Just when you're sticking to a
healthy diet plan, along comes a situation that puts you in a
emotional eating tailspin. Suddenly, you find yourself eating a piece of
chocolate cake or that extra helping at dinner. Sound familiar?
This is known as a food craving and has nothing to do with hunger. Real
hunger is biological and food craving is emotional. Unfortunately, there
is no magic formula to stop cravings and everybody responds differently.
Below are a few tips to help you deal with those sudden stress related
cravings.
(1) Emotional Eating and Evaluation - Stay in touch with your emotion and be ready to
deal with food cravings anytime you're upset. Everyone deals with problems
and situations that will cause emotional turmoil and therefore, impulsive
eating. Many times you can avoid giving in by anticipating the urge.
(2) Substitute Lower Calorie Snacks - It's very important to
establish good eating habits without resorting to impulsive snacking or binging, but occasionally there will be situations that
will
trigger a craving. Instead of giving in to your favorite high calorie
treat, try snacking on lower calorie snacks; such as:
Ritz whole wheat crackers
Fat free chips
1 cup of low fat chili
Meal replacement shake (Slim Fast)
Low fat ice cream
Non fat / sugar free yogurt
Light microwave popcorn
The above snack may not be the most nutritious but it's better than eating
a cheesecake or half of a Sara Lee cream pie. The snacks make a good
substitute for the fattening stuff when emotional eating and those awful
cravings start haunting you.
(3) Give In - If you have established a good track record of eating
healthy and seldom (once a week) eat sweets or tempting junk food, then
GIVE IN. YES ...... give in. If you have a very strong craving for a
particular food, then don't eat a substitute. Rid yourself of the
temptation by eating the treat you crave. This way you satisfy the craving
without eating a lot of other foods along with the food that you crave.
An excellent way to guard against
emotional eating is to have a good diet plan that allows you plenty of
flexibility. We specialize in personal diet plans that help you lose 1 to
2 pounds each week. To get started, please click
personal diet plan.
