Craving Control! What do you do to help control your cravings.
Hello All!
I am about to start my journey tomorrow. I am an emotional eater and know that this is continue to be an issue that I will have to deal as I go along. I am up for the challenge but I would love to hear what you do to help yourself if you also suffered from Emotional eating. I would love to hear your non-food related tips and tricks.
Once I got past the first four days my cravings were gone. It has been amazing to me how food is not ruling my life right now. Get on 3fc boards and read - helps to keep you motivated. I also enjoy health and fitness magazines. I read a quote this week that says "don't give up what you want the most for what you want in the moment." This really spoke to me.
Also, remember this phase isn't forever. Hope some of this helps.
I also used my snack packet at my hungry time which is mid afternoon instead of early evening after dinner.
Something to be aware of is if you have cravings for particular kinds of foods ie. sweets, or in my case cheese. For some people having one of those types of 'IP treats' helps them feel that they are not denying themselves, but for others, having any IP packets that remind them of temporarily forbidden foods set up the cravings. When you tried it before (I saw you were on IP in 2013) which style worked best for you? I found I needed the broccoli cheddar soup to help me get through my cheese cravings (it's still one of my favorites) and some look forward to the bars, or if you are a crunchy chips person to the flavoured puffs. Others stay away from the bars completely because then they want to eat the whole box!
Some have been using the Beck Diet Book which helps people work through emotional eating issues. It's a useful thing to take into maintenance, because that is the rest of your life .
Great ideas all I'm an emotional eater also. Cravings come late at night what works for me is to make the food as close to what I call real food and what I normally crave. Such as making the soups Tomato and Broccoli into breads so I can make pizza's with Go Veggie cheese and WF Sauce, Making burgers with the Broccoli bread and Go Veggie Cheddar. And late at night if I crave snacking, I try to have salty crunches such as Pickles or kale chips or IP BBQ chips, for sweets the IP Bars and Quest Bars which I pull off a little nibble at a time and try to make a long process of it.
The thing that has worked for me most is taking on exercise which I got none of the first go around. Paying for a membership and making the effort to work out a few times a week has made me keep it on target. My brain seems to think, you just did all of that and you are going to eat that..... really.... and for now that works
good luck to you!!! The people on these threads of tons and tons of wonderful ideas enjoy!!!
For me, it depends when they come.
Mid afternoon? Some tea, a pickle, and sometimes some bone broth (with or without veggies, depending on my plan for the day).
And, some days, I have my snack packet early, if I determine I'm truly hungry. I'm actually hungry if I drink 8-12 oz of water and I'm still bothered by hunger 20-30 minutes later. Or I know I'm truly hungry if eating some lettuce will fix it. Otherwise it is probably a craving & I need to distract myself by doing something different.
If at nite, I shut off the TV and find something else to do. Those are BOREDOM cravings. Or else I'm actually tired and trying mask/distract it with TV and food, when I should actually head to bed.
What I've learned most from The Beck Diet Solution is that hunger is not an emergency. And the only way to keep off the weight is to learn to deal with cravings. Every time we flex our resistance muscle (by resisting) we strengthen it, and every time I give in, I weaken my resistance muscle.
My habit before IP was a big bowl of popcorn while we watched our evening programs. Since IP, I'll have hot herbal tea with my IP snack (not giving up my tv programs!!). If the craving for popcorn rears its ugly head, I'll eat a stalk or two of celery. Crunchy and naturally salty tasting, it really does the trick! During the day I'll drink an extra glass of room temp water (I always have iced water by my side) and that helps. Going for a walk around the block has helped, too.
I second Liana. For me it was chips. I'd be in the grocery store actually saying out loud, "look away from the chips". My clinic wasn't stocking the crisps at the time. As soon as I was able to buy those, I was fine.
I don't think I am an emotional eater, I just love to eat. Herbal tea in the afternoon saved me and still is a go to for me. I would graze on my 2 cups of veggies throughout the day too as I like most things raw. But I'm not sure I would recommend that habit as it has made me want to eat all the time in maintenance and I'm not always as disciplined with my choices!
And just like franiemae, celery really helps with the crunch and it is unlimited. As rebelgrl said, the cravings do go away but sometimes the cravings were more mental for me or jealous that others were getting to eat what I couldn't have. Very different from the cravings I get now if I've let myself not eat properly and the feeling of a bottomless pit of hunger!
Hey, I'm just sitting in the car waiting for it to warm up to go meet my (hopefully) new coach. I did try this diet two years ago and I found I was not able to put kind over matter and work through my cravings. Changed jobs, moved, bought a house and now I really do feel ready. I am very thankful for all your tips hopefully being armed with some good self reflection and these tips I will make it through the first couple of weeks without any major issues. (I should also note that last time my coach got me to start my diet without the vitamins because she was out.....any newbies that may read this DON'T DO THAT!!) I will let you all know how it goes!
Hey, I'm just sitting in the car waiting for it to warm up to go meet my (hopefully) new coach. I did try this diet two years ago and I found I was not able to put kind over matter and work through my cravings. Changed jobs, moved, bought a house and now I really do feel ready. I am very thankful for all your tips hopefully being armed with some good self reflection and these tips I will make it through the first couple of weeks without any major issues. (I should also note that last time my coach got me to start my diet without the vitamins because she was out.....any newbies that may read this DON'T DO THAT!!) I will let you all know how it goes!
Best wishes for a smooth start - getting started is without question the hardest part of weight loss. If you follow the protocol for just a week or so, you will find that you settle into a rhythm with it, and your cravings will disappear pretty soon thereafter.
I stood in line front of the glass case of pastries at Starbucks the other day - and after about 5 minutes I suddenly realized that those cake pops and croissants and cookies were not calling to me at all. Before IP, my mouth would have been watering, and my mind would have been circling around trying to decide how I could rationalize and justify having something from all those goodies. It's quite remarkable how the cravings have just lost their power over me. Never underestimate the power of breaking the sugar and carb addition!
If you embrace and own the IP protocol, YOU CAN DO THIS!!! And this 3FC IP community will give you lots of support along the way.
Has anyone ever tried to fast a couple days + to get a handle on it? 3 days is longest I have done. I don't think it has any place in IP because calories and all are already so restricted. But to get rid of recreational hunger I found that was good. The hunger sensation is triggered by hormone ghrelin. Now the mechanisms that trigger ghrelin to secrete can be many and broad. routine, emotions, smells, you get the idea.
But I found using these fast to help me regulate and learn to manipulate the hunger sensation. I wasn't a pure water fast. I consumed some fats on it so I wasn't zero purely zero calorie.
That reminds me of a BBC program that was on recently, wylothar. They selected a group of people to go on tailored diets based on their emotional, mental and hormonal patterns and attempted to find out if it was more successful than conventional diets. Luckily, someone uploaded all three programs to youtube - What's the Right Diet for you Part 1 - BBC Horizon. It's interesting that one of the diets was low carb/moderate to high fat with two days a week fasting. Essentially IP with a couple of fasting days thrown into the mix.
I really enjoyed watching the series - found it informative and well managed.
I love the chocolaty tasting Costa Rica Dota coffee (whole bean). I fresh grind it with some Saigon Cinnamon then toss in some sugarfree hazelnut creamer and a packet of stevia. Tastes like heaven in a cup and totally kills my appetite. It's been keeping me on the straight and narrow for nearly 6 months now.
Omg sounds Devine. Now to just find sugar free creamer!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Avalon1957
COFFEE!!
I love the chocolaty tasting Costa Rica Dota coffee (whole bean). I fresh grind it with some Saigon Cinnamon then toss in some sugarfree hazelnut creamer and a packet of stevia. Tastes like heaven in a cup and totally kills my appetite. It's been keeping me on the straight and narrow for nearly 6 months now.
Good luck ktgal -- you can do it! I find it easy to stay OP during the day, it's after dinner that's hard. I think mostly I get bored. I discovered that if I go up to my bedroom and watch tv, read a book, or talk on the phone I just don't think of food. Works like a charm for me! Welcome!
Craving Control! What do you do to help control your cravings.
(it's still one of my favorites) and some look forward to the bars, or if you are a crunchy chips person to the flavoured puffs. Others stay away from the bars completely because then they want to eat the whole box!
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I'm an emotional eater also. Cravings come late at night what works for me is to make the food as close to what I call real food and what I normally crave. Such as making the soups Tomato and Broccoli into breads so I can make pizza's with Go Veggie cheese and WF Sauce, Making burgers with the Broccoli bread and Go Veggie Cheddar. And late at night if I crave snacking, I try to have salty crunches such as Pickles or kale chips or IP BBQ chips, for sweets the IP Bars and Quest Bars which I pull off a little nibble at a time and try to make a long process of it. 
