Top Five Tips to Handle Your Cravings and Why I Hate Them

Currently I'm on a weight loss plan that has helped me lose over 40 pounds. I look much better in my jeans, but I still have some weight to lose before I reach a healthy BMI. I want to have a healthy life and future and I would love to wear a bikini someday. But you know what else? I want to eat. I want to sit down at a huge buffet table filled with cakes, cookies, pizza, hamburgers and any other greasy food I can think of. Then I want to gorge myself. Sometimes I mention to people that I just want to eat. That I'm sick of depriving myself of foods that I actually want to eat and inevitably they have advice for me. I've tried that advice and here is why I think it just doesn't work.

Tip #1: Why don't you try this light version of apple pie? It tastes just the same.
Okay, am I the only person in the world who realizes that taking out all of the fat from something and adding a sugar substitute does not leave it tasting the same? Seriously, if diet products truly tasted the same we wouldn't even still have the original versions. Fat-free milk for instance tastes like bluish white water to me. If I want water, I'll drink water without the blue-white tint. Its true that you can fool your mind for a while into believing that a sugar substitute has the same quality of sweetness to it that real sugar does. But in my experience you realize what you've been missing as soon as you taste the real thing again. Ever had a real Coke after weeks of drinking Diet Coke? Yeah, its like that.

Tip #2 Try having just a small piece of brownie instead of the whole thing.
Perhaps its because I grew up in the era of "finish everything on your plate" that this sounds like torture to me. Somehow having a small piece doesn't make me feel that I've satisfied my craving for a brownie. Instead I'm left feeling like I left my front door unlocked. You know that nagging feeling that you forgot to do something you should have done? And so I spend a significant amount of time lamenting over the poor half piece of brownie that has been left by its counterpart before I break down and eat the other half the brownie. Then I feel as if something has been completed.

Tip #3 Try a different food that you the same texture or taste as what you are craving.
Are you kidding me? If you've wanted hot salty french fries all day how you feel if I shoved some hot salty light popcorn in your face that evening? Sure they're both hot and salty, but corn is not fried potatoes. It will never be fried potatoes. These are also the people who suggest to me that I should try baked apples if I want apple pie or broccoli cream soup (made with skim milk of course) if I want alfredo. I'll let you decide how satisfying that sounds.

Tip # 4 Maybe you're not really hungry. You may be just thirsty. Try drinking a glass of water and reassessing how you feel.
This statement more than any other insults my intelligence. Basically I'm too stupid to know if I'm hungry or not. But, if you had listened you'd know I never said I was hungry, what I said was that I wanted to eat. These are two entirely separate things which are not at all related. The majority of the time when I want5 to eat I am not hungry and I don't nee3d to read a book in order to know that. I eat because I'm stressed, tired, angry, happy or bored. I know that's a problem but drinking a glass of water is not going to solve it.

Tip # 5 Try cleaning out your kitchen. You'll go into the refrigerator for a snack, but you won't get into your car and drive to the store for it.
These people don't know me. Enough said.

We've come to belive that losing weight can be so easy and simple with advice like this, but its not. Losing weight is hard work that requires serious lifestyle changes. I know this. So when I tell you I want to eat, look me in the eye and say to me "too bad". Either I'll eat or I won't but giving me advice probably won't change which one I do.