Five ways the experts say can help you beat your food cravings

Why are we all so crap at sticking to diets? Why do we give in so easily?

I mean, we all start off with the best intentions – buying the ‘right’ kind of bread, cutting down our chocolate, trying to stay away from alcohol.

But give it a week, and you are soon giving yourself ‘days off for being good’.

Once the rots starts to set in it’s not long before you are back to the bad, old days, chomping your way through a delicious cheesecake every night after work – because you’ve had a bad day.

Ok, the last bit was just me, and, frankly, just thinking about it has made me hungry.

Damn it? Why are all the thing that taste good bad for you? See, I am just as weak as the next person.

We’re all guilty of it. We are all spineless and weak-willed.

Well, Readers Digest has compiled some superb tips by experts on how you can beat your cravings, which we have turned into a handy, bite-sized article. Enjoy!! Just don’t eat it!!

Now, where is that cheesecake? D’oh!

1. Switch what you eat
OK, easier said than done, I know. But just listen. Thing is, if you love cheesecake (I know I do) and you allow yourself to eat it once a week (what harm can it do etc) then you will always find yourself craving for it.

They are your trigger foods, and you will always return to them.

Obvious, maybe. But keep reading.
Speaking to Reader’s Digest, Marcia Pelchat PhD, of the Monell Centre says that by switching to new foods

You will very soon find yourself craving your new diet instead. So if it’s fresh fruit and veggies, then you are on to a winner.
Don’t believe us? Well, don’t take our word for it! Listen to what Marcia has to say.

She held a five-day study in which volunteers drank bland diet drinks. Ok, you’d think they’d soon start craving Coke and Dr Pepper (maybe not), but they actually started to crave them less as the days wore on, and some even started to crave the bland diet drinks.

So, giving up on your favourite foods will not stop you craving for it completely, but as time goes by they will fade.

Marcia says:”You crave what you eat, so if you switch what you’re eating, you can weaken your old cravings and strengthen new ones,”

2. Catch some shut-eye
Our cravings usually catch up with us when we are tired.

Don’t let them.

Have a power nap and re-energise.

You will feel a lot better.

3. Get behind thee temptation
Ok, so you are a weak fool and finally bought those cookies from the shop you’ve had your eyes on for the last few weeks.

You start to feel very guilty and very full. What do you do?

“Don’t just throw it away; run water over it, ruin it. You’ll feel a sense of accomplishment that you’ve licked your binge,” says Caroline Apovian, MD, director, Nutrition and Weight Management Center at Boston Medical Center.

Now Caroline is right but surely lacks in a bit of imagination. I mean, come on, I am sure you can up with much better ways to destroy those nasty, sweet, lovely, satisfying, errr, cookies.
Set fire to it, run over them with your car, stamp on them.

4. Brush your teeth
“When you have a fresh, clean mouth, you don’t want to mess it up,” says Molly Gee, RD, of Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.

Errr, well, it kind of makes sense. I mean a lot of people don’t eat first thing in the morning or late at night before you go to bed.

Ok, I’m not sure about that one either.

5. Go nuts
Eat six walnuts, 12 almonds or 20 peanuts and wash them down with two glasses of water and your hunger should subside.

Ok, it sounds totally nuts (see what I did there), but Reader’s Digest’s ‘Health IQ’ columnist Michael F. Roizen, MD, says it changes your body chemistry.