How To Eliminate Junk Food Cravings Once And For All
Junk food sells. The junk food (snacks + fast food) market is driven by demand. People love chips, cookies, crackers, and candies. The annual combined revenue for snacks and fast foods is somewhere in the neighborhood of 190 billion. To put this in prospective, revenue in the fast food industry alone has grown from 6 billion in 1970 to 160 billion in 2013. And there is no end in sight. New products are constantly being developed and fast food restaurants are popping up on just about every city corner in the U.S.
There would seem to be a correlation between junk foods and obesity. The cities with the most fast food restaurants have the fattest populations. Go to the grocery store the people with all the snack junk foods in their basket are the most overweight. So, why is the demand for junk food so high? Is it marketing? Are we all domed to becoming fat and obese? Or is there a way to fight back and take control of your health, by eliminating junk food cravings, once and for all?
Why do people crave junk food?
Fast/snack foods primarily get you hooked because food manufacturers are highly skilled at combining salt, sugar, and fat that excites your brain to make you want more and more. Remember the Lay’s potato chip ad “I Bet You Can’t Eat Just One,” well there’s a reason. Potatoes are a starch (sugar). Slice them thin, fry them in oil (fat), and add lots of salt and you have the secret to Lay’s success. You will find this trilogy of ingredients as the driving force behind the consumption of all processed, snack, and fast foods. The subject runs deeper but here are the basics: all junk foods are loaded with salt, sugar and fat.
5 Step Solution to Eliminate Junk Food Cravings
- One Ingredient Diet – This is simple enough, only eat foods that are one ingredient. This includes meats, vegetables, fruits, nut, seeds, beans, and eggs. Don’t worry yourself with popular diets, e.g. low carbohydrates and low fat, just remember one ingredient.
- Don’t eat after dinner – Finish eating dinner at least 3 hours before bedtime. Don’t interrupt the fasting period – the time between your last meal and breakfast should be 11 to 12 hours. Constantly interrupting the fasting period throwing your hormone out of balance increases your risk of catching diseases and weight gain.
- Eat 2 – 3 meals a day – Space meals 5 hours, or more, apart. This allows for insulin and glucagon to do their jobs. Insulin is highest within 3 hours after consuming a meal. Its job is to carry calories to other locations throughout your body. During this time the body is in storage mood and cannot burn fat. Three to five hours after eating insulin levels should be returning to pre-meal levels. In turn the hormone glucagon rises; glucagon allows the body to regulate the utilization of sugar (glucose) and fats. One of the duties of glucagon is breaking down stored fat into fatty acids for use as fuel for cells. So snacking between meals interrupts this fat burning process and keeps you in a fed mood (fat storage). This is a simple explanation to a complex process but the take away is that insulin and glucagon hormones work together to keep blood sugar (glucose) levels balanced.
- Don’t overeat – Always stop eating when you are slightly less than full. Let physical activity drive your eating. The more active you or the more strenuously you exercise the more you should eat. Determine how much you will serve yourself before you start putting food on your plate. Once it’s on the plate you will likely eat it.
- Don’t eat when stressed – This is easier said than done, stress drives us to emotional, uncontrolled eating. Stress causes the release of two hormones: adrenalin, which gives us instant energy, and cortisol, which helps us replenish energy after stress. Cortisol stays elevated well after the stress has passed. This increases your appetite and makes you overeat. Stress management is a must for our busy modern day lives. Meditation has been shown to be a powerful tool in combating stress. Also strenuous exercise like Burst Training is great for reducing cortisol. Stress is not going away, but there are ways we can reduce and properly deal with it.
Junk food is here to stay. Government policies won’t slow down the sales. It’s up to you to take control of your health today by implementing these 5 steps. If you find these steps useful, please leave me a comment. BFIT DON’T QUIT!
Peace and Happiness
Thank you, for reading
Jawanza
Blog, Personal Training, Semi Private Training, Group Fitness, Bootcamp, Bastrop, South Austin 