Sometimes, when you realize that you’re smack-dab in the middle of a tough problem, you feel as if you are God’s practical joke.  You feel caught in a Catch-22 with specific food cravings, for example.  Other poor sods are addicted to drugs or drink – no, you never touched the stuff and yet you still became an addict – to food.  And, sadly, not just any food will do.  No – that would make life too easy.  Your specific food cravings are very finicky.  It just seems a lot easier to eat the darn specific food you crave rather than deal with the jitters and restless thoughts by denying yourself.  You know you’re eating junk, but it makes you feel better.  What can you do?

Quite A Lot, Actually

You are experiencing specific food cravings because your body has developed a dependency on certain things in food – such as fat, salt or sugar.  Perhaps you were only given ice cream on holidays and family celebrations.  Over the years, your unconscious has associated happiness with ice cream.  Therefore, you have specific food cravings – in this case, for ice cream. 

Even when you eat something else, even cookies or cake, your still have these nagging specific food cravings for ice cream.  You might not even be hungry – but darn it, your body is still screaming for ice cream.  You can’t concentrate.  You can’t sleep.  You may even feel stuffed to the gills.  But darn it – your body is screaming ICE CREAM.  You have to give in and eat ice cream in order to get on with your life…until the next ice cream craving.

You are not doomed to be hooked on ice cream or whatever specific food cravings have a hold of you now.  You owe it to your family, your body and your self-confidence to kick these specific food cravings.  Say you are hooked on ice cream.  What happens if you get diabetes?  Are you going to continue eating ice cream?  And what if there’s a natural disaster in summer and all the power is knocked out for weeks.  You need to survive, not worry about if you’re ever going to eat ice cream ever again.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

You have learned a habit.  Your body has – unconsciously or not – equated happiness with ice cream.  You don’t have to go cold turkey.  You need to cut down on the food you crave.  The first two weeks are the worst.  You get over that, and it gets easier to tell the specific food cravings what to go do to yourself.  Drink more water.  Eat more fiber.  Indulge in a hobby, or clean the house.  Stay busy those weeks.  Try new foods.  Your taste buds will be trained to change. 

Overcoming sugar addiction is the same as overcoming any addiction.  And yes, you can pretty much be addicted to anything.  Being addicted to sugar isn’t the same as wanting it every now and then.  When you HAVE to have it and have it NOW and this thought bounces around your skull 24/7, you just may have a sugar addiction.  The sure-fire way to find out if you are a sugar addict is not to have any sugar for twenty four hours (including any processed or canned foods that may contain sugar).  If you feel incredibly ill, you are experiencing withdrawal pains.

No Need To Go It Alone

There is plenty of help available in overcoming sugar addiction.  Unlike addicts of most other substances, you don’t need to cut it out completely, but cut back substantially.  This will de painful and difficult enough.  It can help you to hear the stories of how others have or are in the process of overcoming their sugar addiction.  You can go to places such as Overeaters Anonymous and sit in on a meeting.  You can ask your doctor for help.  You can go online and find sugar addict support groups.  If you can make the computer room a no-food room, this will enhance your actions overcoming sugar addiction.

Unlike other kinds of addiction like for drugs or drink, you usually don’t need to be hospitalized during the drying our period.  Your body will protest, but after a couple of weeks, the protests will die off as your body becomes adjusted to your new diet.  You need to keep yourself busy and occupied in order to make you tired enough to sleep and to keep from eating.

Other Tips

You can use visualization to help in overcoming sugar addiction.  When you see a sugary snack, imagine it is laughing at you.  It still laughs as someone eats it.  It continues to laugh while being stored as fat.  If you have an imagination like Stephen King, eventually you will need a gun put to your head in order to swallow a spoonful of ice cream.  One Tales Of The Darkside episode had a woman put on special glasses that made all food become alive, and hearing aids to hear their tortured screams as they were being eaten.  Unfortunately, she couldn’t get them off.  Don’t go that far.

Tell your family that you are overcoming sugar addiction so they will hide sugary foods from you, or at least not eat them in front of you.  Just seeing the food can trigger a craving.  If you eat while watching TV, stop watching TV for a while as your body readjusts.

The ancients believed that to know someone’s true name was to gain power over him or her that bore the name.  That is just one of the reasons why nicknames evolved.  But in some ways, this thought is not just superstition.  In naming your demon, you can begin to control it.  In learning the meanings of food cravings, you can learn how to take power not only of your cravings, but of your whole self.

Keep A Food Journal

Ask yourself, “why and when do I eat?”  You may not be surprised to discover that hunger is rarely the reason why you eat a lot, and prefer to eat junk.  If not hunger, then what could the meaning of food cravings be?  That is up to you to find out.  Each person has their own reasons.  Many people find that by writing this process down, they can, in effect, name their demons.

Do you eat at certain times?  Does it not matter?  Do you eat when you are stressed?  What do you crave?  What do you hope to gain by eating the specific food?  You need to remember how the foods you crave were used throughout your childhood and adulthood.  Although it may feel great to lay the meaning of food cravings at the responsibility of our parents, it is up to us to deal with them.

See Your Doctor

As the old bumper sticker said, “When all else fails – read the directions.”  If you crave a specific food intensely and suddenly, you could have a medical condition that needs treatment right away.  Sometimes women with heavy menstrual flows crave beef around their periods.  That is because they need more iron.  Have you ever craved ginger ale when you were ill?  That may be because ginger can help settle an upset stomach.  Sometimes in discovering the meanings of food cravings, we might help ourselves uncover an illness before it becomes really bad.

In trying to determine the meaning of food cravings, you have to keep in mind if it is the food you are craving or a certain ingredient in the food.  This can sometimes be due to a medical condition, but also can be due to a chemical dependency.  For example, this writer is dependent on caffeine.  I crave tea first thing in the morning for the caffeine, not for the tea.  By learning that, I can substitute Excedrin (which contains caffeine) if I cannot get a hold of tea in order to stave off a migraine.

Junk food exists for all species, and junk food addiction is lethal in some species.  For humans, junk food addiction usually leads indirectly to poor health and sometimes death.  By looking at junk food addiction in animals, it can help us as junk food addicts to see ourselves in the future.  We can also learn to emphasize more with animals and see that we are not so different from them after all.

Iceberg Lettuce Addiction In Iguanas

In the 1980’s, the hot pet was an iguana.  They were hearty, looked like dinosaurs and were cheap.  The fact that they grew to over six feet long didn’t seem to deter the pet buying public.  One of the advantages for iguanas in this boom (which dropped off considerably after the lizards reached full length) is that more people observed what made iguanas healthy and what could kill them.

Oddly enough, iguanas can develop junk food addictions to iceberg lettuce.  This lettuce is not known in South America, so North American pets were the first introduced to them.  Iguanas need a variety of foods in order to survive.  But when exposed to Iceberg lettuce, they would refuse all other foods but the lettuce.  They then died … of starvation, even when given all the lettuce they could eat.

Acorn Addiction In Horses

Domestic horses at first ignore and spit out acorns.  If, however, there isn’t much else to eat, they will eat acorns.  Some will then develop a craving for acorns, even when re-exposed to better food.  This equine junk food addiction can sometimes kill a horse, as acorns do contain a tiny bit of poison.  At the least, the horse will become jittery, disoriented and have diarrhea.  The only way to get a horse off an acorn addiction is by going cold turkey and praying a lot.

Bread And Milk Addiction In Hedgehogs

For years in England, bread and milk was thought to be the food of choice to leave out for wild hedgehogs.  They certainly went crazy for it.  Unfortunately, it took decades later to realize what happened to the hedgehogs after they ate bread and milk.  It can give diarrhea, but more than that, it can give a hedgehog a junk food addiction.  They usually are omnivores, like us.  Imagine what would happen to your body if you only ate bread and milk.  You wouldn’t be very healthy.  Because of this junk food addiction, hedgehogs can also die of malnutrition.

Do you want to know how to overcome food cravings?  If you are serious about trying to stop your food cravings, read these tips on how other people have found success.  Learning how to overcome food cravings is important to many people in their efforts to lose weight. 

Being serious about overcoming food cravings means you must an honest commitment to change and to controlling your relationship with food.  It requires that you take responsibility for your situation and start making lemonade out of lemons. 

Many of the tips about how to overcome food cravings concern giving your body the nutrition it needs.  Some people believe that when a person craves a food that it is because the food holds a nutrient that the person is missing in their diet.  For this reason, many nutritionists advise taking a multivitamin in the morning to stop craving food.

Regular and Healthy Main Meals

You should also start your day with a healthy breakfast with foods out of each food group; your body should be satisfied for a few hours afterwards.  If you wait too long to have breakfast, you will be craving food before you know it.  Eat a normal sized portioned lunch and dinner to avoid feeling hungry at night when snacking is more apt to cause weight gain. 

Snacking Healthy

As you go along in the rest of the day do not deny yourself snacks, instead choose healthy snacks.  Snack on natural foods with lots of fiber that will give you a filled feeling.  Choose a healthier snack that resembles the food you want such as yogurt for ice cream or baked chips for potato chips. 

Eat healthily between meals and do not go for long periods without eating anything because the hunger will drive you to eat more than you should.  When you do snack at night, make sure it is only natural and healthy snacks. 

Miscellaneous Tips

Drink a glass of water when you get a craving and wait ten minutes to see if the craving passes.  Take a walk when you have a craving.  Distract yourself when you have a craving and not by the TV where you will be bombarded with messages about food, most of which will be unhealthy.  Reduce the amount of foods that you eat that are high in sugar because eating sugary foods creates a craving for more sweets.

Instead of using food as a crutch when something goes wrong such as reaching for food when you are unhappy, you should deal with the situation effectively instead of trying to eat it away.  Get enough sleep because when you are not getting enough sleep, it can trigger food cravings.

When you know how to overcome food cravings, it can give you the push you need to create positive change in your eating habits.  When you blend what you know about how to overcome food cravings with regular exercise, you will be on your way to a slimmer and healthier you.

That a food addict cannot help but eat without real cause or cannot even exercise restraint is quite well known and what was originally just a liking for particular foods may have developed into uncontrollable and binge eating without any regard to the consequences which will only lead to a not so magnificent obsession. And, when such food is not available then withdrawal symptoms set in including chills, dizziness and headaches as also inability to concentrate and also feeling nauseous and lethargic. What’s worse, food addiction can lead to other addictions and unless suitable means of treating the food addiction are not found, the problem could even turn life threatening.

Gymnema Helps With Dependency On Sugar

If you are a food addict or one that knows of a food addict, then you should consider herbal appetite suppressant as a good means of overcoming the problem, since herbs have been found to be effective in helping a food addict kick his or her habit. Take the instance of Gymnema that is herbal appetite suppressant that shuts out the taste as well as metabolism of sugar and which is very effective in helping overcome dependency on sugar.

There are many herbal appetite suppressants and they even come from far-off places that are very helpful in suppressing cravings for food and amla that is used in Ayurvedic medicines has a lot of nutrients which help people feel better as well as happier and is also a laxative, though not very strong.

With positive results usually seen after consuming herbal appetite suppressants it is hardly surprising that they are amongst the most popular diet pills available on the market today and they are effective in bringing a person back to keel once more in spite of binge eating since they help in reducing appetite and even prevents eating altogether as is the case with Hoodia herbal appetite suppressant.

Herbal appetite suppressants usually work by suppressing specific hormones and sometimes maybe even a part of the brain that is associated with hunger and cravings for food. Thus, receptors that carries signals of hunger to the center of your brain and which is known as hypothalamus are suppressed and in the case of Hoodia herbal appetite suppressant, the presence of a molecule called P57 that mimics the effects of glucose in your brain will help in prolonging a feeling of being full of food and thus prevents you from feeling hungry. Another alternative herbal appetite suppressant that is worth considering is known as Fen-Phen which is an herbal Phetermine which is effective though due to negative publicity was withdrawn from the market.

The bottom line is that herbal appetite suppressant contains much fiber that is good for your health and which makes a person feel full and thus helps eliminate cravings for food, and drinking a lot of water will help you expand the fiber in your stomach and thus promotes better health.

It is a well known fact that there are many women with habits that can best are described as cravings or which means needing a lot of sugar, carbohydrates and even maybe alcohol, and mostly such food cravings need not necessarily point to being a disorder of eating; rather, they could be symptomatic of imbalance in hormones that are a result of poor nutrition. So, the afternoon snack that you can’t do without may be something that is bothering you or it could even mean a chocolate bar, some candy or some other food that is not exactly rich with nutritious content that is a cause for concern.

Confused Signals

According to experts, food cravings occurs when the body begins to get its signals confused which can cause the brain to want more food in situations when a person is feeling blue and when there is low blood sugar or even low serotonin and such signals will cause you to crave for either carbohydrates or sugar. The hormone serotonin is a hormone that makes a person feel good and when its levels are low, there are feelings of sadness an also depression and unfortunately for us, it is sugars and carbohydrates that provide the required release from such feelings, albeit only temporarily and this why a person suffers from food craving.

What can contribute to your food cravings is when you try and lose weight with the help of low carb diets which often results in a person becoming resistant to insulin, at least partially and it is this insulin that helps keep blood sugar normal and is what makes the body absorb glucose from the blood. Thus, insulin resistance means that the body cannot respond to insulin and starts to get hold of as many calories as is possible and converts them into fat, which means that in spite of eating less you can still gain weight. In addition, not being able to absorb glucose makes the brain signal for more sugar or carbohydrates and consequently gives rise to food cravings.

Thus, to overcome food cravings, it has been found that many women are taking to Atkins Diet or even South Beach Diet which though they help, can also contribute to worsened metabolism which is due to the stress caused when a person diets. This means that it is better for a woman to consider improving her metabolism before trying to shed weight.

There is another instance when food cravings gets out of hand and that is a condition known as adrenal fatigue and this means that when a person is under stress, or is insomniac, or has deprived sleep, it would lead to much exhaustion that in turn causes adrenal fatigue that makes the brain signal for help. In response to these signals, one may then take to eating sugar or even taking carbohydrates or even a cup of coffee, which leads to food cravings.

So, if you want to do something about your food cravings, you need to do more than deride yourself and thus not feel low all the time which will only contribute to the problem as there will be a constant need for more serotonin and thus emotional eating may result. So, in order to reduce your food cravings, you need to give your body the proper support that it needs and the best way to do so would be to eat nutritious food and even taking nutritional supplements along with moderate exercising will go a long way in curbing your food cravings.

If the thought of hypnotherapy freaks you out of your gourd, you don’t have to do it.  In fact, you CAN’T be hypnotized if you don’t want to be.  If you are going through a food addiction or are morbidly obese or need help curbing sugar cravings to improve your health, then you can feel safe knowing that there are natural and non-surgical options open to you.  You can get hypnotized either by a hypnotherapist or by yourself.

Dog Drool

Pavlov’s infamous experiments in proving that associations exist will explain how hypnotism works.  In his experiment, Pavlov rang a bell before feeding a dog.  Dogs drool at the sight of food.  After a few feeds, the dog began to drool as soon as the bell was rung.  The dog had associated the sound of the bell with yummies.  Hypnotism works in the same way in curbing sugar cravings.

You have a sugar addiction because your brain has associated certain sweet foods with comfort or love or fulfillment.  That has taken years to work its way through the layers of your consciousness into your subconscious.  When you become nervous or upset, you automatically crave sugar.  In hypnotism, you give your subconscious another message.  Perhaps it is “I am not hungry” or “All ice cream is really made out of dog drool.”

Ask For Help

You can always ask your doctor for help in curbing sugar cravings.  He or she might agree that hypnotism might help you.  He or she might be able to recommend a hypnotherapist in your area.  Keep in mind that hypnotherapy is rarely covered by medical insurance.  Contact your health insurance company to be sure.

If you already meditate or spend quiet time each day, then you may want to try self hypnotism to help with curbing sugar cravings.  They are easily available in shops and online.  You can just follow the suggested affirmations on the CD or write your own beforehand to say.  In hypnotism, you get very relaxed, but not enough to fall asleep.  Just before falling asleep is the state that the subconscious is most open to subliminal and hypnotic suggestions.

You can reinforce these suggestions in your battle curbing sugar cravings by writing the affirmations down and pinning them in places where you are sure to see them every day, like in your bathroom mirror or refrigerator door.  And take time out every day to have a good laugh.

Craving food is something that is quite common for most of us and even though we may make a conscious effort to deny ourselves an extra portion, there are times when the craving is so strong that it leaves us helpless. To make matters worse, the diet industry also will be hoping that you are not able to contain your craving food; otherwise, it would not be able to sell its products.

Realize What Foods You Eat That Make You Crave Them The Most

Still, there are certain things that you can do to control your craving food and the first thing that you need to do is to realize your cravings and know what foods you need to eat when you feel nervous or restless or even bored and which condition drives you to crave more food. You need to be brutally honest with yourself and you should even list all of the foods and things that make your craving food worse, and follow that up with having a good reason why you should abstain from overeating.

If you tell yourself you want to fit into a dress several sizes smaller then you will consciously also make an effort to not over indulge you with eating more food than is required, and such a process is termed as being a transformation which is really changing the level of consciousness and also perception of food that will result in a better, healthier and also livelier person which is somewhat akin to a butterfly effect in which caterpillars change to butterflies.

It is your craving food that will stand in the way of your being able to lose weight and every extra piece of cake or a nibble of cheese will be sure to add up and cause added weight on your body, and before you know it, your good resolutions will desert you and you will be back where you started - craving food. The worst part about such failures is that often it is not the overweight person that is at fault; rather, it is those unknown additives that are added to your foods that cause craving food which can lead to addiction and among the foods that cause such a condition one can mention chocolates, sugar, cheese and also meat.

So, if you realize that your craving food is due to physical addiction, you can hope to be able to counteract the condition and if you set your heart, body and soul into it, you could kick the habit in just three weeks though it does mean having to forego those foods that you crave for most. And, if you eat aplenty, use natural appetite suppressants, sleep well, maintain blood sugar levels, and eat plenty of fibrous foods you should be able to kick your craving food habits in just three weeks.