Published by St. Martin's Press; December 2005;$22.95US/$30.95CAN; 0-312-34038-9
Copyright © 2006 Jana Klauer, M.D.
Once you have recognized that you have cravings and how they can sabotage your diet, it is time to get them under control. Time will be our ally in this task as we recognize the following simple fact: A craving generally lasts only 8 to 14 minutes.
Refusing to give in to a craving will feel somewhat uncomfortable but it will pass. We are not talking about days or hours, only minutes! You need to realize consciously that these few minutes can make the difference between success and failure on a diet. There is power in this knowledge because it allows us to take action to regain control. I have come up with a technique that I use in my clinical practice to help my patients gain control over their cravings.
First, identify the time of day that you are experiencing cravings. This will allow you to prepare for them by having a healthful snack at hand. Cravings are cyclical in nature. You may intuitively be aware of this hunger pattern but some people are not. I can almost guarantee that there will be a certain time of day when you are more vulnerable to allowing your appetite to go haywire but, if you identify this, you can control it.
The typical time span of most food cravings is 8 to 14 minutes. I know it feels longer, but as Einstein told us, "Time is relative." Knowing that a craving is limited in duration will give you the power to ride through it.
The Stop! Watch! Method
- When a craving arises I ask my patients to set a stopwatch (which I provide) for
fifteen minutes; during this time they are advised to drink a large glass of water
and eat a protein snack. This allows their blood glucose to become normalized (if it
had dropped) and, by "waiting out" the urge, they gain control. It sounds simple but
it does work. We have all experienced this phenomenon: on the treadmill, when we
want to stop with ten minutes to go and we just count down the minutes; when sitting
in a boring lecture and we watch the minutes tick away until the time that the class
is over; or even when we give children a "time out" when they are having a tantrum.
All of these situations have the same idea: holding on until a specific amount of time elapses. A stopwatch quantifies the time that a craving lasts. And for a dieter to know that there are only a few minutes left is enormously helpful!
- Drink a big glass of water. Because our brain may misinterpret the signal for
thirst as a signal for hunger, drinking water eliminates unrecognized thirst from
the picture. You may just be thirsty, so go for the water first. Drinking a glass of
water is filling and good for you, too.
- Have a protein snack. If the snack that you chose is in the form of a
high-tryptophan source, which include turkey and dairy products, then so much the
better. L-tryptophan is an amino acid that is converted to serotonin, a
neurotransmitter that impacts satiety, mood, and cravings. Recall how relaxed you
feel after having turkey at Thanksgiving dinner, or how soundly you slept after
having a glass of milk prior to retiring. These effects are due to the calming
action of serotonin. There is a potent class of antidepressants that increases the
amount of serotonin in the brain (serotonin reuptake inhibitors or SSRIS), and guess
what they are used to treat? Binge-eating disorder! I am not implying that if you
experience cravings you will develop, or you have, a binge-eating disorder. Binge
eating is a recognized psychiatric diagnosis whereby an individual experiences a
loss of control and consumes far more than a normal individual would eat within a
given period of time. But it is interesting to note that serotonin is implicated in
this disorder. By consuming food that can be converted to serotonin, we may be able
to help ourselves resist the temptations of normal food cravings; at least, that is
what my patients tell me.
Your snack should be a food that will benefit your body and that you find satisfying. By the latter, I mean there are times when you might want a food with a creamy consistency -- in such a case, low-fat yogurt is a great choice. At other times, you may desire a crunchy texture -- here I would suggest baby carrots or raw celery stalks. And don't forget to drink at least one 8-ounce glass of water; this assures that you are not misinterpreting the signal for thirst as a hunger signal.
