1. Play the swapping game.
Take one or two unhealthy foods you really enjoy eating, and replace them with healthy alternatives.
Replace French fries with sweet potato fries that are baked instead of boiled in oil.
Replace white flour with whole grains like quinoa, whole wheat, whole oats and buckwheat.
Try baked kale chips instead of potato chips. Make one or two of these substitutions every 7 to 10 days.
Your brain is incredibly adaptive. It learns that what you eat most of the time is what you will be eating most of the time.
When you slowly move away from junk food, fast food and highly processed foods, to healthier alternatives, your brain notices.
This is how some of your unhealthy cravings began initially. You ate so much of particular things that, even though your brain knew they were not good for you, it began to anticipate and to desire them.
Do this enough, and for a long enough period of time, and you can train your brain to dislike the food that is robbing you of your health and wellbeing
2. Respect the unhealthy power of sugar.
You may think your sugar cravings is absolutely unbeatable. The truth is, the chemical process which made you so powerless to sugar can be reprogrammed to disregard its power.
Sugar has been linked to a growing list of chronic and short-term health problems. The bad news is, if you eat a lot of processed food and junk food, fast food and restaurant food, you are getting more sugar than is healthy for you.
Sugar is in our food and beverages, and it is placed there intentionally. Refined sugar is an incredibly inexpensive flavoring agent, and it is highly addictive. This is how food manufacturers train your brain to crave food that causes disease and illness.
Start cutting back on sugar everywhere you can. This doesn't mean sugar that you are consciously spooning into your coffee or adding to your oatmeal. Sugar is everywhere.
Simply cutting back on processed foods, canned food, frozen food, and eating out will drastically limit your sugar intake.
3. Since a full 70% to 80% of unhealthy eating is emotional or stress-based, cut out the stress.
Learn how to manage stress and anxiety. Get lots of sleep. When your body and brain are tired, anxiousness and depression are constant companions.
Take up yoga, start meditating. Exercise and stay physically active often.
These are all proven stress relievers, and the more stress you can reduce in your life, the easier it is to eat for physical hunger reasons, rather than emotional ones.
4. Sometimes addiction can be beat simply by removing the cause of addiction.
Often addiction is caused because of emotional, financial or mental reasons. Find the triggers that cause you to eat unhealthy.
Purge your pantry. Clear your kitchen cabinets of junk food and nutrient-poor foods. Raid your refrigerator.
Replace unhealthy foods with fresh fruits and vegetables. From your soda and energy drinks, and drink nothing but water, herbal teas, coconut milk, and almond milk instead.
Whether people, food, your environment or junk food ads are driving you to unhealthy food choices, limit your exposure to them.
5. Constantly remind yourself how poorly you feel when you eat junk food.
Remember the energy and mental focus you have when you trade sugar, fried foods, salt, fast foods and processed foods for healthy alternatives like fruits and vegetables.
Try an experiment. Eat predominantly junk food for one week, and journal how you feel after every meal, and at the end of the week. Now do the same thing for one week eating predominantly whole foods. You will feel the difference.
After these 7 days of eating mostly whole foods, refer to your journal. Odds are you will have many more positive experiences recorded after eating fresh and whole foods than you did when you ate junk food and processed food.
6. It is easy to eat right and feel great when healthy food surrounds you.
This means having plenty of fruits and vegetables nearby for a quick snack, instead of reaching for a candy bar or a soda. Healthy treats can be as simple as a handful of almonds or walnuts. If you have some time, make a fresh smoothie with your favorite fruits and vegetables.
The key is to fill your home, office and commute with healthy foods rather than junk food, candy, baked goods, and fast food.
Remember: keep healthy, fresh vegetables, fruits, berries, and nuts nearby, and that is what you will reach to eat instead.
7. Don't instantly believe that you "hate all healthy foods".
Learn to try new, healthy meals you haven't tasted. This is how you develop a new taste profile in your mouth and in your brain, that learns how to enjoy healthy foods, as opposed to junk food.
Look up recipes online and experiment. Learn to prepare meals you never would've thought of trying. Expand your boundaries in the kitchen.
When you learn to try new meals, whether you prepare them or someone else does, you expand your mental limits where food exposure is concerned. If you make these new meals healthy and tasty, you can retrain your brain to love your new choices.
8. Studies show that fad diets are very limited.
Learn to try a variety of foods. When you "eat the rainbow", you enjoy a variety of different-colored whole foods that help your body get a complete range of nutrients, minerals, and vitamins than when you limit your choices to a small number of foods, even when they are healthy ones.
Eat lots of different fruits and vegetables. Try a wide variety of nuts and berries. You probably know that brown rice is healthier than white rice, and sweet potatoes are better for you than white potatoes. In addition to brown rice, quinoa, whole oats, barley, buckwheat, amaranth, bulger, and millet are healthy grains. Freekeh, spelt, farro and teff are as well.
Learn to eat many different kinds of healthy foods, rather than limiting your chances at becoming healthy by streamlining your eating habits.
9. Did you know one of the reasons why your brain becomes hopelessly addicted to junk food has to do with limited water intake, in many cases?
That's right, simply by drinking more water, you can break an unhealthy addiction to any food that is causing you health problems. You are predominantly water.
Your every cell requires water to be replenished on a daily basis, roughly 1 gallon per day. This means all of the food you eat and beverages you drink need to put a minimum of 1 gallon of water into your body daily.
This is a natural and simple detoxing practice. It cleanses your body of toxins, poisons, and waste. It also helps you keep feeling full all day so you can reach weight loss goals if you have them, and there is just no real reason for avoiding drinking water all day long.
This speaks to the power of drinking water as a simple way to make your brain stronger, so it can resist unhealthy addiction and develop healthy cravings instead.
10. You can beat unhealthy food cravings and eating behaviors with sleep and exercise.
When you get 6 to 8 hours of sleep on a nightly basis, you give your mind and body time to rest and repair.
When you're physically active each and every day, you sit more than you stand, and you keep moving as much as possible, you automatically move towards better health and well- being.
Regular exercise promotes healthy sleep behavior, which in turn promotes healthy physical activity.
There are several bodies of research that have proven the connection between physical and mental health. When your body is strong your brain is too. They each support the state of each other, whether healthy or unhealthy.
Keep your body healthy with lots of rest and regular physical movement, and your brain will have the power and ability to resist unhealthy cravings and adopt healthy eating habits.
