Cravings can be seen as powerful desires. Craving food mostly involves high calorie or fatty foods and satisfying this crave leads to a feeling of satisfaction and pleasure. Satisfying a craving could lead to binge eating but they are quite different. Cravings are generally caused by emotions but not in all cases. Understanding the reason behind a craving could go a long way in curbing cravings and below are some useful tips:
Find out if you are stressed
Research has shown that some parts of the brain, particularly the hippocampus, insula and caudate, are activated during a food craving. These areas are seen as reward centers that associate a particular food with a reward. When you are stressed, your body releases cortisol, a stress hormone that helps you find rewards to handle the stress. This reward could come in the name of a food craving and looking for the perfect distraction that makes you feel less stressed could curb the cravings. Listening to music could help and also remember that not satisfying a craving doesn’t make it more intense but makes it eventually go away.
Check your diet
People who restrict their diet generally have worse food cravings. A restricted diet reduces blood levels of leptin, a hormone that helps suppress appetite. Completely removing a type of food from your diet, especially fat and carbohydrate causes an intense craving for foods containing those nutrients. The best way to handle this is to remove the ban on such food and give into the best craving. Eating a little portion of the food once in a while helps you develop control over the food and curbs unnecessary cravings.
Check your habits
The human mind has been made to adapt to routines and turn them into habits. Always seeing a movie with popcorn makes your brain get used to the idea and with time the sight of a movie makes you naturally think about popcorn. Performing activities away from natural triggers of the craving could help out. Also, remember a mind is a powerful tool and convincing yourself to eat healthy goes a long way in helping you deal with food cravings.
Check how much sleep you get
You would have noticed that the longer you stay awake at night, the more cravings you have or feeling of hunger. Research has shown that having a sleepless night reduces the amount of the satiety hormone in the body and increases levels of the hormone that increases appetite. You could try having a bit of caffeine during the day to help you feel awake and energetic while making you eventually feel tired at night after the effects wear off. Also if for some reason you wake up with a craving you can’t fight off, you could try taking just a little portion of the food to reduce the craving.
Conclusion
Food craving is one of the factors that lead to overeating and overeating, on the other hand, leads to weight gain. So dealing with your cravings can help you manage your weight well.
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