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.

Thanks and keep up the hard work peeps!

:)

Hi Ktgal,

I drank a lot of hot herbal tea.

Set a no food after 8:00 rule and brush my teeth.

If I feel hungry during the day, I check my hunger. Am I hungry enough to eat veggies or am I just craving?

Sometimes a dill pickle will break a craving.

Drink tons of water.

Leave the area where food was available and get involved in a hands on activity.

Good luck on your journey. The beginning can be difficult but it is worth it.

Welcome Ktgal,

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.

You can do this! Trust the process.

I totally second Slipfree's list.

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 :mouse::cheese:(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 :hug:.

Welcome back, ktgal!!

Liana

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!

Good luck with your journey ktgal. You got this!

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.

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.

https://mindstar.com/scratch/CoffeeWow.jpg

Omg sounds Devine. Now to just find sugar free creamer!

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!

So I am most certainly an emotional eater. My nickname is 'cookie monster' I have no self control. However, when I am craving something sweet and it hurts I crave it so much. I don't think I have an off button when it comes to sweets or cheese. So when the craving monster comes a calling what I do is go through a little routine. I am not saying this is healthy or right. This is only for extreme times when I can't afford to let my diet slip.

1) I have a large cup of jasmine tea and wait five minutes.

If I've still got insatiable cravings then I move to step 2.

2) Have a cup of my vitamin drink (nutriclear it was recommended by a nutritionist)

By this point I feel pretty bloated from water but if I am still chomping at the bit I go to step three.

3) I go look at my food diary to remind myself either how good I've been (so why waste it) or to say (dang it's been so bad time to make a change).

If that sinks me lower and makes me feel like it's an all or nothing moment I go get my motivation dress out and remind myself why this one thing isn't actually a treat it one more cookie keeping me away from that dress.

Finally and this is a last resort

4) I go look at myself naked in the mirror and that is enough of a fright to make me lose my appetite.

I don't think it is about tricking your brain to not want sugar it is more about confronting what makes you want to eat food and why you think eating it will change you particular situation. For me it was to feel anything other than the painful emotion I was feeling at the time. The sugar or the texture would distract my brain momentarily from everything I was feeling. Then feeling crap about the food I just ate would distract me from what really upset me.

Instead I try to feel the craving, assess why I feel it, assess if indeed a chocolate bar is going to help and then act appropriately. For example if it is my PMS making me sad, a chocolate bar actually makes it better.

If I am craving cookies because I am bored or because I am stressed I rationalise it and they aren't going to help. So I make myself busy e.g. cleaning, working, walking the dog, obsessively watching my favourite tv show or I deal with the real issue at hand.

I do thought maps and try to assess if the mad pilot has hi-jacked my brain or if it is the rational me.

What the irrational thought is -> What is the evidence for it -----> evidence against ----> what I would say to a friend ------> Assess why I'd be so much tougher on myself than a friend

For example you wouldn't scream at a child for gaining weight or berate a little girl because she doesn't fit an ideal body type but you would do it to yourself.

I am bookmarking this post/thread - I love your routine and your thought map structure. Thank you so much for sharing it!

No problemo
 

Hi

No worries I hope this helps and doesn't mentally scar anyone. Weight loss is so personal.

I had to go through that routine last night. Boredom and stress triggered my cravings. I have the flu and I am so stupidly weak right now I can just manage the dog walks and that's it.

Last night I had eaten dinner: Paleo chicken curry with kale and courgette linguini

But at about 8 - 9 pm I was thinking I want chocolate...... (I've got the flu, my boyfriend is away, I am bored from being ill and annoyed at myself for not being well enough to move much) so I had to drink a vitamin drink and then do the mirror routine to remind myself and I am glad to say I resisted the temptation. Instead I had a raw cacao nib and was fine. I realised last night I was using food to distract myself from my current predicament of having the flu. Mad isn't it?

Also if you do need chocolate, go raw. More than 70% dark is enough to beat anyone's craving and you cannot possibly overdo it because it is so potent in terms of flavour. Read the back of the ingredients and stay away from processed artificial stuff.

If you are in the UK whole foods, real foods and planet organic sell these raw 70% chocolate covered mulberries. Honestly two will sort your tastebuds out and it isn't going to pile on the pounds. I am currently road testing all natural alternatives.

I feel a little healthier today and I am sure the clean food helped. I used some of the left over ingredients from dinner to whisk up some all natural thai curry chicken soup. I've got no cravings right now despite a heck of a lot of stress. Everyone else ate massive deli sandwiches with biscuits for lunch..........but I could actually taste the goodness in what I was eating so I felt fine about it. I took my soup and scuttled to my office to have it.

I also find visualising the nutrients and what each nutrient does has helped changed my attitude towards foods I wasn't so keen on. So when I had the soup I thought about how good the kale and homemade chicken stock was for my body. I had also used an organic butternut squash, which is packed with nutrients so I tried to imagine all the particles going to different parts of my body to make me a healthier. Same when I eat bad food, I don't trick myself into thinking it is a treat for my body. I think of the refined nasty secret stuff they put in and the pore clogging grease in it. If I can think of that and still want it then I really must want it :)

Helps to not think of junk food as a treat or a cheat. Think of it for what it is; refined artificial nonsense that just clogs up your system. Think of a big bunch of kale as a big hug to yourself.

I mentally say to myself "I love you body, this may taste pants but it's because I love you I feed you what you really need, this is giving you iron, magnesium and all the stuff you need to shine!"

Like the advert says "because I'm worth it!" so I go into the health food store and spend what I could have spent on a pasty and instead buy some organic sauerkraut. Yes it doesn't taste as great but the sauerkraut means I won't have to buy lots of concealer to hide the black bags I get under my eyes from lack of iron in my diet.

I'm not saying I am wonder woman and I have cracked it but these are little changes I have been making. Trying to associate healthy foods that don't set off my allergies with positive messages.

Oh and one more tip.

I swear this is the best thing I ever bought, even more than the nespresso machine and my vegetable spiraliser "the new soda stream makers," they are super sleek and nothing like the ones from the 80s. I got the button operated one (it does all the fizzy for you) and I drink a lot of fizzed water. It fills you up and hydrates you, which helps you not retain water (retaining water and being dehydrated always makes me gain weight and my skin look bogging) also keeps you fuller for longer if you are totally hydrated. Add a twist of lemon or lime to make it a detox drink!

Although I do love green tea be aware it can actually stimulate your appetite. I wish someone had told me this sooner!

Just make sure you drink naturally non caffeinated tea as caffeine also stimulates your appetite and is super bad for your skin.

I am on a real mission right now to get control back. I had totally become a slave to my inner food monster.

Dinner tonight: Home made meatballs with organic Italian sauce and courgette spaghetti! I will let you know if this goes down well with the non-dieters in my house. If they hate it they can have cheese to hide the flavour :D

Please let me know how you get on with these tips and if you think I am mad tell me so!

I just feel so bogged down, slugging and generally crap so I need this kind of extreme food craving overhaul. I swear cheese was invented by the devil to taunt me!!!

Something I do to try and get through a craving or early hunger sensation is try and not to use negative motivation. Because will power is finite and it will expire. If it didn't many people would never need help. Negative motivations wear down will power faster than positive.

I just tell myself I eat something in 30 minutes if I still feel the sensation. Usually I can repeat that process up to a feeding time. The ghrelin hormone that triggers feeding also has a finite period. You just have to give yourself baby steps to get past it.
The fasting had taught me that simple trick. I tell myself OK, in 30 minutes or till X task is done. Usually the sensation is gone by then or it is weaker and I can again extend it.
You don't eat an elephant in one bite.

I agree with the poster who said something about the carb addiction. Once you have followed the protocol for 2-4 weeks, you will not have any cravings.

I did IP 2011 and made goal. As soon as I got too confident in maintenance, I started the carb-addict again and gained it all back. I am better not to have even "one" chip or cookie or whatever, because then I spiral. Tip: Don't have the first one! Drink lots of herbal flavored teas, as the smells are wonderful :) Good Luck

That is me also. And so much truth to the comparison with drinking.
Here is a link that shows evidence that sugar is more addictive than cocaine and heroin. http://www.conncoll.edu/news/news-ar...m#.VNjta_nF9EI
I am still looking for one that shows that even in addicts that sugar trips the dopamine receptor and the addiction is stronger for sugars in drug addicts than the drugs themselves.

Dealing with delicious aromas surrounding you...
 

It can be difficult to stay OP with everyone else in the house bombarding you with the aromas of what they are indulging in. Last night my son toasted some raisin bread, and after he buttered it, I put my nose right to it, closed my eyes, and inhaled deeply about 6 times before I let him have it back lol.... then I went and had a big drink of warm cinnamon flavored herbal tea. Surprisingly this gave me a bit of relief. I still had the "mental" enjoyment of raisin bread, and felt a bit satiated after the warm tea.;)

Hunger can be easy to resist...but cravings...wow! the cravings can really knock me off of my feet!
Coffee does help me too.
If I haven't had all my proteins, I'll very slowly eat a Quest bar (one that fits the IP criteria) while I drink my coffee...that is very satisfying to me.
I was at a long basketball game...bored...and craving...so I bought one of those big dill pickles from the snack stand. That helped.

Sometimes I'm craving so badly, that I've eaten just about all of my food before 2 or 3:00! I may "allow" myself extra veggies...

Cravings are so weird...i blame a lot of them on hormones...I blame most of my troubles on hormones! haha

So far I have talked myself out of the cravings and "stuck with the program". It's only week 2.... Pickles - I'll have to look into that since they have more taste than celery. My big ol' puppy girl gets a TBS of peanut butter with a small cookie stuffed in a toy every evening. Just opening that jar of PB is torture!!! I think I should load a photo of me now and a photo of me in that little brown dress from June of 2011 to remind me how good I can look.

The smell ofPB gets to me too...I make PB sandwiches for my son...I know better than to lick that spoon...

Ha, Ha --I did the same thing with the tacos my husband made for the kids last night. (Made sure I ate my dinner before) Sat with them with a cup of tea and enjoyed the wonderful aromas -- had to leave after a bit -- started to feel the "I want some monster" approaching. Felt good to engage and enjoy the smells, but still stay OP. That would have never happened before IP! :D

Thank you determined2change! I printed it out and will try your steps when I need them-- and I will need them!:dizzy:

I hear you, sista! Good job with the pickle!!! You go girl!

Hey ktgal -- Are you still out there? How did your first few days go? They are tough, but the reward is sooooo worth it. Update us if you can!:)

Hey! I'm still here! Doing great staying on program. I am actually surprised at how little cravings I am having. I did have a little nausea from vitamins but I'm super sensitive to that so I'll have to be more careful. Sweets has always been my biggest weakness but so many of the products are sweetened that I find I'm OK. I've found a number of products I like and a few I don't! This weekend will be the real test. I've been so busy this week at work I didn't have time to worry about boredom hunger so I'll making sure I keep busy this weekend. I canceled our dinner reservation for vday too so that I can cook at home (thinking lobster and scallops with celeriac and asparagus). I realized we tend to celebrate with eating out and told my husband we needed to find nonfood related ways to celebrate! Anyway hope everyone is doing well. Thanks again for thinking of me! I'm going to have to find my place on a daily tread soon!

Glad to hear you're doing well. Your dinner plans sound terrific! Can I come? Ha, ha!!!!!!:dizzy: