by Arjun Wadhwa

Created on: December 26, 2008

Cravings for fatty foods ruin many diets. Most people that are on a diet will not be able to last a long time if they are not able to conquer their cravings. It is not impossible to avoid certain foods while eating others more often, but most people don't know how to control their cravings.

Cravings can be conquered by following these steps:

* Don't buy foods that you crave: Most cravings are unhealthy cravings and not buying unhealthy foods is the first step to control craving. When there are no burgers or butter in the house, you are not going to be able to eat any. Many people buy unhealthy foods and plan to eat them at family get together, or an event, but most of them end up eating all the food within a few days. No unhealthy foods, no craving.

* Motivational Image: What is your ideal body? Who is your favorite model? Put an image of someone with a great body on your fridge or kitchen door. This will stop you every time you go to kitchen to eat anything unhealthy. Just imagine how hard that model works to maintain his/her body and try to work as hard as them. They wouldn't have eaten anything unhealthy, and your goal should be similar. Some models might be too skinny or built, try to find a type of body that you yourself can have.

* Drink Water: When your stomach is full, your cravings will stop. A healthy way to fill the stomach is to drink lots of water. Everyone should drink 2-3 liters of water everyday. Drink two glasses of water before eating a meal or before a craving. Avoid drinking too much water because this will result in over hydration.

* Eat healthy foods: Shove a healthy snack in your mouth every time you get a craving. This will make your stomach full and kill your hunger/craving. Healthy snacks such as carrots, granola bars are high in fiber and will fill your stomach faster than most other foods.

* Eat the food that you crave in small portions: Sometimes it is best to just eat a small portion of the food that you crave throughout the day rather than eating all of it in one meal. This will make your metabolism going throughout the day and make your cravings much less severe. You can also reward yourself once in a while with the foods that you crave and this will actually lessen the craving.

Foods that most people crave are:

- Potato chips

- Pizza

- Burgers

- Chocolates

- Wings, nuggets, fried chicken

As you can see, all of these foods are unhealthy and if you have a craving then follow the steps above to get rid of it. If the steps above do not help, consult a doctor or a dietician, because the problem might be more complicated such as germs, disease, drug overdose, etc, and in this case it might be impossible to conquer cravings because the food is not being used to the fullest potential.

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