help decrease hunger even more!
4. Brush Your Teeth
This technique will function in two ways. For starters, it may deceive your brain into believing the meal has ended.
Even if your brain is resistant to deception, the refreshing mint toothpaste flavour left on your tongue will make it difficult to consume anything afterward. At the very least, it won’t taste as delicious.
5. Eat More Protein
Here’s why protein can help you fight wild cravings:
- Increasing protein consumption can help to lessen cravings.
- Eating additional protein might help you overcome the urge to eat late at night.
- Protein helps you feel fuller for longer.
6. Light Workout at the Rescue
When you start doing a hundred repetitions, consider this: a high-intensity workout may help you feel hungrier, but a low-intensity activity, such as a brisk stroll or a quick lightweight exercise session, may have the inverse result.
According to one research, it may cause you to eat half the quantity of chocolate you would normally eat. If you’re feeling frisky, take a stroll backward the next time your cravings strike.
7. Avoid Getting Hungry
The more hungry you become, the more likely it is that you will succumb to that tremendous urge. That’s all there is to it.
So don’t wait until it’s almost too late to hunt for answers. Plan your meals ahead of time and keep a nutritious snack on hand if you are prone to hunger pains.
To maintain your blood sugar level stable, consume multiple modest meals each day. In this manner, you won’t have unexpected food cravings in the first place.
8. Sleep Well
Sleep deprivation can impact your appetite and increase cravings. Unfortunately, when it comes to fitness and weight loss, the value of sleep is frequently overlooked.
The issue is that we quickly become accustomed to sleeping less and fail to see the true impact it has on us. We become irritable, always hungry, and unhappy, and we begin to blame it on our job, stress, or a lack of leisure.
But, more often than not, the true cause is a lack of sleep. If you’re having difficulties sleeping, these 11 tips can help!
9. Mindful Eating
Mindful eating is a subset of mindfulness practice in general. In general, mindfulness is training awareness and being present at the moment without judgment. This may also be used for food and eating.
An Indiana State University study looked at the effect of mini-meditations 4before eating or when the impulse to overeat develops and it is believed that these emotions are associated with food intake. I
t entailed focusing one’s consciousness on food-related behaviour, thoughts, and emotions. The results indicated a favourable effect, as the meditation group’s hunger pangs decreased in frequency and intensity.
Although binge eating and cravings are not the same things, they may coexist. Other more recent research has looked into meditation, as it is believed that meditation can change these behaviours.
10. Think About Long-Term Consequences
It would be absurd to believe that logical thought will halt a want but taking a step back and seeing the long-term effects might help some individuals manage their urges better.
- Some of the implications might be:
- decreased energy levels
- mood swings and an increase in negativity
- Obesity and diabetes pose health hazards.
Conclusion
Any of the measures listed above, or a combination of them, may help to lessen food cravings for sugary and carbohydrate-rich meals5. However, speaking with a professional may still be a smart idea. All you can control is your food intake, decreasing unhealthy foods and processed foods.
A nutritionist or personal trainer may assist a person in developing a healthy food plan that can tackle food craving hits.
Finally, a person will get the best outcomes if they adopt long-term dietary modifications to stop food cravings.
Check out other articles on “ Does Warm Milk help you sleep? “.
- Young, Simon N. “How to increase serotonin in the human brain without drugs.” Journal of psychiatry & neuroscience: JPN 32.6 (2007): 394. ↩︎
- Mbuh, Mbuh M. “Two Poems—ST Coleridge’s” Frost at Midnight” and Kitts Mbeboh’s” Reflections on a Face”—as Antithetical Archetypes.” Alizés: Revue angliciste de La Réunion 21 (2001): 237-249. ↩︎
- Perkins, Kenneth A., et al. “Acute effects of nicotine on hunger and caloric intake in smokers and nonsmokers.” Psychopharmacology 103 (1991): 103-109. ↩︎
- Kristeller, Jean L., and Ruth Q. Wolever. “Mindfulness-based eating awareness training for treating binge eating disorder: the conceptual foundation.” Eating Disorders and Mindfulness (2014): 93-105. ↩︎
- Kräuchi, Kurt, et al. “Alteration of internal circadian phase relationships after morning versus evening carbohydrate-rich meals in humans.” Journal of biological rhythms 17.4 (2002): 364-376. ↩︎
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