Stop Food Cravings: A Simple Approach

Food cravings are one of the most difficult things to manage when trying to eat healthier. Many people crave desserts such as cookies or other high fat sweets. The most important thing to remember is willpower will not completely stop food cravings. Many of your cravings are due to emotional eating. Emotional eating, eating when stressed from not dealing with problems, is very difficult to control. These cravings are controlled by the complex chemicals in your brain called neurotransmitters. We have learned that when we eat certain foods they activate the feel good neurotransmitters. These chemicals take away our bad feelings and everything feels better-but it doesn't last. Most cravings are this response in action. Finding the source of your stress and dealing with it will help stop food cravings.

One strategy to combat this type of craving is to learn to effectively manage stress without using food. When you get a food craving, ask yourself how hungry you feel. If you are not physically hungry, stop and wait 15-30 minutes. During this time ask yourself "Why do I want this food?" "What will it do for me?" If you have determined you need it to relieve stress or boredom, find something else to do. Going for a walk or run is a great way to relieve stress. It also produces the feel good chemicals in your brain. Sitting down and listening to upbeat music is also another good way to relieve stress. Write down at least 15 activities you can do instead of eat. Place this list on your refrigerator. When a food craving hits, pick an activity from this list and do it.

If you feel that emotional eating is not the cause of your food cravings, you may be in a diet mind set. This is the belief that you must never eat anything that is a "bad" food. Most diets have a list of "good" and "bad" foods which many dieters feel they must stick to religiously. Since forbidden foods are always more appealing, you develop a strong craving for what you think you should never have. What many dieters fail to realize is that all foods can be included in a healthy diet -- even desserts.

The key to not overeating is to eat high fat foods in moderation. Practice the 90/10 rule for healthy eating. This rule says eat 90 percent healthy foods, and the other 10 percent the high fat foods you enjoy. The majority of the time eat a healthy and balanced diet with plenty of fruits and vegetables, whole grain and lean meats, such as chicken. Do not skip meals or eliminate entire food groups. This will only cause you to eat more at the next meal. Attempting to starve yourself will not make you lose weight. It will only make you eat more when you do have a meal. Practice these strategies and food cravings will become a distant memory.

Top 5 Tips for Staying Slim This Holiday Season

The holidays are a wonderful time of year filled with family, friends and food. However, there is a downside to the holidays - calorie overload. People gain the most weight in the month between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day. The culprit? Most, if not all, of the food is high in fat and calories - and people eat it. The holiday binge eating feels out of control and by New Year's Day everyone feels they need to go on a diet.

Much of this weight gain can be avoided with a few simple techniques. Since many people are against eating a low fat or low calorie meal on the actual holiday, it is better to focus on the various parties with friends and co-workers. Eating a high fat, high calorie meal one or two times a year is not going to make you gain considerable amounts of weight. What does matter is how you are eating over a long period of time. If you are able to keep the food you eat in a healthy range over the entire holiday season than eating the big holiday meal with not cause considerable weight gain or emotional stress.

A great way to start this process is to make low calorie/low fat versions of your favorite dishes for all those holiday parties. This is not as difficult as it may sound. Only a few easy strategies can help you save some calories -and pounds. Using these simple techniques can keep you from gaining a large amount of weight over the holidays.

1. Revamp your favorite recipes to be lower in fat. You can do this by using reduced fat ingredients such a lower fat cheese or sour cream. This will not significantly change the taste but will save a considerable amount of fat and calories from the recipe. You can also use less of a high fat ingredient if you feel their may be too much of it in your dish.

2. Find recipes that use vegetables and fruits as the base ingredient. If you are going to a party and need to bring a dish, choose one that has a lot of vegetables or fruit in it. The other ingredients should be flavor enhancers but should not cover up the taste of the main fruit or vegetable. This will ensure that you will at least eat your vegetables and helping other people get their vegetables too.

3. When you make a dessert, choose low fat versions of your favorite recipes. Overeating during a holiday party can wreck havoc on your weight, but eating a big dessert on top of it can send you over the edge. Eating a small amount of a lower calorie dessert will help keep you on the right path.

4. Consider skipping dessert. It may seem like a sin to not have dessert during the holidays but it can save you a considerable amount of fat and calories, even more than eating a lower fat dessert. It is not a written rule that you need to eat everything that is given to you at a party. If you feel too full, don't eat it.

5. Make sure to exercise daily. Physical activity is very important during the holiday season. You need to stay fit while eating lower fat versions of your favorite holiday meals. You will still be eating more food than you normally would. However, exercise will help speed up your metabolism so you can burn off the extra calories.

Book Review: Blood Pressure Down By Janet Bond Brill, PH.D, RD, LDN

The Blood Pressure Down plan is a concise plan to lower your blood pressure. It consists of 10 steps that you need to take to lower your blood pressure without drugs, although she states that drugs may be needed with this plan if your blood pressure is especially high. The book is very easy to understand and implement.

The book begins with a very simple scientific overview of how blood pressure can become elevated. This includes lifestyle choices and food habits that are proven to increase blood pressure, especially the increase of sodium intake in our diets. She defines both numbers of the blood pressure reading and what normal blood pressure should be. There are many sidebars with more in depth information on the subjects related to the chapter. These are very interesting and informative. The book then explains how blood pressure can damage the body, such as the eyes, kidneys and heart. This section is not heavy with scientific jargon or any other difficult to understand concepts, and it also includes pictures to help the reader understand the concepts discussed.

Next, the book goes through the 10 steps of the plan. They are: lose weight, eat potassium, magnesium and calcium, eat soy protein, eat dark chocolate, drink red wine, get physical activity and take four supplements. Each section has recommended intake, a food list and scientific evidence backing up her recommendations. There is also a chapter on decreasing sodium intake and how it can decrease your blood pressure. These chapters are very straightforward and seem easy to implement.

There were a few questionable parts to these recommendations. The first is eating soy. She states soy is safe if you are not allergic but most of the chapter is about substituting red meat for vegetable protein. You could easily swap out a red meat laden meal with a vegetarian meal made with beans or quinoa. Soy can be quite harsh on some people who are not allergic and does not need to be the basis of a blood pressure plan especially if the entire reason for eating it is to avoid red meat. There are many no soy vegetarian dishes that can make the need for soy unnecessary. Luckily she states in the book that if something is not working for you or you are allergic don't include it in your blood pressure plan.

The last part of the book is low sodium recipes. They use a salt substitute and herbs/spices to give them flavor. The recipes are all whole foods without any weird ingredients. There are breakfast, lunch and dinner recipes along with some snack ideas. This is a good ending to a highly recommended book.

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