9 Ways to Beat Your Chocolate Craving

There are so many people with what they class as an addiction to chocolate.

Here are 9 ways to help stop those chocolate cravings!

1.   Drink More water. The first thing to address is dehydration. These days most people cannot tell what the body is saying,  they have lost the ability to know the difference between hunger and dehydration. When we are dehydrated our brain can mistake that for hunger. Get used to drinking 1 litre of clean water per 50lb of bodyweight.

2.   Eliminate ALL sugar from your diet. Sugar is more addictive than cocaine. it is the worst drug on the planet and everyone is hooked. Food manufacturers put it into everything to keep us buying! These sugary snacks promote the growth of certain types of bacteria in the digestive system such as Candida, which demand to be fed more… sugar! Wean yourself off the sugar and you may find that your chocolate cravings disappear like the wind.

3.   Fulfil the craving. Most often we get a food craving for a reason. Your body may actually be craving magnesium, an elemental nutrient found in chocolate. You can supplement your body’s magnesium levels by taking a multivitamin, or by eating more fish, artichokes, almonds, or pumpkin seeds (instead of more chocolate).

4.   Go dark. Change milk chocolate for dark chocolate to help you break the addictive chocolate cravings. Dark chocolate contains less sugar and calories than most other chocolates, and can help you meet your cravings while weaning off the excess sugar and calories. Think of it as the nicotine gum of chocolate addicts.

5.   Eat More Regularly. The worst food cravings often strike when you have waited too long to eat or have skipped a meal all together. This produces a slightly hypoglycemic (low blood sugar) state in your body and your body responds with a craving for something full of sugar that can be utilized immediately to balance out blood sugar levels in the blood. Eat regularly to help avoid these crash cravings.

6.   Don’t Worry, Be Happier!. Eating chocolate provides the eater with a temporary sense of well-being. This mood booster can contribute to your addiction to chocolate. The next time a chocolate craving strikes, engage in some other mood lifting activity, like watching a comedy, exercising, calling your sweetie, playing music, or sex.

7.   Go Deeper. If eating a single piece of chocolate doesn’t satisfy your need, it is quite possible that your cravings go much deeper than a physical desire for something sweet. You may be using chocolate to satisfy your need for love and positive self-esteem. If this is the case, only working through these deeper issues will cure your cravings. Even a few brief therapy sessions or some serious self-reflection can help you overcome these problems.

8.   Reprogram your Mind. If you have a particularly strong and nasty craving for chocolate that just won’t die, you might need to resort to some strong measures. One way to cure any habit is to give in to the urge. But every time you do so, introduce some very unpleasant event just before you eat that chocolate bar, like snapping a rubber band on your wrist or listening to a song you hate. This pairing of an unpleasant event with a pleasant one will condition your body to learn that chocolate is bad and your cravings will die out.

9. Be Accountable. Get an accountability partner who will ask you how you are doing and support you through it. If all else fails, call for back up. Find an accountability partner that will ask you how you’re doing with your chocolate ban and keep you accountable for cheating on yourself.

Chocolate cravings CAN be beaten, you have to stay strong and positive and don’t be too hard on yourself if you fall off the wagon. Every piece of chocolate matters and even a single craving denied is a step closer to a happy, healthier life.