Use it or Lose it

Like many people, I get cravings for certain foods sometimes, particularly chocolate or other sweet treats. If you absolutely must have something sweet but still want to lose weight, then you will need to figure out a way of incorporating treats into your weight loss regime.

I know many people advocate making sure the cupboards are completely free of temptation, and waiting for the craving to pass. If you know you can’t trust yourself with sweets in the house, then you will probably be best taking this approach.

On the other hand, you may find that if you have nothing sweet to snack on when you’re at home then you might over-indulge when you go out. In that case, you may prefer to keep something tasty in the cupboards, but not too naughty, to enjoy while you’re at home.

There are a few ways in which you can still enjoy tasty treats while losing weight. Of course, they all still require a certain amount of willpower, but if you have that then you can still allow yourself that little bit of indulgence, satisfy your craving and still keep on track.

Fat-free yoghurts are a great way of enjoying something sweet that shouldn’t be too bad for you. It is important, though, to check the label for the number of calories and amount of sugar. Remember: fat-free doesn’t always equate to low-calorie or low-sugar.

For chocolate lovers, try buying “fun-size” or snack sized bars and bags. Even if you buy a multi-pack of these, they are divided into individually wrapped portions, making it easy to keep track of how many calories you are consuming. They do still pack a lot of sugar, fat and calories for their size, but better to have a fun-sized bag of sweets than a family-sized one!

Fruit is always a good choice. The healthy option, enjoying something sweet will also count towards your recommended intake of five portions of fruit and vegetables a day. Dried fruit also counts towards this, but these can be much higher in sugar and calories that their hydrated counterparts - a serving of dried fruit will be much smaller than the equivalent serving of fresh fruit.

I’d love to hear other people’s ways of coping with food cravings. Do you use distraction techniques or give into them?