3 Ways To Stop Cravings And Make Your Diet Work For You

Andre Brown

Reach your fat loss goals while enjoying life by using these 3 diet tips below

The are so many ways to DIET nowadays but most aren't sustainable in the long run. The reasons for this are a lot of diets focus on taking things to the extreme. Low calorie diets are a prime example of this. You only end eating 800-1200 calories a day, and yes you will lose weight at first but after a while your progress will stall. Your body can't deal with eating this little for very long.

Due to being deprived you will most likely end up bingeing and completely blowing your diet. Low-carb diets are another choice to avoid since eating carbs gives you energy. Getting an adequate intake of carbohydrates will enhance your mood and promote sleep. It has been proven that low-carb diets drop testosterone levels. Carbs and fats are very important to include to make your diet enjoyable.

What losing body fat ultimately comes down to is finding what foods keep you the most satisfied. Then simply fitting them into your calorie deficit for fat loss. Are you never going to eat carbs again?

Chances are, probably not. I actually do best when I diet if I’m able to fit some dark chocolate into my daily caloric intake. So how do you stop cravings once-and-for-all on your diet? Well you're about to find out.

Use Intermittent Fasting

You may ask what is intermittent fasting? I'm going to explain it to you in the simplest terms. IF is a period when you fast between your last meal at night and your first meal the next day. How long people do this varies widely depending on individual preferences. However the most common is 16/8, so you fast for 16 hours and eat your meals within an 8 hour window.

It's also important to note that every person does some sort of fasting, whether you realize it or not. When you are sleeping, you are in a fasting period. Therefore you aren't eating anything for 6-8 hours before you have breakfast in the morning. It is primarily for this reason, that your meal in the morning is called "breakfast" as you are literally breaking your fast.

The Most Important Meal of The Day? Intermittent Fasting Tackles the Common Misconception of Breakfast!

In the IF world, breakfast is a highly talked about topic and a matter a fact it seems to cause confusion for people looking in on IF from the outside. Don't we need to eat breakfast everyday? This is the reason why. For years you have been told that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. You were told it gives you the energy to think and without it your performance would suffer because you would be hungry and tired.

In fact you may even been scolded by your doctor if you have been skipping breakfast-a common situation for people looking to lose weight. By the way: a study back in 2008shows that participants who ate a huge filling breakfast lost more weight than those who didn't. The takeaway here from the results state that the higher caloric intake earlier in the day led to people eating less often and consuming fewer calories during the day. Now let's back to Intermittent Fasting.

You see, insulin sensitivity is lower during the morning; it's actually highest after the 6-10 hour fasting periods you experience while asleep. Ultimately, this means that eating breakfast in the morning isn't special and there is no need for it. Remember, the most important part is the length of your fast, not what time you fast. You can choose whatever time you want that suits you based on your schedule. Forgoing eating breakfast just happens to be the easiest way to get into Intermittent fasting.

Frequency : Intermittent Fasting VS The Myth Of Eating Every 2-3 Hours

This is the most important and my last point. You don't have to eat every 2-3 hours to lose weight. This isn't fun and you will won't be able to enjoy big satisfying meals. I tried eating six meals a day in the past, I was always hungry because I wasn't eating a lot. The answer to this solution is to eat 2-3 big meals each day. You see, this is the beauty of IF.

You skip breakfast by pushing your first meal back until last in the day. Eating a big lunch and dinner will help you stay full in between your meals. Drinking water first thing in the morning helps with curbing your appetite.

When you feel hungry, drink 2 cups of black coffee to blunt your appetite again until your first meal. The end result is that you will eat less overall during the day since your large meals will keep you full for hours. You can finally lose fat by eating delicious meals as long they fit into your daily caloric intake.

Have A Flexible Diet

Basically, nothing is off limits! As long as you hit your calories and macros, you can enjoy the foods you want! Naturally, this has put flexible dieting under intense scrutiny. Many people hate on flexible dieting, because they think it is going to result in eating junk food all the time. But in reality, I actually enjoy flexible dieting as being the most sustainable way to eat.

I mean you can do it forever with any negative effects as long as you do it in moderation. So you get to enjoy the healthy natural foods you like to eat, which you should be doing in the first place. But you can still enjoy yourself by eating your favorite treats as well. So if you want to eat some ice cream or Pop Tarts for a snack then go ahead, I won't hold it against you! It will help you stick to your diet by eating the foods you crave instead of eliminating them completely.

For me, it's delicious filling meals such as this:

Funny enough, just by having the freedom to know that you can eat whatever you want often reduces the desire to eat junk food. If you try to eat 100% clean, you will usually have intense cravings, and binge eat on junk all the time. But here’s the other interesting point, ‘natural foods’ don’t necessarily keep you full. For example, brown rice and nuts are considered very healthy by a lot of people. Yet, for the most part, they are not very filling. On the contrary, dark chocolate, potatoes, and sweet potatoes are very filling.

What Is A Macronutrient'?

A macronutrient is any of the nutritional components of the diet that are required in relatively large amounts. There are three macronutrients required by human beings: carbohydrates, healthy fats, and proteins. Each of these macros provides energy in the form of calories. For example:

• In carbohydrates, there are 4 calories per gram
• In proteins, there are 4 calories per gram
• And in healthy fats, there are 9 calories per gram

This means that if you look at a food label and it lists 30 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of protein, and 0 grams of fat, that food would contain 120 calories. You plan your daily meals to provide you with a certain amount of protein, carbohydrates and fat, based on your goal (losing fat or building muscle). It’s one form of calorie counting, since your macro’s will fill out a certain amount of calories you need to consume each day.For example, if I want to gain weight I usually eat 3200 calories per day. These 3200 calories consist of 130 protein, 100 fats and 330 carbs.

As long as I hit those “macro” targets every day, the foods I eat to reach those targets with will not negatively affect my body composition. My protein could either come from salmon or from a nice juicy steak, my carbs from oatmeal or candy and my fats from olive oil or dark chocolate. As long as I hit the macro’s for the day, I will lose fat or build muscle depending on my goal.

Eat Junkfood And Lose Fat? It’s Not Healthy.

You can actually lose weight by eating Popeyes and gorging on junk food all day. But that doesn't mean you should. The problem with overly processed foods is they don't have the adequate nutrients needed to promote good health. Not to mention they are typically made with ingredients you can't pronounce. Here's a good tip, if a food item has an ingredient that's hard to spell you probably shouldn't be eating it too often. This can lead to a host of health problems that you don't need. On top of that;

• Consuming increased amounts of high-glycemic index carbohydrates are associated with increased risk for chronic disease.
• Too much low-quality processed meat may increase your risk of cancer
• Trans Fats (found in many processed and junk foods) will increase the risk of heart disease, diabetes, infertility and more.

I apply the following principles to my diet and those of my clients;

– 80-90% of your daily calories should be from healthy (micronutrient-dense) foods.

– LIMIT the amount of trans fats you eat.

– Drink 16 ounces of water first thing in the morning followed by 2 cups of black coffee before your first meal.

– Meal timing does not matter. As long as you hit your set macro and caloric targets, you will be fine.

One of the biggest problems people face when dieting is that they get to a point where they just can’t eat chicken breast and broccoli no longer and one bite of something sweet leads to an all-out binge.

You can always refer to this article if you need a refresher. Let me know how this article has impacted you and leave a comment below. Feel free to join my community(The Jawann Fitness Exercise & Health Community on Facebook) if you want even more tips and also checkout my page on Facebook Jawann Fitness for motivational posts, articles and videos.

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