Effective ways to turn off food cravings....
Today's Post: Thursday, 8-19-2010
Many people trying to lose excess fat or lose weight can find it difficult or even get de-railed by food cravings.
There are several ways to turn them off. If you use them, you can turn off your food cravings too.
Here are the strategies:
1. Turn down or turn off the things that make the food cravings so strong.
(If they are a ten on a ten point scale, it certainly is hard to resist them. But if they are a 2 or 3 or 4, it becomes a LOT more doable.)
2. Find ways to choose what to do when you get cravings that are stronger than the cravings and shut them down even if they are there.
(This one has several pieces of good news. You may find this one more doable than you might think it would be.)
Here are the ways to do these two things:
1. Turn down or off the things that make the food cravings so strong.
A. Always eat breakfast. Too often people who don’t, and research shows this is very much the case for women in particular, get so hungry later in the day that they tend to eat too much or eat fattening things or both.
1) For breakfast, be sure to include some health OK protein.
Eggs are a traditional breakfast food and are easy to fix. Eggs fried at moderate temperature in extra virgin olive oil can be quick to fix. And boiled eggs cooked the week-end before can be extremely quick.
Some cheese or mushrooms added to diced onions with egg or eggs and some extra virgin olive oil can also work. (Diced cheese from grass fed cattle such is Irish Cheddar are best for you. Nonfat cheese doesn’t work well; but a fat reduced cheese can work.) Pre-cooked shrimp added to an egg dish also work well.
Nonfat milk or 1% lowfat milk are also quick. Nonfat or 2% fat plain yogurt works. Yogurt and raw or dry roasted nuts and whole fruit also can work.
In some European countries wild caught herring is a traditional breakfast food.
Some days you could have wild caught salmon as well.
On some days, rolled oat or steel cut, Old Fashioned Oatmeal can work if you don’t choose it every day.
2) You body tends to burn breakfast calories to turn up your metabolism more than at other times of day.
Studies have found that people who always eat breakfast burn eat and burn more calories and weight less and are less fat than people who don’t.
This also means that eating fresh fruit or sometimes drinking real fruit juice or sometimes eating a whole grain food or even eating a treat once or twice a month will be less fattening from their carbs than at other times of the day.
And since fruits such as whole apples, apple sauce with no sugar added, organic blueberries or straw berries or raspberries –either thawed from frozen or fresh are so good for you and can be enjoyable to eat, breakfast is an ideal time to eat them.
3) Eat foods with some kind of fiber at breakfast.
Fresh fruit works well. I like to include it every day and eat different kinds on different days. I find that pre-thawed, frozen, organic wild blueberries work well as do apple sauce with no sugar added and even a banana twice a week. They are FAST. You simply serve and eat them.
On some days 100 % whole grain cereals can work.
Fermented vegetables such as Kimchi work.
Vegetables such as broccoli sprouts or diced onion and organic broccoli florets with eggs scrambled or in an omelet work.
Pre-cooked lentils or beans such as pinto beans work well. They have a lot of fiber.
4) Because these foods work well to turn off your hunger and you usually are eating them at home, you can control your cravings then.
And, since things like refined grain foods, foods with sugar, added sugar, jams and jellies made with high fructose corn syrup, and regular soft drinks all cause rebound hunger later in the morning, never include them in your breakfast.
5. Similarly, never drink diet soft drinks at breakfast. They are like a drug that’s specific purpose is to cause you to strongly crave sugary foods -- and they are quite effective at doing so.
Coffee black or with 1% lowfat milk -- or regular tea or green tea with no milk or sugar added all have caffeine with no such fattening calories and even have added health benefits
After eating these desirable kinds of foods at breakfast and avoiding those landmines, you will find it ten times easier to avoid having donuts or pastries and similar treats at mid-morning. And, you will have much lower levels of craving and more control all day long compared to never eating breakfast.
(Also, if you haven’t been eating breakfast at all and don’t feel hungry yet. Simply jump start the process with a very small breakfast at first. Eat something like one boiled egg, a banana, and a small glass of 1% lowfat milk --and coffee. Or try a boiled egg, some pre-cooked lentils, some apple sauce with no sugar added with cinnamon -- and some Earl grey tea. They idea is to have a small and fast breakfast. Then you’ll eat less during the day and begin to be hungry for breakfast. )
B. Since the following foods and drinks cause food cravings, systematically begin to ban them or cut your intake in half three or four times.
The less of them you buy and ingest, the fewer and milder your food cravings will be.
And, if you have been eating and dinking them often or in large amounts, this one step may remove over half your excess fat and pounds you’d like to lose.
Also, since even though these foods are often cheap, many people who consume them everyday spend hundred of dollars a month on them. And food-wise they are pretty much worthless. So you may be able to save a lot of money by no longer buying them in addition to having fewer food cravings and being less fat.
Since things like refined grain foods, foods with sugar, added sugar, jams and jellies made with high fructose corn syrup, and regular soft drinks all cause rebound hunger later in the day, never include them in what you eat and drink. (Even with your favorite desserts that may have these things, switch to once or twice a week or a month instead of once or twice a day, and your food cravings will be far less the rest of the time.)
Similarly, never drink diet soft drinks. They are like a drug that’s specific purpose is to cause you to strongly crave sugary foods -- and they are quite effective at doing so. Note that since as many as 60% of people in the United States drink diet soft drinks this is NOT widely known.
Why on earth drink something that is going to max out your cravings for sugary foods?
C. Hang out and eat far less often with people who eat and drink fattening things. They think these things are normal and often offer them to you or try to push you into doing it too.
If they are friends or family you want to keep, stay in contact with calls, emails, or Facebook. Meet with them in locations or at times when no food and drink is served.
Studies show that people who eat with people who are fat tend to stay or become fat also. For the same reasons, eating with people who eat and drink in a way that will make them fat eventually, even if they aren’t now, will also make you fat.
These kinds of social situations can increase your food cravings and lower your control.
D. Eat at restaurants far less often and bring food from home or eat at home more often. And, when you do eat at restaurants, eat at better quality, more upscale ones and eat mostly the protein and vegetable dishes. If you aren’t tempted by fattening foods when you do eat in restaurants; and the foods you do eat are mostly health OK foods that taste good, your cravings will be less.
This set of things loads the dice in your favor. Your cravings will be less. You’ll be less habituated to eating and drinking things that make you fat as their main effect. That combination cuts cravings by a good bit.
E. Be VERY careful to avoid overdoing starving yourself to lose weight.
If you eat too little or too little for two long or cut back too much on protein foods, it triggers your famine response.
Your body thinks your life is at risk and drops your energy level like a rock and cranks up your food cravings for MORE food and MORE fattening foods to the max!
So, to avoid uncontrollable food cravings, don’t do the things that trigger your famine response.
For example, if your body would burn 1800 calories a day at your goal weight and you eat 2,000 now, cut back to 1600 or even 1800 calories a day instead of 400 to 800. Fitness expert Jon Benson even discovered that eating 1800 calories every other day and 1400 calories every other day will avoid the famine response, particularly if you eat enough protein. Going with the 1400 calories a day might risk the famine response. Since then I’ve read studies that prove Jon correct.
Also, try to cut your net calories down by exercising more, particularly with strength training and interval cardio for half of what you cut back.
So, instead of cutting back from 2,000 calories a day to 1200, cutting back to 1800 and adding 600 calories a day of exercise might get fast results. But while the starvation diet will only work for two to five weeks. The version where you cut back so much less and exercise more will keep working.
Why set yourself up for super-strength cravings?
Cut back calories by eating better quality foods that don’t trigger cravings but don’t cut back calories enough to trigger the famine response.
Cut back on calories you do cut back in an every other day pattern.
And, use more exercise instead of starvation to improve your net calorie intake.
Then you will lose fat and weight and avoid the famine response that causes the cravings that can be impossible to resist and cancel your progress.
But what about the cravings you already have or those that jump up like striking snake when you are stressed or tempted by something fattening that you actually like?
That’s where the second strategy comes in so handy.
2. Find ways to choose what to do when you get cravings that are stronger than the cravings and shut them down even if they are there.
This is the one where there is some good news indeed.
A. Think about the long term consequences of giving in to the cravings instead of focusing on the craving or being rewarded by giving into it.
It turns out that these two competing styles use different parts of your brain. And, by simply choosing to use the analytical part of your thinking brain more often, that becomes your habit. That part of your brain then gets more blood flow and may even add more brain cells. This change in focus also wipes out or over-rides the craving.
A recent study done at the Yale School of Medicine even found that this simple focus or thinking style switch can work with people addicted to smoking cigarettes. Considering that the addiction to smoking can be stronger than addictions to things like heroin, THAT is a strong effect!
The story that ran on Livescience.com on Tuesday, 8-3, 2010 had this headline:
“Smokers' Brains Can Control Cravings”
Stephanie Pappas, the LiveScience Senior Writer, wrote the story said this.:
“Smokers, take heart: A new study finds that even strong cravings for cigarettes can be curbed. You just have to use the right parts of your brain.”
In fact, the researchers used both smoking and foods cravings in their experiment.
They showed two things in their study, the people who focused on long-term consequences succeeded in resisting the cravings. The people who focused on fighting the cravings or the rewards of giving into them did not.
But of even greater importance, the people who focused on the long term consequences the researchers found to be using the thinking and in control parts of their brains while those who focused on the cravings or the rewards of giving into them lit up the emotional part of their brains instead.
They told smokers who succeeded to think of the long-term negative consequences of giving in.
The Livescience.com story went on to say that the smokers had stronger cravings for cigarettes than food, but they were able to control both cravings by focusing on the long term and negative consequences of giving in.
That’s one of the reasons so many of our posts focus on the many kinds of health harm that things like refined grains and foods made from them, excess sugar, high fructose corn syrup, meat from grain fed animals, omega 6 oils, and hydrogenated omega 6 oils cause.
If I see a food I could eat that I ate before I know any better and liked then, I always ask myself, WHAT is that made out of?
Since the food components on that list above are usually in that food if not the ONLY things in it, I find it easy to pass on eating the food.
So for food cravings, know what ingredients will harm you and why.
And, if you are tempted by a food with those ingredients, ask yourself,
“What is that made out of?”
Then ask yourself, “Do I really want the negative results of ingesting something made out of that stuff?”
B. Stress, childhood trauma, and an extremely busy life can all boost cravings and reduce your ability to fight them off.
But, there are several ways to strengthen your brain to overcome all that and to control cravings as a result.
Here again there is good news.
Monday, this week, 8-16, 2010 AFP had a story titled: “Chinese meditation technique boosts brain function: study.”
This meditation technique was found to help the brains of the people in the study regulate behavior after as little as 11 hours of practice.
Researchers at the University of Oregon and Dalian University of Technology did the research,
This technique was adapted in the 1990’s from traditional Chinese medicine. (Qui Gong and Tai Chi are two of the more well known such kinds of Chinese mental training.) The story also said that this version, integrative body-mind training is now practiced by thousands of people in China.
Using this technique compared to a control group who got simple relaxation training, the people taught this technique, on imaging tests, showed a greater number of connections in the part of the brain which regulates emotion and behavior.
This means that this technique turned on and may even build up the part of your brain that can help you resist food cravings.
This integrative body-mind training uses breathing techniques and mental imagery to achieve a state of restful alertness.
Tai Chi is an ideal way to learn this.
It teaches this thinking style and has been shown to reduce or relieve chronic stress so well that it doing a small daily routine of Tai Chi lowers high blood pressure by 17 points systolic and 11 points diastolic. That’s better than many drugs can do; and using it can lower your blood pressure enough to avoid having to take the drugs.
Unlike Karate and other martial arts that teach this, Tai Chi is so safe due to its slow motion style and doing it by yourself instead of in simulated combat that almost anyone can do it without injury.
Even better, doing Tai Chi burns as many calories during your practice as you would walking for that long. For someone losing weight, that mean Tai Chi does double duty. You feel better and get healthier and your ability to control cravings goes up AND you directly burn calories too! Not bad.
What if you don’t have access to a class on integrative body-mind training or Tai Chi or haven’t time or transport to go to one if you did?
Try this. When you are awake enough not to fall asleep and have just 5 minutes, sit down, close your eyes, take slow deep breaths and focus on mentally “seeing” an unusually still and quiet mountain lake. Focus on making your brain so quiet that it will reflect what is going on around you like the very still lake’s surface might do.
(Karate teaches this and calls it learning how to have a mind like the water. The teach it because when you’ve learned it so well you can do it with your eyes open, in a match or combat situation, your mind will accurately see what your opponent does without any distraction just like the mirror-like surface of a still lake will reflect accurately.)
Today's Post: Thursday, 8-19-2010
Many people trying to lose excess fat or lose weight can find it difficult or even get de-railed by food cravings.
There are several ways to turn them off. If you use them, you can turn off your food cravings too.
Here are the strategies:
1. Turn down or turn off the things that make the food cravings so strong.
(If they are a ten on a ten point scale, it certainly is hard to resist them. But if they are a 2 or 3 or 4, it becomes a LOT more doable.)
2. Find ways to choose what to do when you get cravings that are stronger than the cravings and shut them down even if they are there.
(This one has several pieces of good news. You may find this one more doable than you might think it would be.)
Here are the ways to do these two things:
1. Turn down or off the things that make the food cravings so strong.
A. Always eat breakfast. Too often people who don’t, and research shows this is very much the case for women in particular, get so hungry later in the day that they tend to eat too much or eat fattening things or both.
1) For breakfast, be sure to include some health OK protein.
Eggs are a traditional breakfast food and are easy to fix. Eggs fried at moderate temperature in extra virgin olive oil can be quick to fix. And boiled eggs cooked the week-end before can be extremely quick.
Some cheese or mushrooms added to diced onions with egg or eggs and some extra virgin olive oil can also work. (Diced cheese from grass fed cattle such is Irish Cheddar are best for you. Nonfat cheese doesn’t work well; but a fat reduced cheese can work.) Pre-cooked shrimp added to an egg dish also work well.
Nonfat milk or 1% lowfat milk are also quick. Nonfat or 2% fat plain yogurt works. Yogurt and raw or dry roasted nuts and whole fruit also can work.
In some European countries wild caught herring is a traditional breakfast food.
Some days you could have wild caught salmon as well.
On some days, rolled oat or steel cut, Old Fashioned Oatmeal can work if you don’t choose it every day.
2) You body tends to burn breakfast calories to turn up your metabolism more than at other times of day.
Studies have found that people who always eat breakfast burn eat and burn more calories and weight less and are less fat than people who don’t.
This also means that eating fresh fruit or sometimes drinking real fruit juice or sometimes eating a whole grain food or even eating a treat once or twice a month will be less fattening from their carbs than at other times of the day.
And since fruits such as whole apples, apple sauce with no sugar added, organic blueberries or straw berries or raspberries –either thawed from frozen or fresh are so good for you and can be enjoyable to eat, breakfast is an ideal time to eat them.
3) Eat foods with some kind of fiber at breakfast.
Fresh fruit works well. I like to include it every day and eat different kinds on different days. I find that pre-thawed, frozen, organic wild blueberries work well as do apple sauce with no sugar added and even a banana twice a week. They are FAST. You simply serve and eat them.
On some days 100 % whole grain cereals can work.
Fermented vegetables such as Kimchi work.
Vegetables such as broccoli sprouts or diced onion and organic broccoli florets with eggs scrambled or in an omelet work.
Pre-cooked lentils or beans such as pinto beans work well. They have a lot of fiber.
4) Because these foods work well to turn off your hunger and you usually are eating them at home, you can control your cravings then.
And, since things like refined grain foods, foods with sugar, added sugar, jams and jellies made with high fructose corn syrup, and regular soft drinks all cause rebound hunger later in the morning, never include them in your breakfast.
5. Similarly, never drink diet soft drinks at breakfast. They are like a drug that’s specific purpose is to cause you to strongly crave sugary foods -- and they are quite effective at doing so.
Coffee black or with 1% lowfat milk -- or regular tea or green tea with no milk or sugar added all have caffeine with no such fattening calories and even have added health benefits
After eating these desirable kinds of foods at breakfast and avoiding those landmines, you will find it ten times easier to avoid having donuts or pastries and similar treats at mid-morning. And, you will have much lower levels of craving and more control all day long compared to never eating breakfast.
(Also, if you haven’t been eating breakfast at all and don’t feel hungry yet. Simply jump start the process with a very small breakfast at first. Eat something like one boiled egg, a banana, and a small glass of 1% lowfat milk --and coffee. Or try a boiled egg, some pre-cooked lentils, some apple sauce with no sugar added with cinnamon -- and some Earl grey tea. They idea is to have a small and fast breakfast. Then you’ll eat less during the day and begin to be hungry for breakfast. )
B. Since the following foods and drinks cause food cravings, systematically begin to ban them or cut your intake in half three or four times.
The less of them you buy and ingest, the fewer and milder your food cravings will be.
And, if you have been eating and dinking them often or in large amounts, this one step may remove over half your excess fat and pounds you’d like to lose.
Also, since even though these foods are often cheap, many people who consume them everyday spend hundred of dollars a month on them. And food-wise they are pretty much worthless. So you may be able to save a lot of money by no longer buying them in addition to having fewer food cravings and being less fat.
Since things like refined grain foods, foods with sugar, added sugar, jams and jellies made with high fructose corn syrup, and regular soft drinks all cause rebound hunger later in the day, never include them in what you eat and drink. (Even with your favorite desserts that may have these things, switch to once or twice a week or a month instead of once or twice a day, and your food cravings will be far less the rest of the time.)
Similarly, never drink diet soft drinks. They are like a drug that’s specific purpose is to cause you to strongly crave sugary foods -- and they are quite effective at doing so. Note that since as many as 60% of people in the United States drink diet soft drinks this is NOT widely known.
Why on earth drink something that is going to max out your cravings for sugary foods?
C. Hang out and eat far less often with people who eat and drink fattening things. They think these things are normal and often offer them to you or try to push you into doing it too.
If they are friends or family you want to keep, stay in contact with calls, emails, or Facebook. Meet with them in locations or at times when no food and drink is served.
Studies show that people who eat with people who are fat tend to stay or become fat also. For the same reasons, eating with people who eat and drink in a way that will make them fat eventually, even if they aren’t now, will also make you fat.
These kinds of social situations can increase your food cravings and lower your control.
D. Eat at restaurants far less often and bring food from home or eat at home more often. And, when you do eat at restaurants, eat at better quality, more upscale ones and eat mostly the protein and vegetable dishes. If you aren’t tempted by fattening foods when you do eat in restaurants; and the foods you do eat are mostly health OK foods that taste good, your cravings will be less.
This set of things loads the dice in your favor. Your cravings will be less. You’ll be less habituated to eating and drinking things that make you fat as their main effect. That combination cuts cravings by a good bit.
E. Be VERY careful to avoid overdoing starving yourself to lose weight.
If you eat too little or too little for two long or cut back too much on protein foods, it triggers your famine response.
Your body thinks your life is at risk and drops your energy level like a rock and cranks up your food cravings for MORE food and MORE fattening foods to the max!
So, to avoid uncontrollable food cravings, don’t do the things that trigger your famine response.
For example, if your body would burn 1800 calories a day at your goal weight and you eat 2,000 now, cut back to 1600 or even 1800 calories a day instead of 400 to 800. Fitness expert Jon Benson even discovered that eating 1800 calories every other day and 1400 calories every other day will avoid the famine response, particularly if you eat enough protein. Going with the 1400 calories a day might risk the famine response. Since then I’ve read studies that prove Jon correct.
Also, try to cut your net calories down by exercising more, particularly with strength training and interval cardio for half of what you cut back.
So, instead of cutting back from 2,000 calories a day to 1200, cutting back to 1800 and adding 600 calories a day of exercise might get fast results. But while the starvation diet will only work for two to five weeks. The version where you cut back so much less and exercise more will keep working.
Why set yourself up for super-strength cravings?
Cut back calories by eating better quality foods that don’t trigger cravings but don’t cut back calories enough to trigger the famine response.
Cut back on calories you do cut back in an every other day pattern.
And, use more exercise instead of starvation to improve your net calorie intake.
Then you will lose fat and weight and avoid the famine response that causes the cravings that can be impossible to resist and cancel your progress.
But what about the cravings you already have or those that jump up like striking snake when you are stressed or tempted by something fattening that you actually like?
That’s where the second strategy comes in so handy.
2. Find ways to choose what to do when you get cravings that are stronger than the cravings and shut them down even if they are there.
This is the one where there is some good news indeed.
A. Think about the long term consequences of giving in to the cravings instead of focusing on the craving or being rewarded by giving into it.
It turns out that these two competing styles use different parts of your brain. And, by simply choosing to use the analytical part of your thinking brain more often, that becomes your habit. That part of your brain then gets more blood flow and may even add more brain cells. This change in focus also wipes out or over-rides the craving.
A recent study done at the Yale School of Medicine even found that this simple focus or thinking style switch can work with people addicted to smoking cigarettes. Considering that the addiction to smoking can be stronger than addictions to things like heroin, THAT is a strong effect!
The story that ran on Livescience.com on Tuesday, 8-3, 2010 had this headline:
“Smokers' Brains Can Control Cravings”
Stephanie Pappas, the LiveScience Senior Writer, wrote the story said this.:
“Smokers, take heart: A new study finds that even strong cravings for cigarettes can be curbed. You just have to use the right parts of your brain.”
In fact, the researchers used both smoking and foods cravings in their experiment.
They showed two things in their study, the people who focused on long-term consequences succeeded in resisting the cravings. The people who focused on fighting the cravings or the rewards of giving into them did not.
But of even greater importance, the people who focused on the long term consequences the researchers found to be using the thinking and in control parts of their brains while those who focused on the cravings or the rewards of giving into them lit up the emotional part of their brains instead.
They told smokers who succeeded to think of the long-term negative consequences of giving in.
The Livescience.com story went on to say that the smokers had stronger cravings for cigarettes than food, but they were able to control both cravings by focusing on the long term and negative consequences of giving in.
That’s one of the reasons so many of our posts focus on the many kinds of health harm that things like refined grains and foods made from them, excess sugar, high fructose corn syrup, meat from grain fed animals, omega 6 oils, and hydrogenated omega 6 oils cause.
If I see a food I could eat that I ate before I know any better and liked then, I always ask myself, WHAT is that made out of?
Since the food components on that list above are usually in that food if not the ONLY things in it, I find it easy to pass on eating the food.
So for food cravings, know what ingredients will harm you and why.
And, if you are tempted by a food with those ingredients, ask yourself,
“What is that made out of?”
Then ask yourself, “Do I really want the negative results of ingesting something made out of that stuff?”
B. Stress, childhood trauma, and an extremely busy life can all boost cravings and reduce your ability to fight them off.
But, there are several ways to strengthen your brain to overcome all that and to control cravings as a result.
Here again there is good news.
Monday, this week, 8-16, 2010 AFP had a story titled: “Chinese meditation technique boosts brain function: study.”
This meditation technique was found to help the brains of the people in the study regulate behavior after as little as 11 hours of practice.
Researchers at the University of Oregon and Dalian University of Technology did the research,
This technique was adapted in the 1990’s from traditional Chinese medicine. (Qui Gong and Tai Chi are two of the more well known such kinds of Chinese mental training.) The story also said that this version, integrative body-mind training is now practiced by thousands of people in China.
Using this technique compared to a control group who got simple relaxation training, the people taught this technique, on imaging tests, showed a greater number of connections in the part of the brain which regulates emotion and behavior.
This means that this technique turned on and may even build up the part of your brain that can help you resist food cravings.
This integrative body-mind training uses breathing techniques and mental imagery to achieve a state of restful alertness.
Tai Chi is an ideal way to learn this.
It teaches this thinking style and has been shown to reduce or relieve chronic stress so well that it doing a small daily routine of Tai Chi lowers high blood pressure by 17 points systolic and 11 points diastolic. That’s better than many drugs can do; and using it can lower your blood pressure enough to avoid having to take the drugs.
Unlike Karate and other martial arts that teach this, Tai Chi is so safe due to its slow motion style and doing it by yourself instead of in simulated combat that almost anyone can do it without injury.
Even better, doing Tai Chi burns as many calories during your practice as you would walking for that long. For someone losing weight, that mean Tai Chi does double duty. You feel better and get healthier and your ability to control cravings goes up AND you directly burn calories too! Not bad.
What if you don’t have access to a class on integrative body-mind training or Tai Chi or haven’t time or transport to go to one if you did?
Try this. When you are awake enough not to fall asleep and have just 5 minutes, sit down, close your eyes, take slow deep breaths and focus on mentally “seeing” an unusually still and quiet mountain lake. Focus on making your brain so quiet that it will reflect what is going on around you like the very still lake’s surface might do.
(Karate teaches this and calls it learning how to have a mind like the water. The teach it because when you’ve learned it so well you can do it with your eyes open, in a match or combat situation, your mind will accurately see what your opponent does without any distraction just like the mirror-like surface of a still lake will reflect accurately.)
Labels: Effective ways to turn off food cravings, effective weight loss methods, overcome food cravings successfully with proven methods, permanent fat loss
posted by David at 2:55 PM
5 Comments:
"Studies have found that people who always eat breakfast burn eat and burn more calories and weight less and are less fat than people who don’t."
This is just a coloration. People with higher metabolisms are hungry in the AM, so they eat.
" Effective ways to turn off food cravings, effective weight loss methods, overcome food cravings successfully with proven methods, permanent fat loss"
so you have no clue as to the actual physical cause of cravings.
I do. Keep up you efforts
Two points in answer to Fred T.
Since I wrote this post I found that your daily metabolic cycle tends to some degree to follow your eating patterns. I've since read two accounts by experienced fat loss counselors who discovered that people who don't eat breakfast tend to be more likely to eat a LOT at dinner. Then they are still full enough in the morning to not be hungry.
Their solution which was effective was to retrain the people by having them eat a small protein and fiber rich breakfast anyway for a few days and then for a few days more to eat just a tiny bit less at dinner too.
Gradually the people were able to eat a bit more at breakfast. And, they ate enough less at dinner and had enough better appetite control during the day they did lose fat.
Second, there are some men for whom always eating breakfast is somehow less critical to successful fat loss -- possibly due to having more self control to turn down treats even when hungry.
BUT, virtually all women who succeed at permanent fat loss always eat breakfast.
I'd be happy for Fred to add what he knows about the physical causes of hunger or cravings!
Just recently (October, 2011) a study was found that your body's famine response significantly turns up a hormone called ghrelin that causes you to feel hungry and turns DOWN leptin that tells you that you are full enough to stop eating.
(The people in their study lost weight initially on a 500 calorie a day temporary diet. And this change in these two hormones making the people eat more lasted for at least a year after their diet!)
That's why using that kind of calorie cut back to lose fat always fails.
Though I don't know the neurological, physiological or biochemical messengers involved beyond those two, your body also senses when you have been getting inadequate protein, when you have been getting too little fatty acids, when your stomach is empty, and when your blood sugar is low.
That's why small cut backs on calories, 5% instead of 75%!) and decent protein intake and some health OK oils and enough fiber from nonstarchy vegetables and beans and lentils is critical to fat loss.
Regardless of the messengers involved, if you don't get those things, your body will make you HUNGRY!
It's also why to avoid sugars and refined grains and artificial sweeteners because each of those cause a blood sugar drop that causes not just hunger but cravings for foods that boost blood sugar!
what keeps me from binging on yummy stuff is thinking about that fat skank who ruined my life. how great it would be in the end when i feel great and she doesnt! harsh, but it works!:)
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