How to Curb Food Cravings: Twenty-Eight Ways to Avoid Mindless Binge Snacking

Trying to stop yourself from going on a snacking spree? A good way to keep yourself from binge eating is to try to keep yourself busy for at least 20 minutes to see if the craving goes away. The key is to keep yourself busy in some activity that occupies your mouth or hands so that you cannot eat food.

1. First drink a full eight ounce glass of cold ice water. Sometimes when you feel hungry you are really just thirsty or bored. Studies show that ice water burns more calories than hot or tepid water.

2. Try drinking green tea, which can curb cravings. Spearmint tea can also work.

3. Do your nails. Put on a coat of nail polish so it has to dry first.

4. Slather on hand cream to make your hands too sticky.

5. Do some beauty/spa treat for yourself. Coat your hands with a mud treatment, a paraffin wax treatment, or moisturize them with Vaseline and cover with socks for 20 minutes. No treatments in the house? Mix honey and sugar or olive oil and sugar into a paste and use on your hands or feet to exfoliate.

6. Do dishes or something else that gets your hands too wet or dirty to munch on food.

7. Go on an exercise machine like a stairmaster or treadmill. Not your thing? Try gentle stretching instead.

8. Take a drive without any snack money.

9. Take a shower or a bath

10. Clean the oven

11. Mop the floor

12. Clean something very, very dirty. If you find something revolting enough to clean, you probably won't feel like eating for awhile.

13. Wash the car

14. Read out loud

15. defrost the freezer

16. re pot plants

17. Call a friend on the phone.

18. Do weeding in the garden

19. Floss your teeth

20. Put a crest white strip on your teeth - you cannot eat for at least 20 minutes while wearing the strip and you should not eat for at least 1 hour after the strip comes off

21. Color or highlight your hair

22. Brush your teeth with a minty toothpaste so that you do not feel like eating for a few minutes.

23. Chew Orbit gum for a similar affect

24. Jump rope

25. Soak your cuticles in warm olive oil for 15 minutes.

26. Do an exercise like lunges or jumping jacks

27. Pick a household cleaning chore such as emptying all the waste baskets in the house.

28. Take a brief nap.

If after you spend twenty minutes doing something else, you tried green tea or water and have clearly established that you are not just thirsty, consider what would be a lower calorie, nutritious snack. The fiber in fruit helps you lose weight or popcorn can be filling.

If you know you are going to eat no matter what, spend the time preparing a healthy snack that will be filling so you don't eat everything in sight.