How do you deal with the craving for food?

Annie_RZ

I just started my journey last week. And so far I have been in track everyday. And also I started swimming, walking, running and playing volleyball. It makes my body feel good. I am trying to eat healthy food and cook myself too.

But it is kind of hard to deal with the craving for food once a while, especially at night time. Although I am on track everyday, I still want to get rid of late night snack. Any suggestions?

jemhh

You either have to ignore the craving or set aside calories to feed it. If you are exercising, you should be eating at least some, if not all, of those calories on top of your MFP daily goal. If you are not, start now and allocate some of those exercise calories for an evening snack.

coco_bee

I used to binge at night would always exceed my calories until I found mindful eating and meditation so if you wld like to know more, feel free to send me PM

Cortneyrenee04

Save some calories for night time.

That's a lot of change in a short amount of time. I would definitely go easy on yourself for the first little while until your body adjusts.

arditarose

I always eat things I like, and I leave a substantial amount of calories for after dinner. I do a lot of research and have fun trying new foods that happen to be low in calorie so I can make my deficit go a long way. I think this is why I don't really have "cravings". I mean, yesterday I had my first craving in a long time. It was for a big old fresh bagel and cream cheese. But there's no way I'd give in to that. It'd be a calorie bomb, I'd be hungry again in an hour, and I'd have no room for yummy treats while I watch netflix after dinner!

middlehaitch

I grew up having 2 biscuits with a hot drink before bed every night. This continued for 50+ years. Comfort eating at its best, hee hee.

It took about 3 weeks to lose the craving/ habit.

You can either save calories for a late snack, or wait a few weeks for the craving to subside.

Do what works for you.

Cheers, h.

lemurcat12

middlehaitch wrote: »

You can either save calories for a late snack, or wait a few weeks for the craving to subside.

This.

With all that activity, though, also consider whether it might be genuine hunger. MFP is set up so that you eat back at least some of the calories from exercise.

alt5057

I have been tracking on MFP for two weeks and I knew going into this that I would still want to snack at night. So I either make sure to save some calories for it and keep a variety of snacks around that I can pick from based on the calories I have left. I have sugar free fruit popsicles that are 25 calories, frozen greek yogurt bars that are 80-110 calories and mini milky ways for if I really have a chocolate craving. If I run out of calories because I had an extra snack to get through the day or a larger dinner, I take the dog for an extra walk or spend some time on the exercise bike to at least build up enough extra to where I don't feel guilty using 25 calories for the popsicle.

I have been a yoyo dieter all my life...my mom made me do South Beach diet with her when I was in high school (worked, but didn't last) and I have done weight watchers on and off for years, but if I ever stopped tracking all the weight would come back and more. And in the past if I would go over, I would end up saying screw the week's weigh in and tracking anything and that would eventually lead to giving up. This time I am trying to be mentally aware of what I am doing...I will track everything and own it...if I go over one day, I am not letting it ruin me and make me give up. It is only one day!

Machka9

ranzhuo2 wrote: »

I just started my journey last week. And so far I have been in track everyday. And also I started swimming, walking, running and playing volleyball. It makes my body feel good. I am trying to eat healthy food and cook myself too.

But it is kind of hard to deal with the craving for food once a while, especially at night time. Although I am on track everyday, I still want to get rid of late night snack. Any suggestions?

What, specifically, are you craving?

For example, right when I started, I craved potato chips. I already know that a craving for potato chips is a craving for salt for me, so I checked my sodium levels and they were below half the recommended values. Well, that explained that! I've started to salt some of my food, and I found that salted cucumber slices or dill pickles eased the potato chip craving nicely. Haven't craved them since.

Also when I started, I craved bread. I don't normally eat a lot of bread, so that took me by surprise. So ... I've about doubled the amount of bread I eat since I started here.


As for a late night snack in general ... I have a small bowl of yogurt at about 10 pm. It fits nicely within my calories, and hits the spot.

rainah84

I look forward to my 'Black out' day once a week. I'll eat excellent for the six days, and take care of my cravings on my one cheat day.

julie2038

I read a lot of the post here to get me through my normal night time binging time when I first started. With better eating, a lot of those cravings are subsiding.

kshama2001

I save calories for a night time snack. Right now I'm having yogurt, rolled oats, and cantaloupe.

Chasity6

I weigh in tomorrow so what I do is after tomorrows WI I allow myself a cheat day I still log and weigh everything I eat it works for me. When I started I wouldn't allow myself foods I considered bad. I do follow a paleoish/clean eating thing and the first two weeks I craved pizza in the worst of ways. So I decided to allow myself to have it once. I stayed in my MFP calorie range and still lost so CI/CO on cheat day stay in points but enjoy something you really want.