Tips On Food Cravings

In last day’s post, Josh Bezoni the author of the “7 Day Belly Blast Diet” brings up one of the ingredients in energy drinks such as Gatorade, Rockstar and Red Bull. That being sugar! So the next time you want to quench your thirst grab some water. It has zero calories and is one of the best thing for your body.

Today, Bezoni talks about the benefits of green tea and how it can help increase the metabolism as well as being an antioxidant

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Craig: Well, you must have gotten rid of some of the sugar from your diet, so are there any overcoming craving tips you can pass on here?

Josh: Yes. I’ve had severe cravings. First of all, everyone in my family and in my extended family has been obese or morbidly obese at some point in their life, so I have terrible genetics. In addition to that I’m not a tall guy. If you’ve got somebody who is 6’4” they can put on 20 pounds, and you can hardly notice, if you’ve got someone who is 5’7’ or 5’8’ you put on 20 pounds and you look like you put on 50.

So, here’s what I do to battle sugar cravings. I eat five to six times a day. There are studies that show that when you eat five to six balanced meals a day you balance your blood sugar levels, and you don’t get hungry and you don’t get these wild cravings.

People come to me and they say, “Josh, I cannot stop eating. I’m craving food constantly.” Low and behold I find out, they’re eating tons of sugar, and they’re only eating like two meals a day. Your blood sugar levels on a roller coaster ride, and it causes these huge cravings, so you can balance that out.

Everything is about balance. It comes down to balance when it comes to the human body. It’s always trying to reach homeostasis. It’s trying to reach a balance. So, the way you help your body and the way you trick your body is to consume five to six meals a day with protein, slow absorbing carbs and healthy fats during those meals, spaced anywhere from two to three hours apart. You’ll balance your blood sugar levels, and it will help tremendously with cravings, any type of cravings.

I have people do this and 48 hours later they’ll come back, and they’ll be like, “Oh my gosh, my cravings have gone down 75 percent,” just by eating frequently throughout the day and eating the balanced foods at each one of their meals.

Another thing you can do is exercise. I think of exercise like a jack hammer when it comes to cravings. A lot of people crave foods because they’re trying to reach a balance in their emotional state, they’re depressed. They’re stressed and anxious. Something is wrong, and so they eat. If you replace that with exercise, which can release these feel good hormones you can really accomplish the same thing without feeding your emotions.

The other thing is water. Most people walk around in a state of mild dehydration. If you’re dehydrated your mind will send a signal to your stomach that says, “I’m dehydrated, I need something to drink,” but your stomach really interprets that as, “I’m hungry, I want to eat more.” So, if people drink enough water a lot of times their cravings will decrease.

So, take your body weight divided by two, and that’s how many ounces of water you should try to get a day. For me, I weigh about 180 pounds right now, so I’m looking at 90 ounces of water a day, which helped me tremendously with cravings.

The final thing is vitamins and minerals. If your body is deficient in a variety of vitamins and minerals your mind, your brain, will basically be screaming to your stomach saying, “Eat, we need more vitamins and minerals. We’re dying over here.” You’ll go to eat, and if you’re eating the typical American diet you’ll eat foods that are completely void of the vitamins and minerals that your body is demanding, so you keep eating and eating because you’re never giving your body truly what it needs, so your body keeps sending starving craving signals to your stomach.

Those things; water, eating fruits and vegetables, maybe taking a multivitamin to help with any vitamin mineral deficiencies, come from food first, food first is very important. What else did I say? Balanced meals two to three hours apart, and I might have mentioned another one, but those help so much with cravings.

Craig: That’s good stuff. Here’s just a little story about me. I rarely drink a diet soda, but if I drink a diet soda with caffeine in mid-afternoon or early afternoon, I’ll notice it in terms of dehydration, and then I’ll notice it, I’m thirsty, but also eating more than I expect in the evening.

You just mentioned a couple there, being dehydrated and the caffeine being a problem, so people should just keep their eyes open for that. Are they drinking too much coffee throughout the day and not getting enough water? If they just make that switch will it help out with their cravings and being able to overcome that stuff?

Josh: Yes. Instead of these heavy energy drinks and these Starbucks with cappuccino shots that have 200 or 300 milligrams in them switching to green tea, which has been shown in studies to be a very potent antioxidant which is very healthy for you and it also has been shown to increase the metabolism, so switching from these energy drinks and these coffees that are full of sugar and cream and all this junk that add belly fat and fat all over your whole body to something like green tea, doing that alone can help people with energy levels and long term energy levels because they’re REDUCING BODY FAT.

Green Tea does contain caffeine, but it’s more like 50 milligrams instead of 300 milligrams, so you’re not going to get that dehydration effect and that huge anxiety kick after you drink a green tea. So, that’s another good example for people.

That’s all for today. Tomorrow, in part 8 of this expert interview series we’ll take a look at a balanced approach to cheat meals.