One way external temptations lead to overeating
is by causing cravings, which can wear down even the strongest resolve. Knowing
how to calm cravings quickly can make a big difference in your eating habits.
Here are some important facts to remember about food cravings:
Cravings are normal, especially for those who
are dieting or attempting to restrict particular foods. They are nothing to
feel guilty or concerned about. Having a
craving doesn’t mean you’re hungry. One difference between food cravings and
hunger is that food cravings tend to be highly specific, involving intense
desires for specific foods, while hunger produces a more general desire to eat almost
any food that is available. Chocolate, ice cream, cookies, bread, and salty
snacks are commonly craved foods. If only ice cream will do, it’s a craving,
not hunger.
Common cravings are generally not indicative of
specific nutritional needs, but are better explained by various psychological
theories. Your body doesn’t need the food you crave. It is only that your brain
desires it. Cravings don’t last forever.
You don’t need to give in to a craving, and you don’t need to completely eliminate
it. All you really need to do is outlast it. Outlasting a craving doesn’t have
to be difficult. You just need the right tools. If you do an Internet search
for “cravings,” you will find dozens of suggestions for calming them: take a
walk, take a nap, eat some nuts, write in your journal, visit with a friend,
exercise.
Most of those ideas may work fine if you aren’t driving
to work through the doughnut district or sitting in a staff meeting in front of
a plate of chocolate chip cookies. Here are eight mental tools you can use to
calm cravings anywhere, anytime, and a ninth tool (taking a brisk walk) that
works very well when you are able to use it.
Focus Your Thoughts on Something Else
A craving is generally prompted by the sight or
smell of a favorite food, or by an unpleasant emotion that brings on thoughts of
a comfort food. When you continue to think of the craved food, you keep the craving
alive. Your thoughts usually involve visual images — if you are craving
doughnuts, you probably have an image of a doughnut in your mind. Now here’s
the key to calming the craving: the part of your mind that holds visual images can
hold only one image at a time. If you deliberately imagine something else, the new
image will displace the image of the craved food, and your craving will gradually
diminish.
Sometimes, however, your craving is so strong
you are unable to think about anything else long enough for the craving to
subside. In those situations, use a sensory focus technique. Next time you have
a food craving, try this. Without looking at your hand, touch an article of
your clothing. Find a seam and move your fingers across it. Notice the changes
in form and texture that you feel. As you do so, images of the fabric will
enter your mind and displace the mental image of the food you are craving Continue
this exercise for about a minute, or until the craving is gone.
Remember What You Really Want
If you don’t really want to lose weight, you
won’t have much success, no matter how much effort you put into it. You will find
ways to sabotage your own efforts and keep the weight on. Perhaps you are
afraid of the attention or higher social expectations that having a more attractive
body might bring. Maybe you are afraid that if you lose weight, you will no
longer fit in with your friends, or that you will be rejected by family members.
Maybe the
extra weight helps you feel safe. Maybe being thin just doesn’t seem to be
worth the extra effort that will be required. If you don’t really want to have
a slimmer body, this book won’t do you much good. On the other hand, if you
really do want to lose weight, the emotional power of this desire can
help you counter your cravings. Spend a few minutes and put your specific
weight loss goal, and reasons behind your goal, on paper. Write on a small card
what you really want (to be a certain weight or size, for example) and why you
want it. Your motives might include health, relationship, or emotional benefits,
physical goals (such as a desired hiking vacation), or other reasons. When you
experience a craving, look at the card, think about what you really want and
why, and ask yourself if giving in to the craving would help you get there.
Give it some serious thought for at least a minute, or until the craving is
gone. You can also use this tool to head off cravings before they occur. If you
know you are going to be in a situation that prompts cravings, look at your
card and spend a minute or so remembering your weight loss goal and reasons,
then keep those motivating thoughts in mind as you pass through the tempting
situation.
See the Food in a Different Light
Advertisers often use imagery to manipulate your
perception of foods and induce cravings. You turn the page of a magazine and
see a picture of a chocolateglazed doughnut bathed in soft light, over a white
tablecloth, poised next to a pair of luscious red lips. You can almost taste
the glistening icing. You suddenly crave doughnuts. You can use your own mental
imagery to see the doughnut in a different, less flattering light, so it no
longer seems so desirable. Try this. In your imagination, replace the red lips
with a pair of doughnut-devouring maggots. (I’m making this up, and so can
you.)
Imagine a spot of green mold on the side of the
doughnut. Replace the white tablecloth with a dirty sidewalk, the doughnut
surrounded by flattened, blackened pieces of discarded chewing gum. Now imagine
taking a bite of it. Taste the bitter mold. Keep this up for about a minute, or
until the craving is gone.
Imagine Eating More than You Want
Carnegie Mellon University researchers conducted
a pair of experiments that demonstrated how your imagination can affect your
cravings. In one experiment, they instructed a group of participants to
imagine moving three M&M’s candies, one at a time, from one
bowl to another. A second group of participants was instructed to imagine
moving thirty M&M’s. After completing their assigned visualizations, all of
the participants were allowed to eat as much as they wanted from a bowl of real
M&M’s. As you might expect, the participants who had imagined moving thirty
M&M’s ate more real M&M’s, on average, than those who had imagined
moving only three.
After all, they had spent more time thinking
about the candies and were probably experiencing stronger cravings. In the
other experiment, researchers instructed one group of participants to imagi ne eating
three M&M’s, one at a time, and a second group to imagine eating thirty.
The participants were then allowed to eat as many real M&M’s as they wanted.
This time the results were different: the
participants who had imagined eating thirty M&M’s ate fewer real
M&M’s than those who had imagined eating only three. This study showed
that, while simply thinking about junk food can increase your desire for it,
thinking about eating enough of the food can have the opposite effect, so
that you end up eating less. Are you still craving that chocolateglazed doughnut
from the previous section? If so, imagine eating one: take a bite, chew it,
smell it, taste it, swallow it, and feel it sitting heavily in your stomach. Now
take another bite. When you are finished with that doughnut, imagine eating another
one, and another. Keep this up until you are thoroughly bored with the
exercise. Has your craving diminished? If you want to speed things
along, combine this tool with the previous one. At the end of every imagined
mouthful, visualize a bit of mold and imagine tasting something bitter. You
will get your fill of doughnuts sooner.
Count the Exercise Cost
A 20-ounce (591-mL) bottle of sugary soda
contains about 250 calories, which would take nearly a half hour of jogging or an
hour of brisk walking to burn off (for a 150-lb or 70-kg adult). The 40
calories in one medium-sized bite of chocolate would take about ten
minutes of brisk walking to erase. In a 2012 study, researchers created a sign
with the words “Did you know that working off a bottle of soda or fruit juice takes
about 50 minutes of running” and posted it in a corner store frequented by thirsty
adolescents.
The presence of the sign reduced the odds that
an adolescent would purchase a sugar-sweetened drink by about 50 percent.6 If
it works for thirsty teenagers, maybe it will work for you. Amount of moderate
exercise needed to burn the calories in a 20-ounce (591-mL) sugary soft drink
or a glass of water When you are tempted by junk food, make a rough estimate of
the exercise cost, and then ask yourself if the pleasure of eating the food
would be worth it. It your answer is yes, commit to the extra exer ci se before
you take the first bite. If you have junk food in the house, you can also use a
marker to write your best guess of the exercise cost on each package. You can
use an exercise calculator to find the exercise cost of eating junk food.
To find an online exercise calculator, search
for calories burned calculator. Look on the food package to see how many
calories it contains. Then use the exercise calculator to figure out how many minutes
of your favorite exercise it would take to burn that many calories.
Say You’re Not Interested
When it comes to addiction, curiosity is often
the last demon to overcome. You tell yourself that you need to take a bite of a
tempting food just to see what it tastes like. Then, after one bite, you lose
all control and eat the whole thing. This tool targets the curiosity demon
directly. When temptation calls, give it the same response you would a pesky
salesman on your doorstep: “I’m not interested.” If it keeps talking, repeat
the same response, a hundred times if necessary, until it stops: “I’m not
interested. I’m not interested. I’m not interested. I’m not interested.” Eventually
the message will get through to the part of your brain producing the craving,
and it will quiet down.
Positive Spin
If politicians can use it, you can, too. Instead
of letting temptations get you down, tell yourself that they are simply opportunities
to weigh less. When you are tempted to eat a cookie, say to yourself, “If I
don’t eat that cookie, I will weigh less. What an opportunity!” It is
true that if you don’t eat a cookie, you will weigh less than you would weigh
if you did eat it. Reminding yourself of this in a positive way can help
you say no to temptation without feeling sorry for yourself.
Mindfully Accept the Craving
Mindful acceptance is being
aware of your own thoughts and desires (including your cravings) without taking
them too seriously, judging them, feeling guilty about them, or reacting to
them in an automatic or habitual way. Mindfully accepting a craving does not
mean that you are happy about it, but only that you see it and accept it for
what it is: a natural occurrence that will soon pass, is not a cause for
concern, and does not require a response.
As you take them less personally and less
seriously, the psychological power of your cravings will diminish, and your
ability to make calm, rational food decisions will increase. So how do you
develop a mindfully accepting attitude toward your food cravings? Whenever you
feel a craving coming on, use the RAD (Recognize, Accept, Defuse) method to
mindfully accept it. The RAD method helps you notice a craving and accept it
without giving in to it. There are three steps:
1. Recognize — “I’m having a craving.”
2. Accept — “It’s OK. It’s
natural and nothing to feel guilty about. It doesn’t mean I’m hungry.”
3. Defuse — “It’s only a passing emotion. I don’t have to follow
it.”
When you finish step three, go back to step one,
and start again. Keep this up for at least a minute, or until the craving is gone.
You may want to write these three steps on a card to carry with you as a reminder.
Take a Brisk Walk
Scientists at the University of Exeter conducted
a pair of experiments that demonstrated a brisk walk can make chocolate less
tempting. In one experiment, they instructed a group of chocolate lovers to
either take a brisk walk or rest for fifteen minutes before beginning work. The
chocolate lovers were then allowed to snack on as much chocolate as they wanted
while working. Those who had taken the walk ate only half as much chocolate as
those who had rested instead. In the other experiment, a fifteen-minute walk
was found to significantly reduce chocolate cravings. If it works for
chocolate, it should work for just about anything! At the first sign of a
craving, stand up and head for the door.
If brisk walking isn’t convenient, try a
different exercise. Be sure to exercise with enough intensity that your heart
rate increases. If you can’t spare fifteen minutes for exercise, do ten minutes
or even just five. When you finish, focus your mind on something else. Also try
this technique as a preventive measure. Take a brisk fifteen-minute walk before
your usual craving time. This technique not only calms your cravings, but also
gives you the added benefit of burning calories and improving your emotional
well-being. Using it four times a day would give you a well-spent hour of
fat-burning, mood-enhancing, craving-reducing exercise. What tool can beat
that?
Getting Started
The biggest step in calming your cravings is the first one:
learning a technique that works for you. Different techniques for calming
cravings are effective for different people.
Copyright ©Stan Spencer, PhD –Originally appeared in The Diet Dropout's Guide to Natural Weight Loss by Stan Spencer, PhD
