| Craving or Hunger? |  |
By Terri Main
One problem I hear more than any other is about cravings. And they tend
to be either late afternoon or late evening cravings. Of course, the
classic advice is to be strong, exercise steely will power, and ignore
these cravings.
But, maybe we should take another look at them and consider their
timing. Let's say you get up around 7 a.m. and finish breakfast about 8
a.m.. You have lunch at noon. You have a late afternoon craving about
4. Then you eat around 5-5:30 at home, because, after all 5 or 6 is the
dinner hour. Then your cravings start setting in around 9 or 10 at
night. Does that sound about right?
If you notice, your "cravings" occur about 4 hours after you eat.
Research tells us that we begin to get hungry about every 4 hours. If
you eat at 5 and go to bed at 11:30 after the news, that's almost 7
hours without food. That's not a craving. That's hunger.
So, what do you do about this? Well, the simple answer is: Eat
Something! Obviously, later in the evening, you don't want to eat
anything heavy or packed with calories because you don't have the time
to burn them off. So, this would be a good time for fruit, cereal,
soup, a few nuts, even low-fat popcorn. A half-sandwich with whole
wheat bread, lettuce and low-fat cheese is good as well. These can help
quell the hunger.
Another idea is to change your eating patterns during the day. Eat
lunch about 11 a.m. then have a "mini-meal" like a sandwich or salad
about 3 p.m. Then have dinner about 7 or 8 p.m. That way you will be
full until bedtime. Many researchers suggest that eating 4-6 smaller
meals a day is more likely to help you lose weight and reduce cravings
than 3 big meals.
So, the next time you feel a late night craving, check your watch. It
might not be a craving at all. It might simply be hunger.
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Copyright 2003, Terri Main. Terri Main is webmaster of Get Real: A
Sensible Approach to Weight Loss http://www.getrealdiet.com.
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