Eliminate Junk Food Cravings
Probably one of the biggest obstacles getting in our way to carving our abs and toning up our muscles is our inability to eliminate junk food cravings. But what if we took a look at it in a different angle and set ourselves up for success? Would this help us eliminate the junk food cravings?
The psychology behind it is actually pretty fascinating if we consider how we were brought up by being rewarded with ice cream and other sugary or deep fried treats when were a kid. See where I’m going here?
You see our brain has an incredible ability to make associations. With reward comes pleasure and our brain’s release of endorphins when we were given these foods and that cycle is extremely hard to break. Anytime we feel down our brain wants to react and fix it and subconsciously we may not even realize that food has become a sort of drug which helps ease the pain.
If this resonates with you in any way read the last few paragraphs again and think about how fascinating this is and make yourself extra aware of this next time you think you want to eat something unhealthy.
But let’s take this a step further. Let’s eliminate the junk food cravings before they even happen. What’s the best way to do this?
The answer is pretty simply, just don’t store it in your house. I found this secret several years back when my world started focusing on being the healthiest I could possibly be. I found there were certain times during the day when my defenses would break and I would open the cupboard to grab “baked” chips or something really sweet.
We all have our weaknesses, and I one day just thought if I don’t have these junk foods in my cupboards in the first place then I can’t break down. I started replacing them with smarter alternatives. First and foremost being some of my favorite exotic fruits like pineapples, mangoes and star fruit.
Then I took it another step further, and started buying different flavoured whey protein powders to make smoothie drinks that were full of amino acids to help my muscles recover and grow stronger. This was probably the best thing I ever did! Not only was I getting awesome flavours like chocolate peanut butter but I was eliminating my junk food cravings and packing on pure muscle.
Eliminate Junk Food Cravings P.S.: The best tasting whey protein powder I have ever tried is Gaspari Nutrition’s Myofusion. Like I mentioned they have my absolute favorite which is chocolate peanut butter, but they also make a killer delicious vanilla, and strawberry & cream which are great when blended with frozen fruit! YUM!!!!
Conclusion: Eliminate Junk Food Cravings
Ok, so now we’ve cleared our cupboards of the junk food and bought lots of fresh fruit and even some protein powder to make killer protein smoothies. Adding this to our awareness of the psychology and things are going to start changing.
With all this said, it’s also a good idea to allow yourself a cheat day or two, I like to have this on the weekends so I can still enjoy some of my favorite guilty pleasures knowing that I worked hard all week to be at my best. This takes the pressure off of being perfect all the time and really creates a successful plan. I have more and more to add to this article so if you guys want to hear more please leave a comment below and I will make sure to make this a series of articles….
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Thank you for visiting! Weight Loss and Training is a health blog which features all the best weight loss tips that I have learned over my 20 years of training. My background includes a degree in Kinesiology from the world renown Simon Fraser University, certification in nutritional sciences from UBC, and Personal Trainer Specialist certification from Can Fit Pro.
Yes, please keep this information coming! My last real vice is sugar! I have 10 more lbs to lose and I know I would drop those lbs if it werent for my sugar addiction!
I enjoyed reading your Hub. This is very helpful information for people who like all the junk food. This junk foods are not good for your health. But for some reason, whenever I’m sick or have a cold, I get a craving for junk food.
Good tips! Thank you!
This saved me today when I was feeling like I was the only one in the world who wants to eat healthy and I wanted to just be “normal” and eat whatever I wanted,, I was very depressed. Thanks for EVERYTHING you post for us!! 😀
Awesome! Thanks for the feedback!
great article. i am very food conscious already but i still am very interested in hearing about how others eliminate their cravings and stay healthy. I strongly agree with what you said about how we were raised and rewarded with these unhealthy indulgences and that’s why we feel the need to have something sweet. but if no one had given it to us in the first place and instead we were rewarded with healthy foods that tasted good we wouldn’t get such strong cravings. in other words its like conditioning. thanks for this article i found it useful and i would like to hear more.