Hi,

Does anyone else suffer from cravings for junk food? I feel like all I do is constantly think about food and crave junk foods - i'm a bit of a fast food feind! lol.

This is the first time I have put myself on diet and I'm lookig for tips to combat my greed and cravings!

Kate xx

I have cravings for junkfood but I don't give in to it! if I want somethn like that I eat a piece of fruit or almonds maybe a ricecake instead. I know I feel a lot better the next day that I didn't give in u can do it! the cravings will be easier to deal with once u get used to it....good luck!

I've been doing this since June and my cravings come and go. There are days where I will feel totally satisfied with 1400 calories, and other days where the more I eat the more I want. I can't explain my cravings sometimes, it's like salivating. I HATE fast food commercials, they always make me crave.

-you can try substituting foods that you crave

- find good tasting healthy foods and creative foods to cook to crave instead of the junk

I love french fries and pizza, but I can make my own healthier stuff. Sweet potato fries are good, or I use white potatoes but bake them instead of frying and I have the portion control of having just 1 potato instead of a box of McD's fries that may have come from 5 potatoes.

take a look at the recipe sections, there's lots of great low fat, low calorie recipes and food ideas to curb different cravings.

I definitely agree with replacing junk foods for others - figure out what you want (crunchy, salty, sweet?) and find fruits and vegetables that match what you crave. Also, the less you give into junk food the less often you will crave it - I know it's really hard to start out, but once you do, you will be amazed how much better your body feels without it and you don't crave it as much.

Replacing junk foods for other foods, like everyone else previously mentioned, is a great method, but I'd also like to comment on how I developed my aversion for fast foods last year to the point where I don't even WANT fast foods anymore.

I'm not really sure how it happened. I guess just imagining the fast foods as slimy, greasy, and extremely fattening just completely turned me off. There was also the one time I ate an Arby's roast beef sandwich and curly fries and had a really bad stomach, and so I've never really eaten those kinds of foods ever since. It also reminds me of the time I loved those huge muffins from Sam's Club so much, I ate like 3 of them in a row, and then felt so sick that I puked all of it out, and I've been turned off by muffins ever since. D:

So maybe you just need a bad situation to help you connect those negative feelings with fast foods, so in the future you'll learn to avoid it? Or just think of all the negative things of fast foods. I know when I go grocery shopping with my mom and I'm just fawning over all the cookies and doughnuts and stuff, she tells me to imagine that there's worms in all those things and it just grosses me out and the craving disappears, lol.

It'll get easier. I lost my weight a few years ago now and I can honestly say the thought of most junk food makes me ill. The exception is chocolate, but even then I'll take a bit of the high quality stuff over a big bar of crap. Your body will adjust. Your mind will adjust. You have to stick it out because giving in perpetuates the cravings but keep in mind you're working towards a healthy and respectful relationship with your body.

Once you stop eating junk food for a while and eating whole, unprocessed foods, the fast food will make you feel sick.

My cravings are usually pretty odd, now. I crave avocados, sweet potato fries (oh my god, the ones from Trader Joe's), etc. I just don't buy them too often, and "binging" on them really only means eating the whole avocado or whole bag of sweet potato fries, which in the grand scheme of things, isn't so bad.

You will get there...

When I totally quit refined sugar and anything containing white flour my cravings went away. Completely. But I had to give it up 100% for the cravings to go away.

My only sugar these days comes from natural sources such as fruits, vegetables and some naturally found in dairy products. When I bake I use a small amount of agave nectar (not honey) because it has a low glycemic load which does not spike my blood sugar.

Do I miss the fast food? No, not right now. I am losing weight without the constant ache and that is worth so much more to me. It does get better as time goes on.

Best wishes!