Fake Hunger

cravings imitate hunger, even make your stomach hurt in a slightly different way

but if you treat cravings like hunger, the results are disastrous (binging)
the more you indulge, the more you

consider is a crack addict's solution to their "hunger" is to indulge until the feeling of  hunger goes away.  Sooner rather than later, they will overdose.

So How do I overcome "faux hunger"

most potent:  Fasting. 

I can hear the protests already.  "I've tried that. I fail everytime. I'll never just be able to fast. I turn zombie and devour food like the cookie monster every time."

1. hold up--first of all, what you're craving isn't food. I don't care if it's packaged and celebrated and advertised on every street corner. It is NOT food.  Food is fuel that nourishes your body and allows it to function.  The junk we crave is nothing more than faux food. It's like fake leather--looks like the real thing but in a short amount of time shows it's true colors. Really, you can almost divide the food from the junk with one simple test. Do you have to force yourself to eat it or do you have to force yourself to stop? How many people do you hear say something like, "Ah man, yesterday I totally went overboard on broccoli,"  or even funnier:  "Dinner was so miserable. My mom made me eat 2 cupcakes. She said I couldn't leave the table until I had finished every last crumb." Junk is not food. Junk destroys your body, one bite at a time. Food nourishes and strengthens your body, one bite at a time.
2. you can still win the war even if you lose a few battles. example:

donuts--2 every day.  give them up, then on the 6th day, you collapse and go buy a dozen and eat 6 of them before becoming so sick you think you'll throw up everything including your stomach. This is a win.

How can it be a win? 2 ways.  One is simple math. 
craving score before:                                2 donuts per day, 6 days = 12 donuts total
craving score after:              5 days 0 donuts, then 1 day 6 donuts=6 donuts total
That's half of what you used to do. It's a total win!

It's a win in another way too.  The binge day you broke, you had a very bad experience with donuts. Until now, they've been on a pedestal--where you see them as fun, colorful, delicious.  But taking a break from them gave your body a chance to recover from their influence and re-sensitize.

Here's an example of being sensitive. A boy tries smoking his uncle's cigar. He's going to cough, hack, and turn green and possibly throw up.  Meanwhile his uncle could smoke the whole thing without any immediate bad consequences.  The boy is healthier than his uncle, which is why an unhealthy cigar made him sick. If the uncle did a deep cleanse, he would start re-experiencing the symptoms his nephew experienced. If he never smoked again and kept cleansing for 20 years, and then tried a cigar, he'd probably respond like his nephew. The healthier you get, the sooner your body tells you when something is wrong.

So here are some tips for fasting from addicting junk:
go for a walk or exercise,  as your blood pumps it'll filter out the withdrawal. 
grab a piece of gum
find something to distract you. Most cravings last 15 minutes


You can also strengthen yourself with antioxidants. My favorite are carrots. A whole bag of snack carrots has 150 calories. That's it. Even if you go overboard and eat 4000 calories worth (no easy task--that's a lot of chewing!), they're easy to burn calories (brown fat) instead of stubborn white fat. They boost your energy instead of drain it.

Juice fasting is another way to nourish away a craving.  Honestly, I'm awful at fasting--I'm sooooo addicted to eating. Juice fasts help my head to clear and the cravings to quiet down so I can focus.  I absolutely love and highly recommend juice fasting. But not the juice you buy in a bottle in the store. I'm talking juice freshing squeezed from all or mostly veggies. I love how they feed my brain and help me get back in control of eating making decisions. 

Swap out--replace the junk with something healthier. Like RAW cupcakes or whole wheat pita for a pizza crust.