FOOD THOUGHTS, GOOD or BAD FOR US? Yesterday, it crossed my mind (a little pun intended) how good this or that unhealthy food would be. I could almost taste key lime pie; I wanted to savor a big dish of homemade gooey, gooey, cheese an macaroni; I felt the need for pizza loaded with the goodies; or even a Snickers bar. Now, that I have you drooling with me; I have to explain how I removed those thoughts out of my conditioned mind and had delicious healthy food instead.
I found a great informative article which is a wonderful guide to tell us what to do when carb and sugar cravings take over our mental state. I have always said “Eating right is 90% mental attitude and 10% discipline. This may be hard to absorb but this article on Brain Fit makes a lot of sense. http://bebrainfit.com/control-carb-cravings/ (you can go to this link for the entire article….time well spent if you want to understand why we “think about food so much”. Here are excerpts from the article.
The Best Tips for Controlling Carb Cravings
By Deane Alban
The addictive nature of carb cravings changes brain functions. The remedy is to address the underlying causes. Learn the best ways to control your cravings.
You may have the best intentions of cutting down on unhealthy carbohydrates, but sometimes carb cravings can make it very hard to resist temptation.
Willpower alone won’t cut it since it’s a limited resource that gets used up. Before you know it, you’re looking in the fridge or cupboard for goodies.
That’s why addressing the underlying causes of carb cravings is the key to controlling them.
Here’s everything you need to know for banishing cravings once and for all: eating strategies, dietary supplements and a collection of emergency tips from some of my favorite nutrition experts.
Controlling Carb Cravings: It Starts with Food
The number one cause of carb cravings is actually eating sugar and other refined carbohydrates.I’m not talking about the naturally occurring sugar found in a carrot or an apple.
I’m talking about refined sugars that are hidden in processed foods.
Processed foods make up 70% of the American diet and virtually all of them contain added sugar. (1)
This is not a coincidence!
Michael Moss, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The New York Times, reveals in his book Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us, that food manufacturers like Kraft and Nestlé create processed foods that are intentionally addictive.
They hire teams of scientists to create products that achieve the perfect blend of salt, sugar, fat, and additives known as the “bliss point” to make these foods irresistible. (2)
These processed foods flood your brain with dopamine, the brain chemical in charge of your pleasure-reward system.
In this way, being addicted to junk food is not much different than being addicted to drugs, alcohol, nicotine, shopping, porn, online gaming, or gambling.
Remember, sugar is not a food.
It is an isolated chemical with zero nutritive value that alarmingly may be as addictive as heroin and cocaine! (3)
The next time you feel like your carb cravings are a sign of weakness, understand that powerful forces have spent billions of dollars figuring out how to hijack your taste buds and, more importantly, your brain.
But this doesn’t mean there’s nothing you can do.
Say No to Sugar
The best thing you can do to stop carb cravings for good is to “just say no” once and for all to processed foods, meaning foods with added sugar.
The first step for avoiding sugar is to take an unflinching look at your diet to see where it might be hidden.
Avoiding sugar can be harder than you think since it goes by dozens of other names and is found in abundance even in foods we’ve all been told are healthy.
This includes energy bars, cereal, fruit juice, smoothies, multigrain crackers, and low-fat yogurt.
Here you’ll find a list of alternatives names for sugar that manufacturers use to sneak it into processed foods.
Say Yes to Protein, Fat, and Fiber
Eating either too little fat or too little protein will have you raiding the pantry for unhealthy carbs.
So will eating too few overall calories.
What should you eat instead?
Your diet should include plenty of high quality protein like grass-fed meat, wild seafood, and eggs, and healthy fats like nuts, nut butters, olive oil, coconut oil, and avocados.
I have only added the first part of this article so it will spark your interest to go to the link listed above. This article tells us some supplements we can take to eliminate our craving thoughts and this helps get us on the path of eating what is fantastic tasting. We have been “brain-washed” to believe we need those empty calories, and the more we think about them, the more we eat them, and then we crave more and more. This is an intentional move by the food industry and we should rebel by eating healthy, fresh, less preservatives or none, and natural sugars found in carrots or fruits. We are what we eat, but we eat what we think about! Change your thoughts and your life will be free from the dangers of hidden sugars, chemicals, and other harmful additives.(C) Copyright 2012-2016 Arline Miller blog with all rights reserved. 3rd Party Information and Articles are sourced for credit and linked to original articles.
