How to Control Food Cravings

Food cravings.  Don't they just stink?  You've been healthy all day long and then... come 9 o'clock at night all you can think about is dessert.  Here's some tips on how to control your cravings to satisfy yourself and avoid breaking the scale.

Don't Eat Around Cravings
When you crave something super, super, super badly, I don't suggest eating something healthier in place of it, unless you've got some great will power.  You might be thinking, huh?  When you crave a specific food, you should do one of the following:  Eat that specific food or don't eat anything at all.  Why?  Let's say you had a craving for a specific kind of chip.  If you try avoiding that food by replacing it with other foods, you could eat up your whole pantry and still not satisfy that specific craving, so you'd most likely end up eating those chips anyhow.  But, if you had gone for a sensible portion of those chips in the first place, you could actually save yourself some calories and time.  Especially at night when you should stop eating around 8 or 9, it's sometimes best to get it over with instead of lingering.  Just don't do this every single time you want something, keep in mind my next piece of advice...


Everything's Okay in Moderation
Okay, so not everything.  But almost anything is okay to have in moderation.  Sure, you can eat dessert and still lose weight.  But you can not have ice cream every night of week and still lose weight.  And yes you can have a reasonable slice of cake at your friend's party and still be a "healthy person."  But you can not have a slice of cake, a brownie, and 3 cookies at your friend's party and still be a healthy person.  Get the point?  If you eat healthy for the most part and exercise regularly, you can have sensible treats here and there.  Depriving yourself isn't a goo idea.  It'll only lead to binge eating, where you are so deprived of yummy foods one day you just go CRAZY and eat all the ice cream in your freezer and all the chips in your house.  So...yeah I wouldn't suggest that.


Don't Get Into an Craving Routine
This is something I wish someone had told me when I was in 8th grade last year.  Every night after dance class ended at 9:30, I'd come home, throw my bag on the floor, take off my shoes, and so straight to the freezer to gobble up some ice cream.  It wouldn't of been too bad since I ate healthfully otherwise (it was only 3 nights a week).   I was in a routine and every night after dance I was craving of ice cream.  But then It became every night.  I went through tub after tub while gaining pound after pound.  Once, my mom asked me, "Do you really need that?  Are you even hungry?"  And then suddenly I realized I had spent 2 months eating ice cream.  Every.  Single.  Night.  I really didn't love ice cream that much, and I really had not cravings for it after a while.  I just slipped into a stupid routine and didn't pay enough attention to slip out of it.  So don't get into a unhealthy eating routine.  Just don't.  Go a few days without ice cream or whatever it is you treat yourself to to avoid slipping into a routine.


Think About How Healthy Your Day Has Been
When pondering one of life's great questions of, "Should I eat this or not?" you must take into consideration how healthy you've been all day.  If you exercised, ate healthfully, and didn't indulge yet, go for that cupcake calling your name (okay, maybe not the whole thing).  But if you know your day has been less than satisfactory... you probably should try eating as healthy as possible the rest of the day.  Also remember it's a good idea to have some solid, healthy days to balance out the days you indulge. 


Just remember: Control your cravings and be sensible about indulging!