First off, I am sorry if you expected some scientific studies and researches that work for each individual. Everything written here only presents my opinion and experience about how to decrease or neglect your cravings for certain food products.
For starters, I'll list my techniques for not eating certain products at all, and later I'll write how to stop the "Aftermath effect" if you already ate your "arch nemesis"-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Techniques for neglecting your cravings:1) :::
Substitution :::
This is the easiest technique to apply. Find food that can satisfy your craving but doesn't hinder your bodybuilding progress or your weight control. It can be as simple as taking something less unhealthy than the original product you couldn't resist. If you have enough time when your at the store or mall or w/e then you can read all the nutritional labels and ingredients list and find what's most suitable for you. Most notably, you can/should substitute coke with 100% natural juice (without added sugar) and eventually substitute that juice with whole fruit. If you have milk chocolate craving, substitute it with some grain/dark chocolate bar (
example)
2) :::
Reward/Punishment :::
This is well known to all of us, from childhood. But this technique isn't practical since it only depends on your willpower. The goal is to set both positive and negative stimulus based on your nutrition. Say, if you eat some junk food you crave, you have to do 20 extra minutes of jog per each serving you took, or you have to reduce your meal quantities by 10%-15% (don't get drastic like >20%). The positive stimulus, as we all know it, is the cheat meal that's pre-scheduled every week.
3) :::
Evasion :::
This is the easiest to understand, although applying it can be a bit tough. You just need to anticipate and differ the events that could lead you to a situation in which you would be offered to take some tasteful junk food or any other bad food product that you crave. Like I said, this is hard to apply, because it would probably mean not going to most of the parties and other social events.
4) :::
X Mark The Spot :::
This is the least recommended technique I know. Though, it works for majority of people, at least for a certain period of time. But, just by reading this text, the mentioned technique became less applicable to your case. The way this works is, since it's kind of hard to self-apply it, you send your friend a link that's enclosed in text regarding his bad craving. The link leads to a video that's extremely ill-designed and explicit, like human faeces or other things that are mentally hard to forget and are disgusting. Then, due to the psychological effect called "Classical conditioning" the presence or mentioning of the craved food will revoke the mentally torturing experience and the person would probably have hard time eating the product without feeling uneasy or even disgusted. Like I said, this is the least recommended technique, and if you do it, it would be wise to anonymously prepare/send the link to your friend because you don't want to face possible consequences.
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Techniques for neglecting the "Aftermath effect":This section is dedicated to situations in which you took the craved product, it should help preventing yourself from taking more of itBy Aftermath effect, I mean the fact that for most of the people I know, when you take a cookie or any other tasteful product your craving doesn't decrease, in fact I crave chocolate even more when I take a piece of it than beforehand.
So here are the techniques I use to neglect the "Aftermath effect" and prevent overeating:
1) :::
Occupy :::
While you're still chewing the craved product, leave the room in which you found it and start doing something that's interesting to you. The goal is to focus your cognitive part of the brain to your new occupation, and forget the craving needs. I usually start typing some code, or play video games or watch sitcoms, but that's just me. Everybody has different interests, so find out what works for you.
2) :::
Descending :::
If you can't neglect the craving for certain product, take something that has similar taste that satisfies your need, but that you can reject more easily. For example, I have two kinds of high-carb biscuits I eat after workout. Both of them have more than required amounts of carbs and fats. So first, I take the one with more sugar, to start the insulin response, then after one or two of those I either take the other kind, that has less sugar, but has honey, so it's still sweet and tasty or I take a cup of milk, which I adore, so after that I feel like I had even more treats than I'm allowed to, even if the overall quantity is less than 200kcal
3) :::
Call of nature :::
This is really unpractical solution. If you have enough experience with your body and your hydration level, you can roughly predict when your bladder will be full so try to coordinate that schedule with your cravings. Because if you eat something, and go to toilet right away, even if the "Aftermath effect" still troubles you, some people feel uneasy to eat right after being in the toilet.
Well, that's it. Like I've said this is no scientific research. Some, maybe even none of these techniques will work for you. I just felt like posting this in case it actually help somebody with their cravings. Thanks for reading. Keep on training! Cheers
