Intense food cravings are a problem for millions of people who struggle to maintain or to lose weight. If you find that you have uncontrollable urges to eat specific types of foods, you might wonder why you have trouble resisting them even when you are not hungry. Fortunately, there are some techniques that can help you to conquer your cravings that you can learn with the help of Premier Life Coaching. It is possible to control the cravings that you experience in just a few minutes.
Eliminate the physical reasons for your cravings
Your body can send signals to your brain when you need specific nutrients. A craving for chocolate can be a symptom of a deficiency of magnesium. If you need calcium, you might crave carbonated drinks, fatty foods, and alcohol. Eating a balanced diet of healthy, unprocessed foods will help you to get rid of most of the physical causes of your cravings. You can also undergo testing for nutrient deficiencies and take supplements.
If you are on a restrictive diet, it can quickly cause cravings. You should stop dieting if you suffer from compulsive eating. Diets tend to make compulsive eating problems worse.
Sugar-free beverages and foods tend to make people crave sugar. Instead of consuming these types of beverages and foods, you should switch to unprocessed foods.
You should also make certain that you eat enough food. Some compulsive eaters and dieters confuse hunger and cravings. Before you decide that you are having a craving, think about what time you last ate and the amount that you consumed. Hunger typically comes on gradually while cravings occur suddenly.
Ask the right questions to stop your cravings
If there are no physical causes for your cravings, you can stop them by asking yourself the right questions. Here are some questions to ask yourself:
Are you truly hungry?
If you are, how do you know that it is hunger and not a craving?
Could what you feel actually be thirst?
Is the food that you crave what you actually want?
If the food is not what you really want, what do you really need right now?
What would make you feel better right now?
Asking yourself these questions and honestly answering them should help you to make a better choice. Your cravings may have even gone down a little. If you have cravings because you are an emotional eater, take other steps to uplift yourself.
Accept your cravings, dissociate from them, welcome them, and release them
Start by accepting that it is okay to experience cravings. If you resist a craving, it will intensify. If you accept it, it will dissolve. You can use an internal dialogue to talk yourself through the craving by recognizing what it is and telling yourself that you will get through it.
The next step is to dissociate yourself from the craving. Examine the craving with empathy as if it is not your own. A craving is simply a manifestation of patterns that you have developed long ago. View your craving as something that is not yours anymore. This can help you to loosen the grip that your craving has on you.
Welcome and release your craving
At this point, you likely already feel a lot more relieved. Be open to the feeling. You might want to breathe deeply while placing a hand over your heart. While you welcome the craving, you might see an image, feel something in your body, or hear a sentence.
If your feelings become intense, you can restart at the first stage and ask yourself questions about what has come up. This can help you to break through the internal dialogue that may take place during a craving. After you have welcomed the craving, you will gain a sense of release.
Change your focus
Changing your focus can help you to control your cravings. You can focus on sensations, sounds, or images that you enjoy. You might think about how good you will feel once you have overcome your craving. Try to recognize how you will feel when you overcome your craving. Use a positive dialogue to intensify the positive sensations, sounds, or images until the craving is gone.
If all else fails
If everything else fails, think about what giving into your cravings has or might cost you. Imagine yourself standing in front of a mirror and feeling uncomfortable about your body. Pick whichever sensation, image, or thought that represents what your cravings are costing you.
Focus on the images, thoughts, and sensations that your cravings cause inside of you. Then, think about the food that you are craving. You will create a mental movie to help you to stop a craving.
Picture the food in your hand while seeing yourself in the mirror. Welcome the craving and the associated sensations. As you picture yourself bringing the food close to your mouth, hear, feel, and watch the consequences if you repeat it regularly. For example, picture instant weight gain, feeling uncomfortable, and other similar consequences. Make the images, sounds, and feelings as intense as you can stand. It is important that you remember to focus on the craving first instead of the food so that you do not permanently dislike the food after the process.
Get help from Premier NLP Life Coaching
Eliminating food cravings can be difficult for most people to overcome. Using neuro-linguistic programming techniques can help you to control your cravings so that you can overcome them. To learn more, contact Premier Life Coaching today by filling out our online contact form.