Food cravings can bring down the most conscientious dieter and the most committed healthy eater, and they can seem unstoppable. They come out of nowhere and refuse to leave until they are satisfied, and you are left feeling like a guilty failure. It's usually junk food -- people rarely crave quinoa and tofu or asparagus salad, which makes it that much worse for your waistline and your health. Fortunately, it's all in your head -- and it can be controlled. Junk food cravings are like any bad habit, and a little self-trickery and force of will can bring about a change.
Habitual Hunger Association
If you normally hit the office vending machine at a certain time of day and feel deprived until you get that candy bar, you may be a victim of habit rather than cravings. A 2008 study in the journal "Appetite" found that repeatedly soothing hunger pangs with a particular food teaches your body to associate hunger relief with that particular food rather than food in general. In other words, when your body feels hungry around 4 p.m., you seek out a candy bar because your subconscious believes that a candy bar is the only thing that will satisfy late-afternoon hunger, not necessarily because you crave the candy bar. Like any bad habit, this one can be corrected. Simply pack healthier afternoon snacks such as raw veggies or fruit, and hide all of your spare change.
Place Association
No matter how healthy you eat during the week, it can be very easy to crave salty, fried bar food when you're out with your friends on a Saturday night. It's true that alcohol lowers your inhibitions and makes you more likely to make poor food choices, but it goes even deeper than that. Your subconscious associates the bar with the happiness and fun you have with your friends, but it's also associated with the jumbo platter of wings everyone shares. In other words, your mind thinks that because you're in this particular place, you must have this particular food. A 2009 study in the "International Journal of Obesity" found that when rats were fed cookies in a particular cage, they ate more in that cage no matter what type of food was offered. Their brains had linked the pleasure of eating the cookie with that cage, so the cage was associated with food happiness. When regular rat chow was all that was offered, they didn't get the same food pleasure, so they ate more chow in pursuit of happiness. The same did not hold true in different cages, only the one associated with the cookies. Recognize this type of craving when it's occurring, and either try to ingrain a healthier food association or break the link by choosing another venue for your outing.
Emotional Eating
Emotional eating can attack when you are at your weakest -- times of stress, fear, sadness, loneliness or even joy. Over the course of your life, you have learned to associate certain foods with certain emotions. For example, your grandmother's apple pie may make you think of comfort and love whenever you smell cinnamon, or a family trip to the state fair may have linked cotton candy with fun and excitement. Even after the specific memories of these events are gone, your subconscious reminisces when you're in certain emotional states. You may crave apple pie when you're lonely or cotton candy when you're bored. You think you're craving the foods, but you're really craving the emotions you associate with them. The next time this happens, call a friend or family member, walk the dog or do something else that will produce the emotional response you seek without negatively affecting your health.
Restriction
A major craving trigger goes back to the old saying, "You most want what you can't have." This type of craving is common among dieters and others with dietary restriction, and they crave only restricted foods. Dieters rarely crave celery; they crave sweets and salty snacks. A 2005 study in the "International Journal of Eating Disorders" found that participants who were prohibited from eating a certain food craved that food more often and ate more of it than participants who were allowed to eat whatever they wanted. The researchers concluded that it was the dietary restriction itself that caused both the craving and the overindulgence. If your diet is restricted for medical reasons, there is not much you can do other than find ways to satisfy the craving with "safe" food options. If you're simply dieting to lose weight, it may help to declare no food "off-limits" and to allow yourself to indulge in your favorite foods when the mood hits. Keep your portion sizes small, and compensate for the calories and fat by altering the rest of your day's eating and exercising plan. In time, you may notice fewer cravings.
References
- "Appetite"; The Association Between Food Cravings and Consumption of Specific Foods in a Laboratory Taste Test; Corby Martin, et al.; September 2008
- MayoClinic.com; Weight-Loss Help: Gain Control of Emotional Eating; December 2009
- "International Journal of Obesity"; The Pavlovian Power of Palatable Food: Lessons for Weight Loss Adherence From a New Rodent Model of Cue-Induced Overeating; M.M. Boggiano, et al.; June 2009
- "International Journal of Eating Disorders"; The Effect of Deprivation on Food Cravings and Eating Behavior in Restrained and Unrestrained Eaters; J. Polivy, et al.; December 2005
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