The attempt to lose weight in the long term always ends in fiasco for some people. For example, you have been on the diet for three weeks and immediately return to your old diet after four. The little that you have lost by then is back on your hips – or even more.
Craving as an enemy
The addictive physician Dr. Iris Zachenhofer and Dr. Shird Schindler in her new book "Lose weight for hopeless cases" especially the so-called craving, which can easily be translated into German with desire or desire. We need the chocolate bar or the bag of chips right now – because the food industry has manipulated us to do so. Because craving is primarily triggered by chemically produced substances, that are in industrially produced foods – for example in finished products and sweets.
So far, so well known – cravings, as one might call the phenomenon, is nothing new in itself. The two experts compare the craving for food with the desire of a drug addict for new material – and explain how those affected can use addiction treatment to get this desire under control.
It depends on the skills!
So what do you do when the craving is on your neck? The experts recommend methods of so-called emotion regulation: Depending on the stress level, different "soft skills" and "hard skills" can help to overcome craving. In the low stress area, small distractions in the form of soft skills are usually sufficient. These include, for example:
- Write
- Sudoku
- dream trip
- mystery
- music
- Call friend
- Do organizational things
- Self massage
- cleaning shoes
The best thing to do is to choose some of these skills that you find relaxing and distracting, and above all that do not cause any reluctance. If you find at least five pleasant soft skills, they can also be linked to form a so-called skill chain. It is important to pause from time to time and check your own tension.
If you are in a high tension area, hard skills can help – However, these are also somewhat more radical than their gentler colleagues. Hard skills could be, for example:
- Chew chilli
- Place ice cubes on the back of your neck
- To take a cold shower
- Listen to music you actually hate
- Pin clothespins in your arm
- Scream out loud
This actively influences the inner tension – and after a while the brain begins to combine craving with something unpleasant. It is important that you can carry out all skills at any time – So you should not only choose those that can only be carried out at home.
The three A.
These skills can be used to learn to recognize the beginning of addiction pressure and to combat it. The three A help:
- Accept: Recognize the current addiction pressure.
- Cheer: Fight against it by z. B. uses his skills and / or thinks of situations in which craving has been successfully overcome.
- Riding: Think of craving as a wave for surfing. Instead of being overwhelmed by it, the skills keep you on the surfboard. The wave will roll towards the bank, which means that the craving and the inner tension will decrease. The longer you withstand the wave, the more stable you are against craving.
And how should I eat now?
The addiction experts do not provide a specific meal plan – instead, as with addiction patients, they recommend so-called substitution therapy. Instead of focusing on what it is better not to eat (namely the industrial foods mentioned above such as fast food or sweets), the focus should be on what you can eat. And that should be everything that saturates well and creates a positive mood. The Volumetrics diet, for example, is suitable for this: the vegetables in focus there have a lot of volume and therefore saturate quickly and for a long time.
Good approaches, little new
The other tips from the experts are then no longer unknown: In addition to lots of vegetables, high-fiber foods (e.g. from whole grains) help with a healthy and filling diet. Like someone who is particularly fond of chocolate and snacks, should have the same enthusiasm for vegetables and the like – unfortunately, the doctors do not owe this information. Everyone has to work out the right mindset to stick to the chosen concept. The other tips, which include the classics of how much sleep and exercise, also offer nothing new.
More detailed instructions and more tips How to get rid of craving with addiction treatment is in the book.