Q: “How do you avoid temptation and food cravings? I heard tea was good.”
Christian M.
A: Thanks for the great question. Food cravings, emotional eating and temptation, the big ones. Brain Chemistry can be affected by diet while emotional eating has many sources.
Avoiding cravings is all about hormone control and hormone control can be improved through diet and food supplements. When we eat a lot of carbohydrates, they are broken down into sugars. Our body’s response is to then crank out insulin which goes seeking for the extra sugar and eliminate it.
More often than not, it works too well and we then experience low blood sugar.
When we have low blood sugar, our body then craves sugar.
Cravings are the hormonal beast in all of us.
Solution:
Reduce or eliminate the starchy carbohydrates in your diet in favor of protein, vegetables and good fats.
You could approach this in a number of ways depending on where your diet is currently at and what sort of food program you follow.
If you eat a great number of starchy carbohydrates such as rice cakes, white rice, white bread, white flour products, muffins, donuts etc, the easy thing is to just switch them or replace them with whole foods. The same goes for simple carbohydrates like soda pop, packaged fruit beverages or other sugary drinks.
Replace soda pop, fruit juices or sugary drinks with water. Your body will thank you for it.
Replace white rice with whole grain brown rice or brown basmati rice.
Replace muffins as a snack with lean chicken and a small salad. Yes, replace the snack with a whole food meal. Muffins are really just cake anyway.
Replace donuts with fresh vegetables or other high fiber food.
Replace white bread with, well… how about just eliminate it. Who came up with this idea about bread being good for you anyway?
Rice cakes… just get rid of them. The only purpose they serve is to make you fat.
Then, break down your daily meals and snacks into 5 or 6 smaller meals that have a portion of protein in each of them. Eat the protein first, then the vegetables, then any sort of grain that you choose, if grains are a part of your diet. You don’t need to eat grains, and may fare better without them. Do a little experiment and eliminate all grains and see how your energy levels and cravings improve. Choose a small salad and add chicken breast. One of my favorites is the Chicken Sonoma Salad from Kelsey’s restaurant without the croutons, but any salad you take to work with you will be fine, just add the chicken breast.
Add Essential Fats into your diet
Choose a balanced omega 3-6-9 Essential Fat blend product and have 1 tablespoon for every 50 pounds you weight. Essential fats are called such because they are, well, essential. Have a listen to this hour long interview I did with Udo Erasmus, the creator of Udo’s Oil and listen to him explain all the health benefits experienced from this one single addition to your diet.
Some benefits of essential fats include:
- More energy
- Better skin – improve elasticity, improve stretch marks, loose skin issues etc.
- Reduced cravings
- Balanced hormones, for both men and women. Balanced hormones in women means less mood swings, where in men in means increased Testosterone.
Guys, listen up!
Balanced hormones or more testosterone means more masculinity, improved sex drive, ability to burn more fat and increase muscle size, strength and density. Need more reasons?
Listen to the Interview. It may be the one single thing that changes your life this year! No shit!
Now, if you’re not the type that eats a lot of empty calorie, high carbohydrate foods, then and still have cravings, have a look at how long you go between meals. Reduce the time. You should not really go any longer than 4 hours, and for many people, no longer than 3 hours between meals.
You can also choose to improve the quality of your foods, just following what was outlined above.
Adding in the Udo’s Oil may be just the right thing as well. Give that a shot.
Now, the second part.
What about Avoiding Temptation
Let me ask you this:
“What Do You Want?”
If you’re giving in to temptation, how badly do you really want to achieve your goal?
If your desire is the ultimate physique, whatever that looks like for you, then what is stopping you from achieving it? Some temptation? So here’s another question now,
If you really want it, then plan ahead. Create a solution or a plan that helps you achieve your goal.
If the temptation is simply because someone said “here… have this little bag of Doritos“, or “one little donut isn’t going to hurt“… bullshit!
Some of the biggest reasons for giving in to temptation is because of hunger, because of cravings and because of peer pressure.
If it’s a craving, see points above. I’ll repeat them
- Eat smaller meals, more frequently and have protein as the primary ingredient. This helps to balance blood sugar.
- Reduce or eliminate simple carbohydrates, and reduce or eliminate cravings.
- Make high fiber vegetables the mainstay of each meal. You’ll be full longer and wont make poor food choices.
If it’s hunger, then plan ahead.
Create a system.
Take your food with you. Prepare the next day’s meals before you go to work. If you don’t know what you’re going to eat tomorrow, you’ve got some work to do. Prepare your food the night before, put it into containers and then in the morning, just take it with you. Yes, this is how people who achieve their dream bodies do it. They think ahead and leave little to chance.
If it’s peer pressure
Who is in charge of your life? Your destiny? Your goals?
You’ve got three options as I see it.
- Give in. They win
- Explain to them that you have a goal and what the goal is. Ask them for support in the goal. Ask them to join you in reaching your goal and you may have a new support buddy. Win-win
- Get new friends. Win-win again. You get to surround yourself with people of like mind who support you, the get the same… to be around different friends who are in the same place as them.
The weight loss forum here on the website has turned out to be a great place for support. I heard today from a fellow that “it saved his life”.
Nobody wants to lose friends. Getting in shape is a great goal. It changes your life and inspires others to be better. Your kids have a great role model and then pass the same new habits on to their kids creating healthy, happy and fit grandchildren. You get to learn a lot about the body and how it works, and how it responds to food and physical exercise. It’s a lot of fun and really cool to experience.
I’d first want to try #2.
Inspire your friends to join you
Lead by example, but tell them what your goal is so that they know to support you, however, if you have to, and if they’re not supporting you or wanting you to fail, then are they really your friends?
As for tea… I drink Sunrider Calli Tea exclusively. Works for me.
Cravings for bad food, Emotional eating and giving in to temptation are all things that can be overcome with some simple strategies. Eat smaller meals at regular intervals. Add good fats into your diet. Plan ahead, be proactive rather than reactive. Find a support group or create a new one. Being with one step.. pick one and do it for 21 days to anchor the habit, then add in one more new habit and do it for 21 days. Repeat until they all become a part of you and you will eliminate cravings and end emotional eating.
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