Every time you start a diet to lose weight, another funny thing happens at the same time.  You start craving foods like chocolate, cookies, or other high-calorie, high-fat foods – everything you are trying to avoid.   These food cravings can be both physiological and psychological, but both can be overcome with some useful techniques.  Below are some of these techniques to help you keep cravings at bay, and stick to your plan to live a better, healthier life.

Ø  Try eating something every few hours: Hunger is one physiological reason that can have you craving food. To avoid having cravings for things you shouldn’t be eating, you can help avoid these food cravings altogether by making sure you never go more than 5 hours without eating something.  This doesn’t need to be a full meal, but just a snack.  Try to choose something that is low in both calories and fat.

Ø  Eat Protein: To help fend off food cravings, every meal should include some source of lean protein, such as chicken, turkey, fish, eggs, or low-fat cheese.  Protein helps to control blood sugar patterns and a stable blood sugar helps prevent food cravings.  Foods containing protein also help you feel fuller by stimulating production of cholecystokinin, a naturally occurring appetite suppressant.

Ø  Drink more water: Sometimes being thirsty can be confused with being hungry.  When you are dehydrated you especially crave salty food – which can help you retain more water. Drinking more water can help you feel full and get your mind off your food cravings of the moment.  Quench your thirst, and the food cravings will go away, too.  A good trick is to keep a water bottle handy throughout the day to make it easy to satisfy your fluid needs.

Ø  Chew gum: Chewing gum can help you stick to your diet because it can reduce your cravings for sweets and for snacks.  If you reach for a stick of gum, be sure it’s sugarless, with zero or only a few calories.  A bit of caution is needed: the sugar alcohols in sugarless gum can cause gastric distress in some people, especially if you chew an excessive amount

Ø  Skip the High Fructose Corn Syrup: High fructose corn syrup is used as a sweetener in many foods, and should be avoided whenever possible.  It is used in a variety of foods from bread to frozen dinners, because it’s inexpensive and increases shelf life.  The reason to stay away from it aside from the fact that it is unhealthy, is that it has been shown to be a trigger for cravings.  Having a tiny amount of high fructose corn syrup can have you craving more of it.