7 Tips to Silence Your Chocolate Cravings

7 Tips to Silence Your Chocolate Cravings

While all cravings can be dangerous to your diet, chocolate cravings can be particularly dangerous because there are few things that can substitute it. However, you can reduce your cravings for chocolate by remembering that cravings happen for specific reasons. If you can help to avoid these situations, you can prevent cravings before they start.

Tip #1: Never Skip Meals

Many cravings occur when your blood sugar drops. This creates cravings for high sugary foods, such as chocolate. By eating meals regularly and including snacks between meals, you can keep your chocolate cravings to a minimum.

Tip #2: Include More Protein

Our diets are high in carbohydrates and low in protein. However, it takes longer for protein to digest, so by including more of it in snacks and meals, it can help reduce cravings between meals.

Tip #3: Look for Patterns

Sometimes your craving for chocolate occurs at the same time everyday or under certain situations. Keep a record of when your chocolate cravings occur to discover your triggers. Identifying the circumstances of when chocolate cravings are likely to happen can go a long way to helping you avoid those situations in the future—or better deal with the unavoidable ones.

Tip #4: Don’t Avoid Chocolate

Cravings sometimes occur because you make a particular food off-limits. Chocolate is often considered a forbidden food in most diets, and so we avoid it like it’s the plague. However, not eating chocolate makes cravings for chocolate that much worse. Treat yourself to a moderate amount of chocolate regularly to help prevent cravings for it later that may cause you to overindulge. And if you do have chocolate cravings, go ahead and indulge them with a small amount of chocolate.

Tip #5: Wait 15 Minutes

Cravings can often retreat if not indulged right away. Find an activity you can participate in to distract you from your chocolate craving. You may find that it is gone in a few minutes.

Tip #6: Avoid Habit Forming Activities

Sometimes chocolate cravings can occur when you indulge in chocolate after certain activities or at a certain time of day every day. When you perform an activity over and over again, it becomes habit forming. If you have developed a habit of eating chocolate at the same time everyday or after a certain activity, then you will have cravings for chocolate at that specific time everyday or every time after that activity.

Tip #7: Keep Alternative Snacking Foods on Hand

Chocolate cravings can occur when you’re hungry, and indulging on it when you’re hungry can be a bad idea. Your body will associate chocolate with fulfillment of hunger pains and come to crave it anytime you’re hungry. Prevent this by keeping healthy snacks like carrots on hand at all times. Snack on these healthy alternatives when you're hungry to prevent cravings for foods such a chocolate.

By using some of these tips, you can keep cravings for chocolate from destroying all the hard work you’ve achieved on your diet and lifestyle changes.

  • Leila E

    One of the best advice I’ve ever been given about how to beat chocolate cravings was from a friend who told me to go and make myself a cup of good strong hot cocoa. The amount of calories, sugar and fat you’d get from a cup of cocoa are very minimal compared to a candy bar or other chocolate treat and you can control what you put in it. You can make a very low carb cup of cocoa or a sugar-free version and once you are done drinking it, your cravings are all gone.