Simple Ways to Resist the Lure of Junk
What’s the fastest selling and most demanding food in the world? Undoubtedly, the answer will be fast food also known as the junk food. No wonder how strict you are with your diet or stay far, the tempting plate of junk food will make you salivate over its taste and smell.
The entire things including delicious cheesy fries, crispy pakodas, indulgent pizzas and pastas have one thing in common and that’s luring quotient of these delights. Despite of love of good food and junk food taking this lure factor up by a notch, there’s nothing seems better. Although, every good thing in life comes with a cost and junk food too gives an ending causing numerous lifestyle disorders such as obesity, heart diseases, diabetes to name a few.
Until you start facing mood fluctuations and excessive food cravings that often makes its difficult to lose weight and focus on fitness goals, you don’t realize your addiction. Gradually turning into something serious such as food addiction, what finally seems like is just a mere love for good food. There are numerous ways to resist the lure of junk though.
Keep a check on the sections
It’s too impossible to quit a junk food! For a while we can make a thought and fight with our cravings for burgers, pizzas but once you see, smell your friend or anyone having it, you can’t make a stop. In fact, research shows that people who leave eating junk is one go are often dangerous and comes back to a unhealthy eating habits in no time. Therefore, it is said to keep a check on the eating habits and diminish the portions accordingly.
Set achievable goals
Now that we are completely aware of the fact that it is pretty difficult to leave junking and make a strict healthy diet in one go. On psychological terms, it is nothing but defeating the urge of junking. Therefore, in order to diminish or get rid of junking, it is often suggested to set the bars. Let’s take an example if you love eating cheesy fries every day, you can limit your cravings by diminishing your consumption to three times in a week and then slowly eliminate it from your diet.
Indulge yourself to a bit
Too many restrictions can lead to extinguish and can give boost to your hunger pangs that may lead to over indulgence. However, by permitting yourself one indulgent delicacy in such a small amount can help in holding back that hunger pang.
Prefer a healthy diet
“Good food is the best mood”, the saying perfectly goes while lifting up your mood. The best-in-class way to deal with hunger cravings is by replacing with the healthy options. In case, if you love eating ice creams, you replace with healthy alternatives such as Greek yogurts, that relatively tastes as same with ice-creams. By doing this, you will consume less calories and will stay active throughout.
The researchers found a surprising relationship in food choices in the series of experiments and experiences. Each time,they found the people who were stucked to indulgent foods such as pizza or cookies were actually less likely to select or purchase unhealthy foods than the ones who smelled nutritious options like apples or strawberries. The confirmation was done through the phenomenon by using nebulizer to pump scents into a numerous of environments involving a middle school cafeteria, a grocery store and a laboratory.
Cravings-the biggest reason why people have difficulty losing weight and keeping it off.
Have a look on 11 simple ways to stop eating unhealthy food:
Drink plenty of water
Thirst is often confused with hunger!
For a particular food, if you feel a sudden urge, try drinking a big glass of water and wait for few minutes. You might observe that the craving fades away as your body was actually just thirsty.
More to this, drinking huge amount of water might have several benefits in terms of health. Drinking water before meals can reduce appetite and help with weight loss in middle-aged and older people.
Eat More Protein
Consuming protein in high-quantity might reduce your appetite and keep you away from overeating. It even reduces the hunger for junk food and helps you feel full and satisfied for long time period. In a research it was found that overweight teenage girls showed that eating a high-protein breakfast diminished cravings apparently. The next study showed in overnight men declared that increasing protein intake to 25% calories diminished cravings by 60%. In addition to this, the desire to snack at night was lower down to 50%.
Maintain Distance from the Craving
Whenever you feel a craving, try to distance yourself from it. Let’s take an example: walk is the best solution for holding up your cravings or shifting your mind onto something else. The transformation in thoughts and environment might help stop the craving. There are few research that have also shown that chewing gum can help reduce appetite and hunger pangs.
Create a Time-table
On weekends or in the free time, you can plan your meal accordingly. This will help you in many ways such as in the intake of healthy food, making a regular check on the quantity and quality of what you are eating or will be planning to eat. You eliminate the factor of spontaneity and uncertainty by already knowing what you’re going to consume. If you don’t have to think about what to eat at the following food, you will be less tempted and there will be very less chances to experience cravings.
Avoid getting hungry in short-time
One of the biggest reasons why everyone experiences cravings is “hunger”. It might be a good idea to eat regularly and have healthy snacks close at hand to avoid getting extremely hungry. From showing up at all, you might be able to prevent the craving by being prepared and avoiding long periods of hunger.
Fight with stress
If you’ve ever been in stress or depression, you might have felt food cravings and stress influences eating behaviors and the cases are most importantly found in women. Females under stress have been shown to eat significantly more calories and experience more cravings as compared to non-stressed woman. More to this, stress raises your blood levels of cortisol, a hormone that can make you gain weight specifically in the belly area. So, what we can do to ourselves is, try to diminish stress in the environment by planning ahead, meditating and generally slowing down.
The Bottom Line
Cravings are extremely common also more than 50% of people experience cravings on a continuous basis. They play a major role in weight gain and contribute in food addiction, binge eating unhealthy habits. Being aware of your cravings and their triggers makes them much easier to stay away from. It also makes easy and simple to eat healthy and losing weight.
You can take a charge next time cravings try to take over by following the tips on this list such as eating more protein, planning your meals and practicing mindfulness.
