cravings.....ahhhh! what to do?

Don't keep it in the house

gracebrutto wrote: »

I must have some serious overeating problem because I have a difficult time with cravings. Pizza bread ice cream pasta. I have been trying to avoid processed foods. Last night it was cereal. Anyone else having some serious cravings? What do you do?

Same here or worse. The cravings left starting two weeks after i stopped eating most all foods containing any sugars/grains.

I tend to crave when there is:
-a emotional thing or
-when I have eaten too little because I was too busy at work or
-I didn't work enough of my favourite food types in my meal planning.

Cutting food out doesn't work for me, but moderation does. And moderation started to work when I logged everything so I was confronted with how freaking much I ate in a craving or when I don't try to eat more healthy.

But he it's personal so you should try to figure out what your trigger is.

Hi grace,
Are you able to control how much you eat when you do eat what you are craving?
That for me is a huge problem. I try drinking a big glass of cold water and waiting 30 mins to see if the craving lets up.

Don't cut everything out at once. Start small by limiting portions or only cutting one thing at a time. If you cut out EVERYTHING at the same time, it's much harder to stick with it! I would never have been able to stick to my eating plan if I had just cut EVERYTHING down at once. I started by logging every day for a week or so while eating like normal, and then using that as a baseline to identify patterns I could change. Then I started with one thing, gave myself a couple weeks to get used to it, and then changed something else. If you're looking for other ideas, that might be worth a try.

You also don't need to cut out all 'processed' foods. I've lost weight and still managed to fit in pizza and packaged foods from time to time. I don't eat them as often as I used to, but I still eat them. I know some people do best by cutting out all foods they can't seem to resist for a time, and if you're one of them, that's fine. But it doesn't have to be forever, and you'll have better success starting small and working your way through everything.

gracebrutto wrote: »

Thanks for all the wonderful ideas and suggestions. I'm excited to keep on task, lose this weight, and get healthy. In the last week I have lost 10 lbs just by watching what I eat and adding exercise daily. I think mostly just water weight but it's progress.

You may have a week where the scale doesn't budge or goes up a little. That's just your body being normal, lots of factors contribute to that. As long as the overall TREND is going down, you're on the right track. Keep that in mind when the weight loss slows down at different times!