I spend most of my life thinking about food or how much my legs are hurting. Previous methods to think less about food and hurting legs went something like this.
Don't think about cake, don't think about cake, don't think about ... ahhhh $hit I can't stop thinking about cake OR God my legs hurt, god my legs hurt, holy hell my legs hurt ... why wont my legs stop hurting.
Who would have thought these highly evolved methods would prove unsuccessful?
We can talk about the hurting legs later but for now, lets talk about cravings. I am certainly no psychologist, so I won't offer you any advice about the psychology of it, but I can tell you, as a nutritionist, that cravings are so rarely about the food. Cravings are about emotions and smells and sounds and beliefs and so rarely about the actual cake. But this does not stop us using our totally useless method to stop craving food, which is to tell yourself not to crave it.
Lets define here what I mean by craving. A craving is different from hunger. Hunger is normal and natural and it enables us to, well, stay un-dead. Hunger lets us know when our body requires more fuel. A craving occurs when you are not actually hungry or thirsty, but rather you just feel like you want a food, well, because you want it. Because you need it. Because you must have it.
If you are a healthy weight, fit, happy with good skin and good pooping and you don't spend half your life burping or telling people how tired you are and you have cravings all the time and just go with eating whatever you want then apart from being a metabolically gifted human being, you needn't read on. If, on the other hand, cravings are standing in the way of your health and fitness goals then there is a really simple exercise you can try to lessen them.
Cravings Buster
At the first sign of a craving I assess if I have eaten enough in the last few hours. If not, then I eat some real food - try nuts and seeds, fruit, raw vegetables, you know...real food. If i'm not hungry, only craving then I...
1. Decide on a time in the next few hours that I am going to eat and what I will eat. For example, if its 4pm and I have already had my afternoon snack and I am not hungry but I would really just like some chocolate, then I decide on what time I will eat dinner and what exactly I will eat.
2. I then take 5 deep breaths and with each breath out I relax my arms, neck, shoulders.
3. The last thing I do is change the activity that I am doing. If I am watching TV and eating because I am bored then I get up and find something to do. I take myself out of the area that triggered my senses to think it wanted a family block of cadburys chocolate.
Its simple, costs nothing and I find it works most of the time really, but I make sure I do each of the steps - just doing 1 or 2 isn't as successful.
Give it a go and tell me what you think. If nothing else your house will end up really clean from all the extra chores you will be doing.
Train hard, love life. Over and out.
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