The deadly craving

One minute you're going about your day, minding your own business, and the next your mind is consumed by the thought of some delicious food: chocolate, ice cream, french fries, a burrito, pasta or maybe a cup cake. It takes over your mind and you feel like you won't be able to think straight again until you get your hands on whatever food you're craving. I've been there and sometimes given in - haven't we all?

Here are a few things I did to get control:

• Raid your cabinets, pull out the foods that are bad for you and give them or throw them away
• Tell yourself to wait it out 10 - 15 minutes. A lot of times cravings will pass
• Distract yourself - pick up the phone and call a friend, Facebook stalk people, put on some music and sing along, make plans for the weekend, or anything else that will actively engage your mind. Eventually, you'll stop thinking about food.
• Eat a healthy snack that has qualities of the food you are craving. For example if you want Doritos find a healthy salty food or if you're craving chocolate grab a chocolate flavored light yogurt.
• And finally, if you just can't seem to calm that craving, give in, but only A LITTLE. If you want ice cream take a BITE and the same with all other food. Most of the time just getting the satisfaction of tasting the food can finally cure the craving.

This is a good article on how to battle emotional eating: http://bit.ly/9K2sU8

Food addictions

Cutting back on the fattening food was probably one of the most difficult challenges I faced and still face. I come from an extremely Italian family and food holds great importance for us. A lot of family time was centered around decadent meals with things like baked ziti, chicken cacciatore, lasagna, and my favorite, chicken parmesan - mmmm mmmm good.

Not to mention that dinner was almost always followed with a delicious, hard to resist dessert such as red velvet cake or cookie dough ice cream. It was such a catch-22 with my family as well - we'd be eating dinner and mid-meal someone would nonchalantly announce, "Gee you're puttin' on the pounds there chunky." Obviously that would quell my appetite and I'd put down my fork which would be met with the inquiry of, "Oh, you're done, do you want some dessert?" Excuse me? No I don't want dessert now! As you can probably guess based on this story, dieting was never met with much success in my house. 

Since January, I have revamped my eating patterns and decisions and trained my stomach to fill up on smaller portions than what I was used to. This was NOT easy though. One thing you need to be prepared for is that you aren't always going to get support from people. I can't count the number of times someone said to me, "Oh come on, don't follow your diet just this one time eat the (insert high calorie, not good for you, food here)." And oh is it tempting to listen to the other person's pleas for you to join their eat-a-thon of crap food - I'd be lying if I said I didn't give in sometimes.

The point of this post

When you start a diet it is going to be rough - especially if you are addicted to food the way I am or it is engrained in you to eat big meals. Remember though, you are not alone - there are thousands and thousands of others out there struggling to diet as well. 

Taking the time to think of the reasons you love food and have a hard time keeping a diet is very important though. If you can address these issues, then when you are faced with a challenge and feel like you're going to break your diet you can understand your emotions towards food and battle them better. 

If you do falter and make a bad choice one time, for a whole day or even for an entire week, this does not mean you should give up. We are human - taking a step backwards is normal - so just get back on the diet with your next food decision and eventually eating healthy will become a habit.