[Rawmeo]

So I've been trying to get in shape recently, and although I'm able to stick to a workout routine, I find myself often craving junk food. For some reason, when I'm hungry, I often think about getting some KFC, pizza, or McShit.

I'm trying to put in my mind that the only upside to fast food is the instant gratification your tongue gets, but it's still hard to get out of my mind. I found out that there is no relation between cravings and being tired, lonely, excited, etc. it is completely random.

I am currently at day 10 without eating shit, and I'm trying my best to stick to that. What are you guys doing to prevent that?

[kiwi12]

(01-13-2017 07:14 AM)Rawmeo Wrote:  

For some reason, when I'm hungry, I often think about getting some KFC, pizza, or McShit.

This is your answer.
Don't get hungry, or when you do, keep some healthy snacks close.

Only when i'm hungry i have fast food cravings and my food porn imagination runs wild.

[realologist]

First and foremost try to ignore it.

If that doesn't work start cooking a healthy meal that you really like.

If that fails and you still want fast-food try to make the fast food healthier.

Get the grilled options. Get rid of the bun. No mayo. Salad instead of fries. Just try to make it healthy as possible.

[MongolianAbroad]

Exactly, eat high protein foods so you're full for longer periods of time (t-bone steak, filet mignon, chicken breast, salmon, etc.). Don't leave the house on an empty stomach. Don't grocery shop on an empty stomach.

If you have a sweet tooth, make sure to eat enough fruits to control any sugar cravings, as it's better to have a couple of oranges or even a bunch of dates than to go on a full binge and down a bag of Reese's peanut butter cups or a quart of ice cream, for example.

It's great to have will power, but it's even better to not need it.

If you do break down and head towards the fast food, at least try to stick to something that resembles food, like a grilled chicken sandwich instead of fried menu items.

[Swell]

I deal with The Hunger with lots of water & Green Tea.

And I suffer due to the fact there is BBQ Meat on every street for 10 Baht or 30 cents.

P.S. KFC is way better here is Thailand then North America.

[Rawmeo]

One thing is that I never, ever, drink soft drinks. When I eat junk food, I drink water. Such as Big Mac + fries + water.

I often try to make it healthy, such as taking thin crust pizza, grilled chicken, but it's far from optimal since I'm still eating - my goal is to completely remove this from my mind. Fortunately, I have a supportive wife and she doesn't let me order pizza when she's home, and she doesn't like fast food. I find myself eating shit when I'm alone, or on the run.

I think replacing junk food by another food might do the trick, still better than being hungry.

[WhatTheFuck]

Once I kept up with a healthy eating routine for a while and started to see the benefits, junk food like McDonalds slowly lost it's appeal. Now I can't even eat there without feeling disgusted with myself afterwards. A big mac or bag of chips or something literally tastes toxic to me now. Nothing beats a fresh lean 100% beef patty with none of the additives cooked at home on the grill. I'm currently doing LOZ's drinking wagon challenge and hoping with time my mind will start to make these same negative associations with alcohol as well.

I say give it some time, and once you get used to eating non processed foods your body will start to reject all the crap it used to crave. Every once and a while though I still catch myself thinking about how good it would be to order some Chinese takeout or deep fried buffalo wings. When that happens I normally just tell myself to shut the fuck up and go for a run.

Also, what I've found is that anything you are craving, there is usually a way to make your own version at home that is much healthier. For example, if I'm craving buffalo wings, I will just egg and bread a chicken breast, cook it in the oven until crispy, then toss that in some Frank's red hot. Almost as good as the real deal, and cravings gone.

[heavy]

Make simple easy food at home that tastes good and doesn't cost shit.

My favorite is an egg burrito. Here's what you do. Beginning of the week make a black bean mix (either whole refried) with jalapeno and green onion. Leave this in the fridge all week.

Get some good sharp cheddar cheese. Make a couple eggs. Combine the eggs, cut slices of sharp cheddar, and the black bean mix (with just enough spice from the pepper)...and you have yourself a delightful meal that has a similar savory flavor of McDs.

That's the key. I'd say this takes me around 6 minutes to prepare, and it's restaurant quality.

When I have a fast food craving I go get it if I want it enough to go out. Only one item or two items though.

[H1N1]

Just don't eat it. As acts of self discipline go, it's a fairly moderate one.

[Steelex]

Just be man and don't eat it.

Life is full of temptation. Grow a pair and develope some self discipline.

To have ONE HUNDRED PERCENT control over your actions is to unlock the key to success in every aspect of your life.

When you overcome the feelings of the foolish mind (I'm tired, I'm hungry, my vagina hurts today) and learn to lead with the smart mind (I want to get bigger, stronger, smarter) you will win. Don't let a cheeseburger kick your ass.

[Donkey George]

(01-13-2017 07:14 AM)Rawmeo Wrote:  

So I've been trying to get in shape recently, and although I'm able to stick to a workout routine, I find myself often craving junk food. For some reason, when I'm hungry, I often think about getting some KFC, pizza, or McShit.

I'm trying to put in my mind that the only upside to fast food is the instant gratification your tongue gets, but it's still hard to get out of my mind. I found out that there is no relation between cravings and being tired, lonely, excited, etc. it is completely random.

I am currently at day 10 without eating shit, and I'm trying my best to stick to that. What are you guys doing to prevent that?

Hey Rawmeo,

I have a weird trick that might work for you. I've been doing Keto for the past month or so and I suffered from very real carb and fast food cravings in the first couple of weeks. Oddly enough, what works for me each time I have a craving is boiling some water and adding 8 oz of water to a cup with a cube of beef or chicken bullion cube. The intense flavor, combined with the sodium and other minerals, tricks my brain into thinking that I just had a huge delicious meal and it almost always eliminates my cravings.

A container of bullion should run you $3 or so at the store, and it has been a lifesaver for me throughout this process. I hope this works for you too. Part of the craving for fast food is just the massive amount of sodium used in each item. This helps to replicate that meal for your taste buds.

-Donkey George

[Donkey George]

[/quote]

Hey Rawmeo,

I have a weird trick that might work for you. I've been doing Keto for the past month or so and I suffered from very real carb and fast food cravings in the first couple of weeks. Oddly enough, what works for me each time I have a craving is boiling some water and adding 8 oz of water to a cup with a cube of beef or chicken bullion cube. The intense flavor, combined with the sodium and other minerals, tricks my brain into thinking that I just had a huge delicious meal and it almost always eliminates my cravings.
[/quote]

Oh, and if this doesn't work, one of my favorite go-to meals when I have a fast food craving is three eggs with a little cheese on top, plus a large red meat patty (beef, bison, or lamb) with a huge dollop of guacamole on top. I cook the patty with Worcester sauce, plenty of salt, and pepper. I am so full and my taste buds so satisfied after this meal that I'm not hungry for hours afterwards.

-Donkey George

[Thomas the Rhymer]

I also used to have random attacks of junk food cravings, and then I realised that it was actually the sodium I was craving.

So I started adding some baking soda when cooking my food from time to time, and that dramatically reduced my cravings. It gives a delightfully savoury taste to food, especially to meat, and helps with my chronic heartburn problems too.

Although sodium and salt are rightfully villainized (because a typical western diet has way too much), the fact is that they are essential nutrients and the body does force kickstart a psychologically intense drive to get sodium if it detects that levels are too low. If you replace the sodium adequately, then the cravings for salt-high foods should diminish (assuming that is the problem in the first place).

[Hannibal]

I find that forcing yourself to cook all of your own meals from scratch gives you the benefit of being able to eat junk food without gaining as much weight.

It's really easy to just go to Arby's and order two roast beef sandwiches, mozzarella sticks, curly fries and a side of onion rings. It's a lot harder to go home and make all that shit yourself. The same goes for pizza.

I also agree with Thomas the Rhymer. Most of the time when I want fast food, I'm actually craving salt, and to some extent, fat.

What really scratches the itch for me to is to cut about four potatoes into wedges, roll them in oil, put them on a tinfoiled baking sheet and throw them in the oven at 450 degrees Fahrenheit until they're crispy. Then I add all kinds of salts and spices to them like garlic. Nutritionally I don't know how great this approach is, but at least you're saving money (costs me about 70 cents worth of ingredients).

[John Michael Kane]

I pack healthy meals before I leave the house and have a spare toothbrush in my car. I eat healthy and keep my teeth clean at the same time. It eliminates the need for fast food.

[Pollito]

Some good recommendations in this thread that apply to eating healthier and reducing cravings in general. In my experience, ever since I discovered the art of cooking for yourself using simple recipes and high quality ingredients, my strong preference has been my own cooking in terms of taste and knowing exactly what you're putting into your body. The thought of eating anything from McDonalds now actually disgusts me -- although my one fast food weakness remains Del Taco for its relative freshness and quality over alternatives (I know, I know, marketing).

For any nicotine users out there, one left field suggestion I might add is to switch from whatever you might be doing now (whether cigarettes or vape) to nicotine lozenges. Small pills of nicotine that you tuck next to your gums like dip. You can't eat while they're in, they take two or three hours to dissolve, and have the added benefit of providing a trickle of an appetite curbing substance while saving your lungs.

Again as I stated in a separate thread, I haven't found any studies proving the harmlessness (or harmfulness) of nicotine lozenges or gum, so take this recommendation with a grain of salt.

[Robert JS]

I follow a paleo style low carb diet.

I cook my own food and use plenty of healthy fat, such as olive oil and coconut oil. I fry my eggs vegetables in olive oil. I fry bananas in coconut oil.

Oil makes food tasty and it fills me up. I don't crave 'bad foods' when I'm full.

And oil it doesn't make you fat. I've very low body fat following this diet.

[AlphaGrowthHormone]

Good thread. I too crave fastfood and go on crazy binges now and again where ill eat it a few times a day for a week at a time.

What I love most: burgers, burritos, pizza, and chinese food.

The success ive had eating these things and losing weight has been by doing a keto friendly version.

Lettuce wrapped bacon cheeseburger. No good sub for fries... Oh well.

Using a low carb tortilla as my skinny crust pizza. With chicken wings of course!

Same for a burrito/taco. Meat, cheese, sour cream, avocado, salsa, with LC tortilla.

Make "noodles" with zucchini then make your favorite chinese stir fry chow mein concoction. Or use cauliflower rice. Cook with soy sause, and sesame oil not sugary sauces.


Steak, creamed spinach, and cauliflower mashed "potatoes"

These have been my lunch/dinner options while watching fat melt off.

Note: when i drink is when i tend to crave fast food the most.

[Biologist]

I try to follow the paleolithic diet as much as possible - I try to stick with natural, non-processed foods which are low carb.

If I feel hunger pangs coming on, I usually just swallow a whole bunch of salad with a can of tuna.

If I am craving something sweet, I usually have one or two spoons of honey.

[RealDeal]

I either drink a gallon of water or have a some diet coke if I'm craving something sweet.

[mickeyd]

Meal Prep. You like the fast food partially because its convenient. To beat that, why not have a better option waiting in your fridge or freezer.

Also, when i just have to get some junk food, i usually try to go for alot of water or a diet soda with it.

[tomzestatlu]

I don´t understand what´s so wrong with fastfoods. KFC is chicken, hamburger is beef.... of couse, everything in those foods isn´t so healthy, but if you don´t eat tons of it, there shouldn´t by any impact on your body .... unless you are lazy and seek for excuses.

I stopped eating sweets and started to eat more "healthy products" with an intention of losing under-skin body fat and have more ripped sixpack. After 3 months there was no difference. Then I started to eat it again, while maintaining same intensity of traning... still no change. Then I raised up intensity of my traning (often 2 trainings a day, the most I did interval running plus some gym stuff) and lost the under-skin body fat.

[Pollito]

(01-23-2017 08:14 AM)tomzestatlu Wrote:  

I don´t understand what´s so wrong with fastfoods. KFC is chicken, hamburger is beef.... of couse, everything in those foods isn´t so healthy, but if you don´t eat tons of it, there shouldn´t by any impact on your body .... unless you are lazy and seek for excuses.

I stopped eating sweets and started to eat more "healthy products" with an intention of losing under-skin body fat and have more ripped sixpack. After 3 months there was no difference. Then I started to eat it again, while maintaining same intensity of traning... still no change. Then I raised up intensity of my traning (often 2 trainings a day, the most I did interval running plus some gym stuff) and lost the under-skin body fat.

The problem is assuming that fast food is whatever it appears to be. Most chains only do the final prep of ingredients that arrived frozen in hermetically sealed packages in-store; those packages having been mass produced, or manufactured more like it, in central factories. And while you end up with a consistent product going out to end users, who knows what exactly is going into that stuff? It's not like buying something off a shelf in a grocery store where you can peek at the label for an idea of what kind of chemicals and otherwise artificial ingredients that came out of a lab you're ingesting. Fast food aims for efficiency and maximizing profit. If I ran a fast food company, and my staff told me I could wring a marginal $.10 out of each check by using high fructose corn syrup in place of cane sugar, or etc., I damn well owe it to my investors and my personal bonus to do so.

[Thomas the Rhymer]

(01-23-2017 08:14 AM)tomzestatlu Wrote:  

I don´t understand what´s so wrong with fastfoods. KFC is chicken, hamburger is beef.... of couse, everything in those foods isn´t so healthy, but if you don´t eat tons of it, there shouldn´t by any impact on your body .... unless you are lazy and seek for excuses.

I stopped eating sweets and started to eat more "healthy products" with an intention of losing under-skin body fat and have more ripped sixpack. After 3 months there was no difference. Then I started to eat it again, while maintaining same intensity of traning... still no change. Then I raised up intensity of my traning (often 2 trainings a day, the most I did interval running plus some gym stuff) and lost the under-skin body fat.

Wait... were you eating real whole foods or were you eating, as you say, ''healthy products''? What exactly do you mean by ''healthy products''?

[Cr33pin]