Life with a Twist by Mare_Petras

"I'm not going to lie: There are times I play mind tricks on myself, like that the french fries are poison. With desserts, I'll let myself have just one bite, but I'll look like a freak when I'm eating it, like when I did Duncan Hines commercials as a kid, just savoring every morsel."  - Fergie of The Black-Eyed Peas, Elle

When dealing with your food cravings, realbuzz friends, can you relate to Fergie’s “trick or treat” strategies?

I’ll never forget the time a personal training client showed up to a session overcome with pride: “Mare, last night, I was craving a piece of chocolate, but didn’t give in!”

Then, she proceeded to tell me how she resisted: “First, I ate a Granny Smith apple. That was a good choice, right?”

Before I could respond, she went on.” I was still hungry so I ate a banana, then another, and because I started craving crunchy, salty, I ate two ounces of whole wheat fat-free pretzels.” She was beaming as she concluded that she washed it all down with two cups of sugar-free hot cocoa.

“But it was all good-for-you food, Mare, so it didn’t really count did it?” 

As you can see, my client’s attempt to be “good” earned her a whopping 606 calories, and given her food choices, she just may have set herself up for more cravings down the road.

According to nutritional guru Donna Manring, a better approach may have been to choose “balanced” sweets like a few chocolate-covered almonds which curb sweet cravings and provide enough protein and fat to balance sugar intake. Besides satisfying the craving, this strategy helps avoid spikes in blood sugar levels which are often the culprit in sugar cravings.

Chew on this

Food relationship expert Geneen Roth and author of When You Eat at the Refrigerator, Pull Up a Chair encourages developing a healthy relationship with food. Her approach includes mindfully giving into your cravings -- learning to control food rather than letting food control you. She has two rules: 1) control your portions and 2) savor the experience.

One of Roth’s favorite tips is to slip a piece of chocolate in her purse before meeting friends for dinner, and when her dinner partners order dessert, she pulls out her chocolate bit and (much like Fergie) “savors every morsel.”  

I’m not saying that all calories are created equal, they’re not. But just think, realbuzz friends, had my client given in to and handled her craving by mindfully savoring a few chocolate-covered almonds (13 @ 210), she could’ve saved herself a whopping 400 calories and had her chocolate, too!  

How about you, realbuzz friends? What foods do you crave? What are some of your strategies for controlling your cravings?

Do you:

a. treat yourself, mindfully savoring each morsel.

b. treat yourself, mindlessly overeating.

c. fight your cravings by eating everything else in sight.

d. ignore your cravings and eat healthy alternatives.

e. have no cravings.

With Halloween behind us (and if you’re like me, candy leftovers aplenty), the holiday season is officially here. Food junkies take heed: Don’t be left with your hand in the candy bowl or head in the refrigerator. Arm yourself with a plan that helps you to consciously deal with your food cravings.

Btw, have you heard about the Halloween Candy Buy-Back program? Take your leftover candy to a participating dentist who in turn will pay $1 a pound and send the treats to the troops overseas.

Until next time . . . a slowly-savoring Mare