Why do we crave unhealthy foods? A healthy weight loss diet program often becomes a battleground between our desire to lose weight quickly, and our cravings for snacks based on unhealthy food choices. We may not He is What we eat, but research suggests we are wishes Foods we are used to eating, so you could say we are badly wanted what do we eat If you’ve developed a pattern of eating ice cream for pleasure or under stress, it’s no wonder that you’ll crave ice cream under the right circumstances. Pavlov’s dog, by any other name, is still Pavlov’s dog.
But if we do, in fact, train ourselves to crave unhealthy snacks or foods, the opposite may also be true: We can train ourselves to crave healthy snacks and food. If we can do this, a nice tasting weight loss supplement could become just as desirable as a sweet roll.
I never craved coffee until I started drinking it. Same goes for the double chocolate chip ice cream. The taste of coffee and chocolate must be learned through exposure to these foods and their flavors. If people living in more primitive cultures in the jungle can crave to snack on the creepy crawly insects unique to their environment, then surely we can develop our desire to have a decent healthy snack, healthy fast food, and healthy food recipe options when preparing meals.
So how do we reprogram ourselves to turn our sweet cravings into something on our healthy food list? To quote a line from a movie, “Make it and they’ll come.” In this case, if we build a habit of making healthy food choices at meal and snack time, we will start craving these foods instead of the ones we gave up.
There is a lot of pleasure associated with these snacking experiences, and most of us are reluctant to give it up. But if we can get ourselves to substitute some healthy food recipes and simple snacks, we can train our mental and physical taste buds to crave it, and a new pleasure association will be formed around a new healthy food choice or recipe.
Recent research has proven this. The results show that new cravings can be formed to replace the old ones, although the new ones are based on bland, healthy foods, and the original ones were the tried and true foods with the most delicious fat and sugar. The best news? It may only take one week to do this.
I covered some healthy snack ideas to use to retrain our cravings in another article. (It contains healthy snack ideas that also apply to kids.) For now, I’m just going to give a few examples of healthy snack food alternatives.
If you don’t want such a shock to your taste buds right out of the gate, you can make it a two-step process in some cases. For example, when the seemingly uncontrollable craving for chocolate ice cream strikes, have a cup of coffee or a cup of chocolate ovaltine and milk instead. Ovaltine is not the same as an unwanted chocolate milk mixture for children. Think of it instead as a healthy fast food snack. It contains vitamins and minerals, and if you’re using one or two tablespoons instead of the recommended four, don’t get too much sugar.
Step two: Purchase a chocolate-flavored whey protein blend from your local health food supplier (or the flavor of your choice) and use it in place of Ovaltine. These protein supplements are nothing like they used to be. In the past, they wouldn’t blend without a blender, and they tasted really bad. Not so anymore. They mix quickly by stirring or shaking, and the flavors are very good. Trust me.
You’ve now turned your bouts of fat and sugar ice cream into a healthy fast food option: a protein supplement! Plus, it’s more filling and satisfying. You wouldn’t be tempted to eat anything as quickly as you could if you gave up and ate ice cream.
Don’t think this will work? Well, I can confirm that personally, and tests on regular people like us have proven the same. In fact, it worked when nutritional but super healthy recipes and snack alternatives were used instead of the usual sweet treats, and in just one week. In fact, people craved the taste of healthy snack foods rather than the unhealthy old foods.
Go ahead and try it. You’ll be craving healthy foods and snacks in no time.