Handling Sugar, Fat and Salt Cravings

Many people who are addicted to overeating are addicted to either sugar, fat or salt. This is because these are three things that give stimulate the pleasure centers of our brains and calm us.

Battling a Sugar Addiction

To get rid of a sugar addiction you need to substitute it with foods that are still sweet but a bit better for you in terms of calories and nutrition. Vegetables such as squash, sweet potatoes and yams can help satiate the yearning for sweeter and creamy foods. Another good substitute is fruit, which has less calories than cake or ice cream.

Sometimes the urge to eat rich creamy things can indicate a shortage of calcium..  To help cut down on cravings for ice cream or cheese try taking calcium supplements, eating calcium rich foods like oysters, broccoli or Swiss chard and drinking low fat skim milk to balance the body out.

Fighting Fat Addiction

People who crave fat might have an anger issue or a bit of an oral fixation.

Craving fat is very primal as neoprimitive man used to eat the flesh of slaughtered animals that were still warm. This still awakens the pleasure centers of our brains. This is why stuffing warm fatty foods in our mouths helps calm us down. Fat also has nutritionists and dieticians call “mouth feel.”  Foods that are good for us often lack the satisfying feeling that fat has orally.

There are very few snacks that mimic the taste of fat but sometimes eating avocado, low fat butters and dipping bread in olive oil can have the same sort o mouth full. Muffins cooked with dates instead of butter might also have the same richness as fat.

Substituting for Salt

Sometimes overeaters crave salt because their bodies need more sodium. One remedy for this is to include more vegetables in your diet as vegetables contain a healthy form of sodium. A good substitute for high sodium dishes such as Chinese food or French fries is sushi. Both the seaweed and the raw fish are composed of healthy amounts of sea salt.

Drinking an excess of cola, coffee or alcohol can cause a shortage of sodium in the blood. If you are craving a bag of salty, greasy potato chips at the end of the day the culprit might actually be that martini you had last night or those two cups of coffee you had in the morning.

Many cravings have no physical basis at all. The key is to stop seeing food as a magic bullet to cure emotional problems and address your personal issues so that you do not develop chronically unhealthy eating habits that can undermine your weight loss.