5 Helpful Tips On How You Can Avoid Cravings Effectively

Switched to a vegan diet? Learn how to avoid cravings

Do you know how to avoid cravings after changing your diet? Do you feel that sometimes, since you eat vegan food, you just can not control your hunger and have cravings?

You have switched your diet to vegan to live healthier, but now you have cravings, and you feel all day hungry. Many feel like this after switching to a plant-based diet.

It is essential to find out the cause of it to be able to counteract hunger attacks. Only when you know why they occur can you avoid cravings and binge eating effectively.

In this post, we would like to share with you five practical tips to avoid cravings and binge eating. It will help you to stop craving and to prevent the associated feelings of guilt and discomfort afterward.

 

5 Helpful Tips On How You Can Avoid Cravings

1. Eat regularly and enough

A common reason for cravings is the inadequate intake of food. You should make sure it has nutrition and gives you enough energy. At the beginning of the diet change to entirely vegan, it may happen that you do not initially come to your calorie needs.

It is also important to eat regularly. If you are prone to cravings, you should have a sumptuous breakfast. A very nutritious breakfast would be oatmeal or quinoa and millet porridge with fruits, nuts, and seeds and a breakfast smoothie.

If there’s nothing healthy and vegan to eat around you, take something with you to eat at work.

 

2. Eat nutritious and satisfying food

It is not only vital that you eat enough energy-rich food but also provide your body with sufficient nutrients. A lack of nutrients can be the cause of the annoying cravings.

If you eat too many processed products and “empty” calories like sugar and white flour, your body will continue to send out starvation signals, even if your calorie needs are already covered.

If you do not give your body enough carbohydrates, protein, and fats, as well as vitamins, minerals, and trace elements, it leads to the so-called cell hunger. A sign that you lack certain nutrients.

The cravings of your body for sweets may be a symptom of low blood sugar. This occurs when we consume too much sugar, and our organism produces more insulin, which in turn reduces blood sugar.

 

Eat healthy and wholesome food.

The best way to avoid such hunger attacks is to have a balanced, nutritious diet. With wholesome plant-based foods such as fresh fruits, vegetables, legumes, and cereals, you can easily get all the essential nutrients your body needs.

Avoid industrially processed foods and get used to fresh and unprocessed meals.  Use fiber-rich foods such as oatmeal, legumes, and roots. These provide you with essential nutrients and keep you full for a long time. Fresh fruit will satisfy your craving for sweets while providing essential vitamins.

Avoid unhealthy snacks and clean up your storage.

Fill up your storage with nutritious food and get rid of what is unhealthy. Get back to healthy snacks when cravings come.

 

Instead of cookies and chocolate, you could prepare energy bars. Eat fresh or dried fruit instead of candy healthy chia pudding instead of sugary desserts. Nibble nuts rather than chips and raw vegetable sticks with hummus instead of salty and greasy snacks. Drink natural tea sweetened with a date and fresh juices.

 

3. Drink plenty of water

Often, we confuse our thirst with hunger, and the real cause of our cravings is dehydration. To avoid dehydration and the associated hunger attacks, you should pay attention to sufficient hydration.

When a hunger attack occurs, you should first drink a glass of water and see if the feeling disappears.

 

4. Avoid tiredness and stress

Sleep deprivation and stress can also encourage food cravings. The quality and duration of our sleep have a significant impact on the hormonal balance of our body, which in turn regulates our appetite.

However, cravings are often psychological. In the case of stress or heartache, unhealthy comfort food leads to temporary emotional relief.

To counteract cravings, you should avoid stress.

Meditation, yoga, walking, and exercise can help you lower your stress levels and efficiently combat your cravings.

 

5. Be patient with yourself

Many have days in the week where they treat themselves with unhealthy forbidden treats. Better not to do this, but for some, it may help.

Do not despair if you sometimes feel like giving up or have a cheat day.  Change is difficult. So do not put bans on yourself it is rather counterproductive.

If you one time “sinned,” you have not failed and should not immediately throw everything. Every day, every hour, and every minute, you have the chance to improve something and make healthier decisions.

Everyone is different, and if you think a “cheat day” could help you, try it out. But do not bother yourself with bans because these usually escalate into a big binge and feeling bad and guilty.

Be not too strict with yourself. Allow yourself exceptions, but leave them exceptions.

 

If you want to get rid of your cravings in the long term, you should find out what triggers them.  Did you eat and drink enough? Are you stressed, sad, or bored? What do you miss, friends, exercise, family, time for fun? As you have seen, binging can have a number of causes.

Once you’ve figured out the situations that cause you cravings, you have already found the answer to your problem. Adjust your daily habits to prevent the unnatural feeling of hunger to avoid cravings.

Hopefully, this will help you avoid cravings, get rid of binge eating attacks, and enjoy the benefits of your healthy vegan diet.

To your health and happiness!

Read also > 10 Reasons Why Vegans Make the Best Partners