Are You Suffering From The Biggest Problem in Nutrition And Dieting?

Are you also stuck suffering from one of the biggest problems in shifting to a healthier lifestyle?

Okay – so you’re starting to eat healthier food, you’re finally getting on track eating the right foods at the right times, you’re starting to move a bit more and get in some low-level cardio… and then it hits you!

In fact, Precision Nutrition (a website and Facebook page) asked its followers the following:

Check out how some of you responded:

Notice a trend?

I decided to poll my own audience – all of you – to see how common this really is, and how many of you are having a hard time with them.

Here were the results:

A: “Do You Feel Out of Control and Give in to Eating Unhealthy Foods… Even Though They Have a Negative Effect On Your Body?”

What this says about us:

95% of you said yes, you give into cravings at least sometimes… even though you know it’s totally messing up your health and “diet” progress.

Some of you even specifically said you can see the negative changes in the mirror happening but you can’t stop them. Indulging feels way too good.

B: “How Does it Make You Feel When You Give In to Cravings?”

What this says about us:

The vast majority of you responded that giving into cravings makes you feel guilty, depressed or really frustrated with yourself. It’s like you’ve spent so much time working hard towards achieving a goal or improving, and then you were quickly derailed.

A smaller percentage said you felt worthless, disappointed in yourself, or flat out sad.

C: “Have You Tried to Control Yourself or Set Personal Rules, But Have Failed?”

What this says about us:

A whopping 94% said you sometimes or “all the time” set rules trying to control yourself, which end up failing later.

The verdict? Drop the rules – they probably aren’t working, at least not how you’re doing them now.

D: “Do You Try to ‘Self-Talk’ Your Way Out of Cravings But Fail Anyway?”

What this says about us:

Okay, so in the last one we noticed that many of you set rules which rarely work.

In this one, I asked about self talk, e.g. “Okay, just get by 5 more minutes” or “You have to finish your workout/work/book first.”

29% said you do this all the time (and it doesn’t work).

Overall, 94% of you have tried self talk (which ended up failing).

Pass on the self talk!

E: “Do You Think Cravings (& Emotional Eating) Are a Big Part of Why You Can’t Lose Weight & Why You Haven’t Reached Your Health Goals?”

What this says about us:

This one is really interesting.

85% of you said that, YES, cravings play at least some part in my inability to lose weight (or otherwise attain my health goals).

Here’s my question for you: if we know it’s a big problem, and it’s preventing you from achieving whatever outcome you want, why aren’t we taking this more seriously and coming up with better strategies to fight cravings and emotional eating?

F: “What’s the Biggest Barrier Preventing You From Conquering Your Cravings?”

What this says about us:

• 17% of you say that “being surrounded by junk food/having it there” is preventing you from conquering cravings
• 26% of you said that “self control issues” is the reason you haven’t conquered your cravings
• 26% of you said that “emotional eating/stress/being tired” were the main reasons behind your cravings
• 14% of you said that “failing to plan/not having a plan” prevented you from achieving your goals
• 17% of you, interestingly enough, said that “I love indulging” was the reason you’ve struggled

G: “Why Do You Think You’ve Been Unable to Stop Your Cravings?”

What this says about us:

I decided to pose another question, phrased a bit differently this time, regarding why you’ve been unable to conquer cravings.

I got the usual answers – lack of self control, emotions/stress, not having a plan – but I also got some other interesting ones.

Two new answers emerged, one of which was really interesting: #1 – “I deserve it after a long/stressful day.”

***

The Million Dollar Question About Your Cravings

Most of you attribute being unable to conquer cravings to a few typical reasons:

Lack of willpower/discipline or failing to plan.

But a much more interesting picture emerged: many of us use food to calm down after a stressful day or some adverse conditions.

We’ve programmed food into our brain like smoking, drinking, or doing drugs – we feel a low, we look to de-stress and find a high, and then we go looking for our drug of choice.

For some of us, that’s TV, for others it’s alcohol, others go to cigarettes, drugs, sex, or video games.

The million dollar question for you is this: We know cravings are preventing us from getting the health we want… so why aren’t we taking them more seriously and finding better ways to cope?

If we know this is one of the top nutritional problems that we suffer from when changing to a healthier diet, why aren’t we treating it like it’s something serious?

Get Started

Some articles to get you started (which will show you how to avoid going towards food):

• Why All Diets Fail & Why You Don’t Need a Diet to Lose Weight
• How to Increase Your Happiness by 500% (Today)
• 5 Jedi Mind Tricks to Stop Cravings and Beat Emotional Eating

Snag This Free How-to Guide Also:

Quite possibly the most important article on this site, I ended up writing about how to lose weight and improve your health (long-term) by changing your habits rather than believing it’s all about willpower and discipline. This will also give you a specific formula to combating cravings (since it’s all about habits).

It’s conveniently in PDF format for you guys now.

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