Craving Control Solutions

Craving control can seem impossible on a raw food diet unless you understand why you are cravings sweets and other unhealthy foods. Often, there are three mistakes people make that cause cravings and three easy solutions to prevent them.

Being healthy and thin doesn't have to result in the endless circle of dieting and binging. Once I discovered how my body works and what it needs, controlling cravings become effortless.

Craving Control Solution - Gimmee Sugar!

Simple sugar from fruit is what the body prefers to run on. Carbohydrates give us energy, the muscles and the brain need carbs to function. Even on a low carb diet the body has to turn protein and fat into carbs for useable energy.

This is why cravings sweets is so common on a low carb diet and people end up bingeing on cookies, cake, ice cream, candy, etc. Your body is really just trying to tell you that it needs carbohydrates from sugar. But processed carbs made with white sugar and grains are acidic complex carbs devoid of nutrients.

What the body needs is fruit!

However, the problem is we are afraid to eat more than one piece. In our society we think of fruit as a snack or dessert. When I started a raw food diet I had to overcome the voice in my head that persisted on reminding me that too much sugar is bad. But over time, as I felt better and better and more and more weight melted off, that voice faded into the background, at last defeated.

Even now, if I do not eat enough fruit my old cravings will resurface. It isn't that my body actually needs fried potato chips or pizza. These cravings come on because my body needs more calories and my brain recalls how it successfully obtained these calories in the past.

When starting a raw food diet, it is immensely important to count calories because you will not be used to eating so much fruit. But a simple rule to go by is this: If you are hungry or feel a binge coming on, eat fruit! Eat all the fruit you care for until you are completely and utterly full.

A common mistake I hear many people make is they eat too much fat on a raw food diet. Although fat may satiate you temporarily, in the end you may have problems with craving control because the body prefers to use carbs for energy, rather than turn fat into carbs. Making fat 10% of my total calories each day has seemed to really curb any cravings and let me look and feel my best.

So how much fruit should you be eating? It depends how active you are, how tall you are, whether or not you are just starting a raw food diet, and many other factors.

I am 5'7 and I run for a half hour generally every day and do some body weight exercises. I shoot for 1700 calories and here is what a typical raw food diet menu looks like for me:

Breakfast: Water or green tea

Lunch: 8 large oranges - 600 calories

Snack: 2 mangoes - 200 calories

Dinner: Salad with tomatoes, dates, 1/4 avocado, olives, peppers - 400 calories

Dessert: Smoothie with 4 bananas and strawberries - 500 calories

Greens - A Pound a Day Keeps the Cravings Away

But although the main reason cravings surface tends to be lack of calories from fruit, the body also sends out signals via cravings when it needs a certain nutrient - or nutrients.

Eating all fruit and not enough greens will deplete most people of essential minerals they need and cause craving control issues. Greens are full of calcium, in particular, that can't be found in the same amounts in fruit.

For quite some time I neglected greens in my diet and ate a lot of fruit. I felt great at first but over time I developed this feeling of not being totally satisfied. I was counting calories and the whole bit but I still felt like something was missing.

It wasn't until I read Green For Life by Victoria Boutenko that I realized just how important greens really are. I began to follow Dr. Graham's advice that we consume 1-2 pounds a day and I immediately felt a world of difference. I was finally satiated and now I am devoted to my one pound salads.

If you dread the thought of chewing all that lettuce then make green smoothies. They are the perfect way to get a large amount of greens and minerals into your body in just a few gulps, and they will taste sweet and delicious if you make them right.

Craving Control Solution - Move Your Muscles

There is actually 3 times more lymph fluid in our bodies than blood...but we have to keep it moving. How? Exercise!

Unlike the circulatory system, the lymphatic system doesn't have a heart to pump its fluid so it relies on us to get things going. If things get backed up a number of nasty symptoms will develop such as headaches, depression, acne, weight gain, cramps, arthritis, joint pain, etc.

So how does this relate to craving control? I have noticed that when I don't exercise, even for one day, some bad cravings start to emerge. Why? When old waste gets backed up in the body it feels...well...uncomfortable and I want to eat bad foods to mask that feeling and dumb it down.

But as soon as I go for a good run I feel 10 times better all these cravings disappear and I am more than content with some fruit and a salad.

It is even probable that my lymph system is bringing out waste from old bad foods that cause cravings for those same foods, much like a drug addict will want the drugs they are detoxing from as it leaves their system.

Another advantage of exercise is that it helps generate true hunger. Too often we eat out of boredom or emotional reasons but when you eat because you are actually hungry it leaves you with a feeling of complete satisfaction.

You won't get this same kind of satisfaction if you eat only because you are bored or stressed, and so you will have cravings to eat more to achieve this desired feeling.

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