Craving

tharmi8882

Hi, I’m new to this app and this whole diet
I started intermittent fasting and try to stick to only 3 meals a day with no snacking but I’m so used to always snacking and I’m craving chocolate, brownie anything sweet everytime I see it or think of it. What can I do to help me stop that? Or is there anything alternative I can have to stop my craving it’s becoming so hard and making it mentally hard
Thanks for your support

jeri30

You might want to google vitamin deficiency and the specific craving you're having. Like google vitamin deficiency and chocolate, which will tell you that might be because your magnesium is low. I used to crave chocolate all the time, so I upped my magnesium and it's mostly gone away now, it's much less intense and I don't get hangry because I didn't eat a chocolate bar. Now, it's a nice little treat instead and i'm not devouring the whole thing at the same time either.

Focus on eating more fruit instead of processed sugar. Your taste buds are replaced every two weeks so if you can avoid eating lots of processed sugar, you will reset your taste for how sweet something tastes. Fruit will taste sweeter. I used to think people who thought like plain, white bread or whole grain wheat bread tasted sweet were, well, crazy, but now I can taste the sweetness in bread.

I suggest working on your mindset like telling yourself: I'm making healthier choices. Or I only eat three meals a day. I've read to not use not statments like I do not eat snacks because your brain focuses on the do and tends to ignore the not so you're actually telling yourself I do eat snacks, so try to avoid that wording.

AnnPT77

It isn't a universal solution, but I (and at least a few others here) found that cravings for calorie dense sweets were reduced when I made it a point to eat 3 or more servings of fruit daily. It took willpower for a while, short number of weeks, but the cravings subsided. Later, I could be more flexible about fruit intake (still eating a good amount), and keep the effect.

Also, are you trying to completely eliminate foods like chocolate, thinking they're "bad foods"? That's not essential. If you can eat them in moderation, that's OK. Some people find that if they have a small, individually-wrapped, high-quality chocolate (or similar) daily and savor it, that will scratch the itch. Obviously, if there's a food you can't moderate, then either keep those out of the house for a while, or if you share a home with others who eat them, define those as "not your food" and maybe keep them out of site in a special cupboard that contains all the "not your food" items.

I think you can conquer this. It may take some wily thinking about what's triggering the cravings, and experimenting for a week or few at a time with possible solutions, but I'm betting you can rein in the sweets to an appropriately small part of your calorie intake if you keep working at it.

Wishing you success!