How To Beat Food Cravings

Food cravings - as I am sure you will agree - are the dieter’s worst nightmare.  Everything is going well, you’re losing weight, and then it happens:  An intense craving for something that will set your dieting efforts back.  The good news is, with the right tactics, you can beat food cravings for good. To that end, we’ve put together this short post. In it, you will learn how to stop food cravings naturally.

How to Stop Food Cravings at Night?

If you’ve ever had to ask yourself, “How to fight food cravings?” at 2 AM, then you probably realize just how difficult it can feel at times. 

Here are three great tactics:

1. Make it impossible: The most useful thing you can do is identify what foods trigger your cravings at night and simply get them out of your home.

2. Don’t go to bed hungry:  Having regular meals and going to bed satisfied is a great way to increase the likelihood that you will sleep through the night.

3. Drink water instead:  This is the most challenging strategy, but it can work. Rather than eat what’s in the fridge, have a cup of water instead and go to bed.

How to Beat Food Cravings Naturally?

Do you often find yourself craving carbs or something else during the day?

Here are three ways to beat cravings naturally:

1. Have regular meals:  Having regular meals allows you to improve your hunger and satiety signals, which makes you much less likely to crave foods outside of those small eating windows.

2. Replace emotional eating with a positive behavior:  Many people find comfort in food. But, you need to replace this bad habit with something more productive. For example, if you feel an intense craving, go for a walk.

3. Seek professional help:  This certainly is a big step to take, but if you think that you might have an eating disorder, seeking professional help might be your best course of action.

How to Stop Food Cravings When Dieting?

Here are two of the best ways to diet successfully without worrying about cravings. The best part is, these tactics work for every diet and eating pattern, be it keto, paleo, vegan, low-carb, Atkins, intermittent fasting, or something else:

1. Eat lots of vegetables:  Veggies are voluminous, highly-satiating, incredibly healthy, and low in calories. What’s more, they provide us with much-needed dietary fiber. So, when dieting, a great way to keep food cravings away is to consume plenty of veggies.

2. Include protein at every meal:  Most people don’t find themselves craving protein. Still, the nutrient is incredibly beneficial as it offers many health benefits, allows the body to function correctly, and helps us retain muscle mass as we diet.  So, with every meal, have some meat, eggs, dairy, nuts, or similar.

How to Stop Sugar Cravings?

Sugar cravings – often described as a sudden and intense craving for sweet foods – can be incredibly challenging to control and are often responsible for diet fails.

1. Have fruit instead:  Fruits contain natural sugar - fructose - which can effectively eliminate (or, at least, lessen) our sugar cravings. So, the next time you crave a Snicker’s bar, have an apple instead.

2. Avoid getting too hungry:  Many people succumb to sugar cravings not because they lack willpower but because they allow themselves to get too hungry. So, a great way to prevent this is to have regular meals and never get too hungry, especially before going to the grocery store.

3. Treat yourself, but keep it to a single serving:  Having the occasional sugary treat won’t cause adverse effects, and you should be able to enjoy one here and there. But, be careful to avoid trigger foods, which cause you to spiral out of control and binge eat.