How to deal with cravings?

Hello everyone! I can't believe my first blog post here would be about cravings!

I suddenly have this urge to write about cravings because I accidentally/ unintentionally ate 1300kcal worth of Chinese peanut candies in 15 minutes just now! OMG. First of all, for those who do not know what Chinese peanut candies are- below is a picture.

They don't look very appealing but they are sweet and crunchy. It is best to describe them as having caramelised peanuts that glued into chunks. So after I finished making them, I calculated the amount of calories in them and decided that my calories quota of the day (I'm on a 1250kcal diet plan) allowed me to only have 1 piece tonight (82kcal). I packed the rest away and stored them in the fridge. I then had my healthy skinny butternut squash noodles that worths 192kcal and I thought to myself- Well done for sticking to 1250kcal for the day! Yet- when I walked to the fridge to grab milk for my tea, I saw that box of peanut candies sitting on the shelf. Hmm may be just another small piece? Yeah that would only add up to 1332kcal shouldn't do any harm. You guessed right. It wasn't only 1 small piece, I finished the whole box.

You said oh look at the dietitian herself. She sneered at me when I told her I had the whole packet of chocolate digestive in one go and she did that herself! She can't do what she preached! And you are totally correct. The reason I wanted to become a dietitian is so that I could find ways to tackle these problems that I know many of us including myself encounter when we really want to get our weights down. So instead of hiding this horrible experience that I had, I chose to share it with you guys and put out there some ways that I think could help! And because I have myself gone through things that you all have, I know exactly how it feels when you believe your diet has gone completely wrong. No more faffing around- below are top tips that should help with your cravings:

How to prevent cravings?

Know the foods you crave- No one knows better than yourself. Think of a list of food that you are very likely to crave. Some can come up with this quite quickly because of past experiences. For those who have absolutely no idea, think about food that you like most. Once you got the list, you are ready to go shop for them in the supermarket. NO. This is not your shopping list. It is a list of food that you should NOT buy/ store/ make in the house. Get rid of them before you start your diet.

How to control cravings?

It happens that you got the food that you should not have in the house. You decided to have a small bite and you felt that you want more and more...

1) Get a glass, fill it with water and drink! Yes drinks help to rinse your mouth and to get rid of the taste of the food that you are addicted to e.g. sugars. You are more likely to stop the addiction when the taste is gone.

2) Share it with people around you- sounds very evil but sharing calories with others is a great way to stop yourself having the entire portion yourself! But I know. Most cravings happen when you are alone. In that case, you should chuck the rest in the bin without a second thought. Oh no that's a waste! Yes but even if you don't bin it, the food is going into your stomach finally giving you an extra crease at your tummy when you rest on your chair the other day and there is no way that the food is going to help malnourished kids in underdeveloped countries.

3) Get yourself a kitchen safe- It is a 21st century invention that you can purchase online via this link. These containers have time locks on them - so basically once you put your stuff in it and set the timer e.g. for 1 day then you can't open the lid until tomorrow. The lock cannot be overrode. You will need to pay a few tenners for a replacement base if you break the container for the food. As daft as it sounds, people do find them work.

What to do after cravings?

One thing that can happen to 50% of people who just had a crave - crave even more. Oh I have ruined the diet for the day so I shall start again tomorrow. These people are categorised into the "all or nothing" personality type and research shows that they are unfortunately more prone to failure in weight loss (I'm not excluding myself here). But what I'm trying to say is that calories are calories. If you look at your calorie intake for a week, that extra 2000kcal you had on Monday adds up to the week which makes it almost impossible for you to offset the extras by having restrictive diet of 800kcal /day the rest of the week. That means you have wasted the entire week stressing about your diet and not losing a single pound.

A weight management specialist dietitian once told me- what would you do if you dropped your phone? Do you step on it further or you pick it up? That's the message I want to bring out here. Yes I had a bad moment today but I don't want to make it worse. I stop, I reflect on myself and I learn. I pick myself up at where I failed. I really hope you guys will find the tips / my personal experience useful. Enjoy the rest of the week cravings-free! :)