Why Should I Avoid Giving Into Food Cravings? (1:04)
Every time you resist a food craving, you're one step closer to better health, says addiction specialist Dr. Mike Dow. To find out what to do instead of giving in to a food craving, watch this video.
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It's important that you avoid giving into food cravings and find healthy alternatives, because what happens, you are associating your need for something emotional. Your need for a reward. Your need for the satisfaction of physical hunger with this food that is often very bad for you.
When that happens it becomes a response it become something that you tend to do more and more every time you do it. You know, what is always funny to as people who drink diet soda? Pretty much drink it or they don't, I used to drink 8 to 10 cans a day and now I don't drink any.
Why? Because I do not give into my food cravings but instead I find healthier alternatives and healthy cheats. This helps me to create these other conditioned or word patterns so that I reach for something like coffee with a little skim milk and that is my reward for myself. Every time you resist a food craving and replace it with a healthier food, you are one step closer to the health, to the weight and to the happiness that you want.
Mike Dow, PsyD is the clinical director of therapeutic and behavioral services at The Body Well integrative medical center in Los Angeles. He is respected expert in the fields of relationships, food and behavior.
