Going cold turkey on your favorite foods may not be the ideal way to squelch cravings. According to research, a little bit of something you're craving can go a long way in preventing you from overindulging:
Jennifer Temple, PhD, of the University of Buffalo found eating a controlled (around 200-calorie) portion of a favorite food daily significantly decreases your cravings for it.
If you indulge (just a little, that is!), you'll feel less deprived and thereby be less likely to overeat.
Related Reading: 5 Easy Ways to Prevent Overeating
Wow – great minds! You beat me to it… I’ve just written a post on the same subject (scheduled to publish at 9am Mountain).
Giving in to a craving and satisfying it with a controlled portion, doesn’t mean you’re giving up on your weight loss goal. Knock that craving on the head and exercise self control by just having a little bit.
This is great information. I think we as people need to help educate everyone on eating healthy, and on healthy foods that our good for us to eat. on my website HealthEating AND Weight LossI talk about Healthy foods to eat not only to make a person feel better and live a healthier lifestyle, but also show the right way to lose weight. We here them terms a lot, but it’s time to give back to society and educate each other before it is to late… Thanks, Chris E.
Actually, in my experience, the only way I was able to curb my cravings was to go cold turkey for a period of time. I never thought that I was giving something up forever, just for a limited amount of time depending on what my goals were.
For example, if I want to lose 5lbs to maintain my ideal weight and I knew I had to stay away from cake (my favorite!) for a period of time, I would do it and not feel deprived knowing that my ultimate goal of losing 5lbs was more important to me at the moment. My relationship with that food then changes at the end of the abstinence period, and I no longer want it as much and I realize that I didn’t “need” it like I thought I did. I am then able to enjoy a small portion, maybe even only a spoonful, and really savor the taste rather than gorging on an entire slice.
I agree that having a small portion once in a while is healthy, but the problem is that the environment must be very controlled, i.e. there can be only that 200 calorie portion of, say, cake, and the whole rest of the cake cannot be in the house or else I will find it and eat it. Willpower is very overrated and leads to guilty feelings, so I feel that it’s more important to have systems in place that will allow you to enjoy the foods you like once you are at a healthy weight.
Hi all
Thanks for this type of awareness & the blog is very nice keep it up posting.