10 Tips : How to Stop Eating Junk Food

It’s 3 p.m. and you’re experiencing that all-too-familiar afternoon slump. It brings on a fierce sugar (or salt or caffeine) craving. You’re not alone. Many people deal with cravings on a frequent, even daily basis.

While succumbing to cravings may seem inevitable in the moment, there are a few simple things you can do to control them. Here are 10 ideas to get you started.

1. Plan ahead

There’s no better way to handle cravings than planning your meals and snacks ahead of time. If you have a healthy meal and snacks packed and ready for you at lunchtime and in the afternoon, you’re far less likely to grab a leftover piece of pizza, order French fries, or eat the sweets someone brought in to the office.

Try to plan out each week’s meals on Sunday, or the day before your workweek starts. Go grocery shopping for what you need. Then prepare large batches of easy foods like brown rice, beans, stir-fried or roasted vegetables, or cold salads. Use food storage containers, mason jars, or foil to pack up serving sizes that you can grab in the morning on your way out the door. Fruits like apples, bananas, and oranges travel well and can be kept on your desk, making them easy afternoon snacks.

2. Shop the perimeter

The perimeter of the grocery store typically includes the produce, dairy, meat, and fish sections. This is where you’ll find real foods, rather than highly processed food products. When you go shopping, try to purchase items only from these sections. If a food item has more than a few ingredients on the label (or ones you can’t pronounce), don’t buy it. This is a key step in transitioning your diet to whole foods.

Over time, your body and palate will get used to :

•  fresh vegetables
• fruit
• grains
• proteins

3. Eat healthy fats

One of the most common nutrition myths is that fat makes you fat. In fact, your body needs fat! However, there are many different types of fat. You should avoid trans fats and limit saturated fats, but heart-healthy fats like nuts and avocado will help you feel full and reduce cravings.

Have a handful of mixed nuts as an afternoon snack. Or you can make a homemade salad dressing with olive oil and vinegar. Adding fresh guacamole or a fatty fish like salmon to your day is also a great way to incorporate healthy, filling fats.

4. Eat enough protein

Protein makes you feel full, often more so than other macronutrients like carbs. Fill your diet with healthy sources of protein including:

•  fish
•  beans
• vegetables
• nuts

5. Try fruit

Fruit has sugar, but it has a lot of vitamins, antioxidants, and water, too. It also contains fiber, which slows and balances out the effects on your blood sugar. This prevents the sugar crash. Once you wean yourself off of manufactured sugar, fruit will taste a lot sweeter and more satisfying to you. Grab a bowl of berries or a piece of watermelon if you’re craving something sweet.

6. Taste the rainbow

Add some new and different foods to your routine. The more varied your diet, the less likely you will get bored or crave junk food. For example, add a new green to your salad (mustard greens, anyone?), or try a new type of fish this week like tuna.

Bonus: Eating diverse foods of many colors boosts your overall health and helps with disease prevention, too. Examples include purple potatoes, red beets, orange carrots, and green kale.

7. Think about junk food differently

A 2013 study showed that when people were trained to look at and interpret one of their most-craved junk foods in a negative light, desire for it lessened. Participants were asked to view the craved food as if:

    they were already feeling very full

    they just saw the food item sneezed on

    they could save the item for later

    they were told about negative consequences of eating the food (stomachache, weight gain)

Your mind is much more powerful than you might think. It can’t hurt to experiment!

8. Focus on adding healthy foods

A study in the journal Nutrients showed that focusing on the positive side of healthy eating is more effective than focusing on the need to remove junk food.

The more healthy foods you add in, the easier it will be to crowd out the unhealthy ones. Stay positive!

9. Work on stress management

There’s almost always an emotional component behind cravings. Sure, you really need the brownie because you like the flavor. Or your blood sugar is low and you need an energy boost. You’re more likely to grab the Cheetos or leftover cookies when you’re upset or stressed by something.

Consider how you may be eating (or drinking) as a way to stuff feelings, distract yourself, or procrastinate. Try to be compassionate to yourself and do some gentle exploration. Practice redirecting yourself when you feel the urge to reach for food instead of doing what needs to be done, or saying what needs to be said.

Healthy stress management tools include:

• taking a walk or run
• yoga
• meditating for a few minutes taking some deep breaths
• talking to a trusted friend or family member
• doing something creative like painting
• journaling

Experiment and find what works best for you. If your stress feels overwhelming, talk to your doctor or a mental health professional. They can offer emotional support and suggest other effective, healthy, non-food coping methods.

10. Get more sleep

Most people don’t get nearly enough sleep. And while you’re probably aware of the effects on your mood or energy level, you may not know that lack of sleep is also thought to play a big role in junk food cravings. A recent study in Sleep showed that sleep restriction resulted in more hunger and less ability to control intake of “palatable snacks.”

So make the effort to turn in a little bit earlier every night. You might also want to stop eating a few hours before you intend to go to bed. A full stomach can cause indigestion and interfere with your ability to fall or stay asleep.

The takeaway

Although our brains are wired to eat a variety of foods, junk food may reduce this desire. This can trap you in a vicious cycle of unhealthy eating. The more you eat junk food, the more you crave it. By following the simple steps, you can break the cycle today and lead a healthier life.

How to Kick the Junk Food Habit and Eat Healthy

The good news is that the research shows that the less junk food you eat, the less you crave it. My own experiences have mirrored this. As I’ve slowly begun to eat healthier, I’ve noticed myself wanting pizza and candy and ice cream less and less. Some people refer to this transition period as “gene reprogramming.”

Whatever you want to call it, the lesson is the same: if you can find ways to gradually eat healthier, you’ll start to experience the cravings of junk food less and less. I’ve never claimed to have all the answers (or any, really), but here are three strategies that might help.

1. Use the “outer ring” strategy and the “5 ingredient rule” to buy healthier food.

The best course of action is to avoid buying processed and packaged foods. If you don’t own it, you can’t eat it. Furthermore, if you don’t think about it, you can’t be lured by it.

We’ve talked about the power of junk food to pull you in and how memories of tasty food in the past can cause you to crave more of it in the future. Obviously, you can’t prevent yourself from ever thinking about junk food, but there are ways to reduce your cravings.

First, you can use my “outer ring” strategy to avoid processed and packaged foods at the grocery store. If you limit yourself to purchasing foods that are on the outer ring of the store, then you will generally buy whole foods (fruits, vegetables, meat, eggs, etc.). Not everything on the outer ring is healthy, but you will avoid a lot of unhealthy foods.

You can also follow the “5 ingredient rule” when buying foods at the store. If something has more than 5 ingredients in it, don’t buy it. Odds are, it has been designed to fool you into eating more of it. Avoid those products and stick with the more natural options.

2. Eat a variety of foods.

As we covered earlier, the brain craves novelty.

While you may not be able to replicate the crunchy/creamy contrast of an Oreo, you can vary your diet enough to keep things interesting. For example, you could dip a carrot (crunchy) in some hummus (creamy) and get a novel sensation. Similarly, finding ways to add new spices and flavors to your dishes can make eating healthy foods a more desirable experience.

Moral of the story: eating healthy doesn’t have to be bland. Mix up your foods to get different sensations and you may find it easier than eating the same foods over and over again. (At some point, however, you may have to fall in love with boredom.)

3. Find a better way to deal with your stress.

There’s a reason why many people eat as a way to cope with stress. Stress causes certain regions of the brain to release chemicals (specifically, opiates and neuropeptide Y). These chemicals can trigger mechanisms that are similar to the cravings you get from fat and sugar. In other words, when you get stressed, your brain feels the addictive call of fat and sugar and you’re pulled back to junk food.

We all have stressful situations that arise in our lives. Learning to deal with stress in a different way can help you overcome the addictive pull of junk food. This could include simple breathing techniques or a short guided meditation. Or something more physical like exercise or making art.