by admin on April 27, 2010
Are you on a diet or trying to change your lifestyle? Do cravings all but drive you crazy? Cravings can annihilate all the hard work and worry build into a diet and lifestyle change. When we change our eating habits, our bodies and minds are often still in the veteran routine. What can be done to avoid cravings during a diet and lifestyle change?
Cravings are the body’s way of telling us what we need. Cravings may not be accurate when making a diet and lifestyle change. This is because the body has been programmed by the unpleasant habits of our previous diet and lifestyle. The body bases cravings on what it was able to get us to eat in our old diet and lifestyle. When we change our lifestyle and diet, it takes time for our old bodies to register the change and find up with our recent habits.
The period of change and adjustment to our lifestyle can be trying. It is difficult to ignore signals from the body that we are old-fashioned to obeying. Cravings can be powerfully demanding. They can cause us to lose focus and concentration, both at work and home. When making a change in lifestyle or diet it becomes important to recognize the reason for each craving. This way we can stick to our diet and lifestyle goals by giving the body what it needs, to make the cravings disappear. A change in diet and lifestyle is only good if we stick to our goals.
Salt cravings are very celebrated in a diet and lifestyle change. This is particularly correct if exercise has been added to the mix. Exercise causes dehydration in those who do not drink enough water. When dehydrated, the body signals us to consume salt. It may seem ironic, but salt causes water retention. This is the body’s way of holding onto what little water it has. Salt cravings will disappear almost entirely by keeping hydrated during a diet and lifestyle change. So drop the bag of chips and down a tall glass of H20.
Sugar cravings are also prevalent in people making a diet or lifestyle change. Your body needs sugar and carbohydrates for energy. The body sends out cravings for sugar because this is the way it was fed carbohydrates during the old lifestyle and diet. Another reason for the sugar cravings is that sugar is a fast working carbohydrate. It will satisfy the need speedy. The problem with using sugar as a carbohydrate is that it burns off quickly as well. Change the device sugar is consumed for better results.
It is better to consume sources of carbohydrates that will finish with the body for a while and burn slowly. This provides a constant source of energy during a diet and lifestyle change and keeps the cravings from coming back. Try getting your sugar and carbohydrates from fruits and vegetables, rather than candy and cookies. The energy will last longer and maintain blood sugar, rather than fluctuating drastically and encouraging cravings.
Many people complain of cravings for big juicy hamburgers that sabotage their diet and lifestyle change. Protein is what their cravings are telling them they need. Protein builds muscle. If muscles are week from unaccustomed exercise, cravings for protein will result. This is particularly accurate if your new diet and lifestyle change consists of eating mostly salads. Those vegetables are important but the body also needs protein. Be sure to get plenty of lean meats, fish, soy or legumes into your original diet and lifestyle change. This will curb the cravings for fatty meats.
When making a diet and lifestyle change, curb cravings before they begin. Make a gradual change. Stay hydrated, eat a balanced diet with plenty of fruits, vegetable and lean proteins. Exercise moderately at first and then increase intensity gradually. Regain plenty of rest and relaxation. In other words, do what you should have been doing all along. People who have always taken care of themselves and eaten in moderation don’t have to go through the cravings associated with diet and lifestyle change.
Source :
personal experience
by admin on April 6, 2010
Do you acquire yourself craving sweets? Is your craving controlling you more than you’re controlling your cravings? Are side effects (like weight gain, inflammation, mood swings, etc.) making sweets less sweet? Are you guiltily indulging or stoically denying yourself desserts, chocolate and other yummies? What if you could have all the sweetness you want without any down side at all?
Each of the following steps has to do with involving more sweetness into your life through non-food sources. You will be helping yourself to unlimited servings of calorie free, sustaining, healthful, good-for-the-heart, youth-preserving sweetness. Research shows it takes 30 days to change a habit and replace it with a new one. Try these for the next 30 days. Nothing to lose besides some extra weight (in body and mind). Savor!
One: Affirm that you love sweetness and wish to experience sweetness and pleasure in unusual and deeply satisfying ways!
To create a written affirmation gives more power to this design and helps invite sweetness and pleasure . Write an affirmation in your own words (or use/ modify one of these below.) Put your affirmation where you will see it so that you are reminded to say it (taped to bathroom mirror, near kitchen sink, on your desk, in your car, or wallet). Repeat it every day for at least 30 days. Here are some affirmations: “My life is delicious!” “My days are filled with scrumptious experiences.” “I revel in the sweet pleasure of being alive.” “There is great sweetness in being healthy and fit.” (Suggestion: write your affirmation in the present tense and make it short enough to remember easily.)
Two: Add sweetness to your day from non-food sources.
Have fun with this. What gives you pleasure? It might be going for a walk and noticing the beauty around you. Listening to music may give you pleasure, playing with children, taking watches apart, meditating, praying, singing, dancing, playing or watching sports, gardening, talking to a friend-even washing dishes can be pleasureful. Remember, it’s your taste! What one finds sweet may not be an exquisite flavor to another. You may bring sweetness to your everyday work or tasks (e.g., play music while you clean; move more slowly down the aisles of the supermarket, grateful for having food to eat; perceive something, no matter how tiny it might be, that is pleasurable about your work). A key in all of these is being present and noticing what there is to be grateful for. Savor, that is, really notice and feel the pleasures and sweetness, however tiny they might seem.
Three: Share sweetness with others.
How can you add sweetness to someone else’s day? A shrimp action like expressing an appreciation can bring pleasure to another. An unexpected gesture of kindness directed to some known or a stranger may add immeasurable sweetness to another’s day. It sweetens yours and another’s day when you are demonstrate and genuinely friendly to customer service representative on the phone or the cashier at a supermarket checkout.
Four: Keep a supply of what is sweet and pleasurable–your own private stash.
Preserve your supply by writing it down. At night before falling asleep, write or at least list mentally what was sweet and/or gave you pleasure in your day. At the beginning of each day think of what is sweet in your life. Your list can include people, objects, experiences in nature, specific actions or words . As you write, pause and let yourself actually feel the sweetness. If it is hard to think of 3-5 pleasures or sweetnesses in your day, then imagine them, thus inviting them. Do this for 30 days.
Five: Meet your craving for sugar with a sweet experience, conception, or action.
As you have been repeating your affirmations and adding sweetness to your life and other’s lives you have been building a stash of sweet and pleasurable sources. This makes it much easier to replace the short-lived highs from sugar with long-lasting delicious samplings from the feast of life. Withhold going.
Six: Remember to feel grateful every time you replace a sugar craving with another form of sweetness!
Remember along the way to feel grateful to yourself for your gentle efforts! Gratitude is one of the sweetest feelings there is! It makes your whole life richer and more satisfying. And an attitude of gratitude makes the lives of those around you sweeter, too!
