Dieting is tough, and we all need all of the help we can get. The yo-yo tendency to go without food typically comes back to bite you. You limit what you eat all day, and then, in a moment of weakness, you start bingeing and consume way more calories than you would have otherwise. How do you fight off cravings and stick to your diet?
In dieting, consistency is key. If you’re starving yourself of all of your favorite foods, it’s going to be hard to stick with things for long. Your body is going to fight back. You’re going to be wracked with cravings when you’re at your weakest. When you’re up late at night and no one else is around when you’re stressed out at work, or your kid hands you a snack that they don’t want to finish. What are you going to do?
The good news is that there are concrete things that you can do to fight cravings when they come. Of course, it’s always better to head cravings off before they get out of control. Part of sticking to your healthy diet is recognizing your mood and external conditions that trigger cravings. If you’re looking for help, here are 5 ways to beat your cravings and stick to your health plan.
1. Go to Sleep Early
Late-night snacking is horrible for your diet and your long-term health. People don’t make the best decisions when they are tired. One moment you’re watching a Netflix show, and then suddenly you’re making multiple trips to the pantry for chips, cookies, and other snacks. The problem is exacerbated because you’re not moving around. You’re going to go to bed with all of that sugar and all of those carbs sitting in your stomach. It’s going to convert to fat overnight and take even more work to work off when you get up.
Cut off your cravings by moving your bedtime up. Your body will thank you for getting more sleep, and you won’t eat irresponsibly as much. When you get more sleep, you’ll be more well-rested the next day. When a daytime craving comes your way, your brain and more will be more stable, and you’ll make better decisions when it comes to food. Get more sleep.
2. Drink More Water
Dieting is hard, as we’ve already stated. Your body is going to respond to the lack of food by making your stomach growl. You’ll also have trouble getting used to the feeling of eating less. There’s no grabbing candy from the cupboard when you have a break, and you stop drinking so many lattes with a ton of calories. Those are habits we build over years, and our bodies scream, “What’s going on!?” when it notices that our stomachs are empty.
Drinking a lot of water is a fantastic way to head off cravings. You’ll always have something in your stomach to prevent any sort of emotional or physical response. Drinking lots of water has other benefits as well. You’ll feel full faster when it’s time to eat, and drinking high amounts of water can speed up your metabolism. Your skin will look great and you’ll have better energy throughout the day.
3. The Potential of Peptides
Peptides have a lot of potential. One peptide, in particular, holds a lot of promise. Melanotan 2 https://www.peptidesciences.com/melanotan-2-10mg is a synthetic analog of the alpha-melanocyte-stimulating hormone. It was developed in the 1980s, and it’s effective in stimulating melanocytes. MT-2 can affect oxytocin signaling. Research in rats shows that administration of MT-2 reduced alcohol consumption in the rats that preferred drinking alcohol. It appears to have tapped into underlying triggers of cravings and desires and how oxytocin impacts craving pathways in the brain. Melanotan 2 is not yet FDA approved for human use. It is still undergoing much scientific research for future medical possibilities.
4. Stay Busy
Of course, a great way to beat a craving is to stay busy so it doesn’t have a chance to take hold in your mind. Cravings start as a thought that flashes across your mind. If you allow it, it takes root, and then it starts bouncing around in your brain, almost forcing you to act on it. It seems that keeping it in there or fighting it off only makes things worse. You tell yourself to cave to the craving just to get it out of your head.
Staying busy, though, helps you shift your focus so you’re not zoned in on what you are craving. If you’re at a computer, stand up and take a walk. Go talk to a colleague, or throw on your shoes and go for a walk. You need to change your environment to help you stop thinking about whatever it is that you are craving.
5. Have Plenty of Healthy Snacks
You need to have healthy snacks on hand to satiate your mind to beat your craving. This can be a sort of double-edged sword if the snacks aren’t right. If you hate carrot sticks, for example, eating them won’t really satisfy you. You’ll end up eating the carrot sticks and then going back for whatever it was that you were craving.
Healthy snacks that you enjoy eating are key to beating your craving. Thankfully, there is plenty available now. You can find healthy snacks that taste amazing and are low-calorie, so you can satisfy your craving without any sort of self-sabotage. Whether it’s baked pea snaps, sliced vegetables, popcorn, or some other low-calorie snack, there are things you can eat to beat back your cravings for chocolate cake or anything else you haven’t had for a while.
In the end, you have to learn the signals that tell you craving is coming, and do the work necessary to stop cravings before they snowball. With the right amount of sleep, focusing on your physical health, using peptides and other supplements, and other health measures, you can beat your cravings and stick to your nutrition plan. That way, you’ll meet your goals faster and stop seeing that yo-yo back and forth that so many people deal with for years.
