What tricks can you use against yourself when you get the urge to snack? How can you train your willpower to resist the compulsion to eat? What habits should be adopted and abandoned to make it easier to lose weight? You can read our tips in the article..
Everything is decided in the head, goes the saying, and we often hear this in relation to losing weight. Cravings for sweets and other fattening foods, however, cannot always be overcome with willpower alone. (If it were that simple, everyone would always be in great shape.) Fasting will get you nowhere, it’s not a healthy approach, and it’s not sustainable in the long run. The truth is that weight loss is really decided in the head, but it is not enough to grit your teeth, you need smarter, more sophisticated practices: mental tricks! Read on, because now we present 13 such tricks!
1. Imagine an internal “pause” button!
The next time you reach for some candy, imagine hitting the “pause” button in your brain. Before decisions that are considered more serious (e.g. if someone asks us to borrow a large amount of money), we are able to stop and say, “okay, I’ll think about it.” However, most of us do not hesitate for a second when opening a bar of chocolate or a bottle of wine at the end of the day. So press the “pause” button and think for 10 minutes before you actually make a decision!
2. Replace unhealthy foods with healthy versions!
Find a healthy alternative to that fattening, unhealthy food you’re craving! The closer the two foods are to each other (in appearance, taste, texture, or other characteristics), the better! Do you want crispy, salty potato chips? Make vegetable chips! Are you staring at the ice cream in the freezer? Throw together a smoothie bowl full of fruits instead ! Over time, your taste buds and your brain will “switch”, your sense of taste will change and you will love healthy snacks just as much (or even more!).
3. Imagine yourself eating!
In their 2010 study, researchers from the American Carnegie Mellon University found that if someone first imagines eating a bag of candy, they will most likely eat less of it when they actually start. Study participants who imagined eating 30 M&Ms later ate significantly less than those who imagined eating only 3 or none. According to the researchers, it is crucial to imagine eating itself, it is not enough to just think about the food or just visualize it.
4. Tell yourself that you can eat anything!
What comes to mind when you hear the word diet? Chances are things like this: a rumbling stomach, blacklists and a painful farewell to your favorite foods. The problem is that if you completely forbid yourself from eating your favorite foods, your diet is essentially already doomed. You need to make changes that you will be able to stick with for the rest of your life . The point is, eat what you want, but not everything you want. This means you can feel free to “sin” once or twice a week, as long as all your other meals are in order.
5. Fly back in time!
Cut your calorie intake by snacking like a preschooler. The problem for many dieters is that they simply cannot stop themselves, so they snack too much. Trick your mind by portioning out the snacks into small bags – this way you’ll eat less at a time, but at the same time you’ll get the feeling that you’ve eaten “everything” and that will create a sense of satisfaction in your brain. It is best if you immediately divide the chips, sweets and other delicacies into reasonable portions when you get home from the store. Also hide the smaller bags in the pantry or kitchen cupboard, out of sight!
6. Use the “apple trick”!
Are you standing in front of the open fridge and trying to figure out what you really want? You might not actually be hungry. There is a simple trick to find out if you are hungry or if you just “could eat” (e.g. out of boredom or emotional reasons). If you crave something salty or sweet, ask yourself if you would eat an apple. If the answer is yes, then you are really hungry, you can afford a small snack (but it is best if you really choose an apple or some other healthy snack). If the answer is no, then drink a glass of water instead , because the brain tends to confuse hunger and thirst.
7. Plan your snacks in advance!
Instead of waiting for the craving for salty or sweet nasi to hit you, and only then try to satisfy it, plan a small snack every day, preferably after dinner. It is easier to resist temptation during the day if you know that you will be able to eat your favorite delicacy in the evening. Then, after you’ve eaten a moderate portion of that snack, remind yourself that you can eat it tomorrow, and the day after that, and so on.
8. Make a top 10 list of distracting activities!
Cravings usually strike completely unexpectedly, but if you prepare for them in time, you can deal with them much more effectively. Make a list of your favorite activities to distract yourself from eating. Play a video game, call a friend, go for a walk, read to your kids, brush your dog, paint your nails—the list is literally endless. Notice how the craving simply evaporates when you focus on something completely different! Other distraction tricks include chewing, brushing your teeth, doing a series of push-ups, deep breathing, or meditation.
9. Close your eyes!
Use smaller plates! Even a medium portion seems small when it’s on a nice big plate – and that’s a problem. The feeling of satiety is partly visual: if you eat everything from a small plate, it gives you a feeling of satisfaction. Another part of satiety is when the feeling of hunger decreases or goes away. So eat everything on your plate and enjoy every bite! It also helps to lose weight if you don’t have any unhealthy food in mind and only eat in the kitchen or dining room (not sitting in front of the TV).
10. Train your “resistance muscle”!
Every time you are able to resist temptation and say no to some unhealthy, fattening food, your “resistance muscle” gets stronger. We can also call this will, but the muscle analogy is much more illustrative, since it is well known that a muscle must be constantly trained in order to remain strong or become stronger. When you can’t resist temptation, your “yielding muscle” gets stronger, making it much easier to step aside the next time you get the chance, and the next, and the next, and so on.
11. Set your phone to send motivational messages!
Spontaneous eating (in other words, binge eating) is every dieter’s worst enemy. It can help you overcome it if you transform your mobile phone into your conscience. Set reminders that encourage persistence, such as, “I can eat whatever and how much I want, OR I can lose weight and be healthier,” or “If I eat something I didn’t plan on, it will make me feel good temporarily, but I’ll feel much worse later.” In times of cravings, let such and similar motivational mantras float before your eyes.
12. Don’t watch TV while eating!
Turn off the TV if you want to lose weight! Many studies have concluded that watching TV makes you overeat, and that it affects not only the time you are watching TV, but also the period after it. When the attention is focused elsewhere (in this case on the TV), our brain is not properly aware of the amount of food we eat, which is why we can easily overeat again later. The best solution is to stop eating in front of the screen! The second best solution is to not put a whole box/bag of snacks next to you, but just take a small portion with you in front of the TV.
13. Always read the list of ingredients!
Before adding a product to your cart, always check the ingredients carefully! And if you have already bought something to snack on , then at least do it before opening it. Remember that you always find the ingredients in descending order on the packaging, i.e. the first is the most in the given food, and so on. In the case of sweets, sugar, glucose syrup, or vegetable fats often lead the list, and various additives, texture improvers, and flavor enhancers are also often found among the ingredients. If you see these and even look at the calorie table, you will probably lose the desire to indulge in fattening, unhealthy snacks.