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You know that feeling, right? After a long day of work, you really really want chocolate. Just imagining it melting on your tongue makes your mouth water. Craving is different from hunger; you really want to eat something specific, like a cupcake or a cheeseburger. More than 90% of people who diet experience regular cravings. Even people not on a diet often experience food cravings, which are considered to be normal psychological episodes.

For certain people, however, they can pose serious health risks. Food craving can trigger binge-eating, and can lead to obesity and/or eating disorders.

How does this craving happen? It is well-known that if you can imagine the specific desire more vividly, your craving level is much higher than simply thinking about that food. Try this: Think or say the word “chocolate”. Do you feel any desire? You might, but your level of desire may not be that high. Now, imagine opening a small box filled with truffles. Pick up one with your fingers and feel the softness of the truffle. Inhale the sweet aroma. Put it on your tongue; as it slowly melts, it fills your mouth with the delicate dark taste of chocolate… Now how do you feel? Do you feel like running to the nearest chocolate shop?

Basically, cravings are triggered by a physiological need, but blown out of proportion by our imaginations.

According to a Tufts University study, people who are dieting tend to crave high-calorie foods, and the degree of the craving intensifies as they lose more weight. This is understandable, since the body is programmed to maintain its same weight.

It has also been pointed out by researchers at the University of Miami that if you allow yourself to eat a small chocolate when you are craving chocolate, that tends to lead to more cravings for sugary and fatty foods, rather than quelling the desire. Further, even if people can resist the temptations and they achieve their weight-loss goal, once they reach that goal they often give up their resistance and tend to binge-eat, gaining back the weight they had just lost. That is the major reason dieting alone does not work. There must be a lifestyle change.

It is therefore important to be able to control cravings if you are trying to lose weight and maintain your goal weight, but how? According to Researchers at Flinders University, Australia, when you feel food cravings, you can stop them by imagining something unrelated, such as rainbows or trees, or the smell of eucalyptus. Actually, this technique has been long advocated by many motivational speakers such as Tony Robbins. Although his advice is a bit more radical, here is what he suggests:

Let’s assume that you are craving chocolate ice cream. Just thinking about it fills your mouth with saliva, right. Now, imagine that you accidentally added tuna to it. Has this reduced your desire? Imagine an old fishy smell on the ice cream. Now, see several flies walking around on the ice cream… Haven’t you totally lost your craving for ice cream?

Another way to control cravings is with exercise. According to researchers at the University of Exeter, if you do a short workout, such as a brisk 15-minute walk, you can reduce cravings both during and after the workout. If you exercise 30 minutes or more daily, craving levels stay low thoughout the day. Again, dieting is best done together with exercise.

By the way, if you love chocolate, eat dark chocolate. People feel that dark chocolate is more filling than milk chocolate and it lessens cravings. Besides, we all know that dark chocolate is good for you.

Source:
A Cognitive Experimental Approach to Understanding and Reducing Food Cravings. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 2010
Links Between Food Cravings, Types Of Cravings, And Weight Management: Tufts University, Health Sciences 2007, July
Brisk Walk Could Help Chocoholics Stop Snacking: University of Exeter 2008, November
Behavioral Consistency and Inconsistency in the Resolution of Goal Conflict. Journal of Consumer Research, April 2009

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