I want to get off the crisps

JackieBauer

I'm not going to kill myself by ditching ALL bad food right away but the crisps are a particular problem. I have snacked on cherry tomatoes instead but I always get that craving for the crisps, maybe I'm a salt addict. I can't be the only one

ezra_pound

JackieBauer wrote: »

I'm not going to kill myself by ditching ALL bad food right away but the crisps are a particular problem. I have snacked on cherry tomatoes instead but I always get that craving for the crisps, maybe I'm a salt addict. I can't be the only one

Bags of nuts and dried fruit etc.?

Mellor

JackieBauer wrote: »

I'm not going to kill myself by ditching ALL bad food right away but the crisps are a particular problem. I have snacked on cherry tomatoes instead but I always get that craving for the crisps, maybe I'm a salt addict. I can't be the only one

Put salt on the cherry tomatoes instead

JackieBauer

Maybe salt "addict" was too strong a term...

Bongalongherb

Strange that you brought this up, as of this moment in time I just made a tayto crisp sandwich with a slice of easy-singles mature cheddar. That would be a very hard one to give up imo.

ChampagnePop

You could try homemade Kale crisps, they're lovely!

fussyonion

I was really addicted to crisps, OP.

I'd buy a 24-pack of King or whatever and I'm ashamed to tell you I'd eat around 5-6 bags a day.
I'd buy those big sharing bags of crisps twice a week too.

I joined the gym last year and started eating healthier because I was determined to shift this weight. (i was several stone overweight)

I had tried diets and things in the past but I could not give up crisps and carried on eating them, even when I was trying to lose weight.
However, this time I knew I had to change.

I stopped buying the multipacks and now I just have a bag of crisps on a Saturday night as my weekly treat.

It wasn't hard to stop buying them during the week because I knew I could have them at the weekend.
The best thing I did was cutting out those multipack purchases and share size bags; I would never go backwards.

If you really want them, buy yourself a bag at the weekend and savour them.
But if you can't stop yourself eating them and the addiction is too powerful, you will just have to completely cut them out.
I have willpower now and I won't eat more than a bag a week.

El_Dangeroso

Popcorn pleasure is a brand made with just coconut oil, corn and salt.

Not a healthfood but 10 times better for you than crisps deepfried in crappy oil.

Could be a good crisp alternative to ween you.

Speaking as a fellow crisp addict here. If it didn't ruin my health I'd eat nothing but crisps all day.:)

Essien

20g of kelkin wholegrain kernels plus 5g of kerrygold.

Pop it in the microwave for a couple of minutes and you have a handy/tasty and surprisingly satisfying little snack below 120kcal with 3g of fiber in there for good measure.

Obviously there are better options out there but if you're replacing crisps you could do a lot worse.

mimimcmc

I used to be an absolute crisp fiend... Would've eaten 10 packs a day sometimes!

What i did to ween myself off them was set a target, say i'll go off them for a month (substituted apples)
It's hard for the first few weeks but it gets easier and easier. I hardly ever eat crisps now, maybe once a month or even less, the cravings just go away eventually

ford2600

http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.ie/2016/03/can-salt-increase-calorie-intake.html#more

Kind of on topic. Small study on salt.

It's no accident they are hard to give up, have a read here(it long winded but great read)
http://boingboing.net/2012/03/09/seduced-by-food-obesity-and-t.html

Some interesting articles here
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.ie/search/label/Food%20reward

JackieBauer

I was in Tesco the other day and avoided the crisp aisle. That's real success for me. The colours, the packaging, everything. I had a glance but I didn't enter that aisle. Long may it continue

Alf Veedersane

JackieBauer wrote: »

I was in Tesco the other day and avoided the crisp aisle. That's real success for me. The colours, the packaging, everything. I had a glance but I didn't enter that aisle. Long may it continue

And go with a list that you stick to. If you get into a mindset of not picking up anything that isn't in the list, it really helps.

draiochtanois

This post has been deleted.

SarahMollie

I'm a serious crisp fiend too, I find it the only part of my diet I can't control. They are my kryptonite. There are other unhealthy foods that I like, but I can ultimately take them or leave them. With crisps I have very little control I find.

I wish there was something I could do to turn myself off them permanently!

El_Dangeroso

SarahMollie wrote: »

I'm a serious crisp fiend too, I find it the only part of my diet I can't control. They are my kryptonite. There are other unhealthy foods that I like, but I can ultimately take them or leave them. With crisps I have very little control I find.

I wish there was something I could do to turn myself off them permanently!

That's because they are designed to be overeaten. They have a number of attributes designed to make them addictive.

1. MSG - lots of free glutamate triggers your food reward system in your brain, even though MSG is not in the ingredient list, things that contain MSG like yeast extract or modified vegetable protein or something similar are.
2. Salt + Fat + Starch - nothing wrong with these individually but when combined in the perfect ratio like crisps are it makes for an addictive combo.
3. They taste 'light' - crisps don't remotely fill you for the amount of calories they contain. You'll get full eating plain potato far faster than crisps calorie for calorie
4. Low protein - protein puts the brakes on appetite, another reason crisps can be eaten past the point of not being hungry
5. Convenient - no cooking just open a back and enjoy instant gratification

If you were designing a perfect fattening food on purpose I don't think you could do better than crisps.

ford2600

El_Dangeroso wrote: »

That's because they are designed to be overeaten. They have a number of attributes designed to make them addictive.

1. MSG - lots of free glutamate triggers your food reward system in your brain, even though MSG is not in the ingredient list, things that contain MSG like yeast extract or modified vegetable protein or something similar are.
2. Salt + Fat + Starch - nothing wrong with these individually but when combined in the perfect ratio like crisps are it makes for an addictive combo.
3. They taste 'light' - crisps don't remotely fill you for the amount of calories they contain. You'll get full eating plain potato far faster than crisps calorie for calorie
4. Low protein - protein puts the brakes on appetite, another reason crisps can be eaten past the point of not being hungry
5. Convenient - no cooking just open a back and enjoy instant gratification

If you were designing a perfect fattening food on purpose I don't think you could do better than crisps.

They are a stable of The Cafeteria Diet....

You forgot the sugars and sweeteners

First described in 1976 by Anthony Sclafani, the cafeteria diet is basically a rat-sized buffet of human junk food, in addition to regular rat chow (9). The menu for a recent cafeteria diet study included such delectable items as Froot Loops, mini hot dogs, peanut butter cookies, Cheez-its, Cocoa Puffs, nacho cheese Doritos, cake, and BBQ pork rinds (10). These are what's known in the business as ‘palatable’, or pleasurable to the taste. On this regimen, rats ignored their regular chow, ate junk food to excess and gained fat at an extraordinary rate, far outpacing two comparison groups fed high-fat or high-sugar pelleted diets. Yes, human junk food happens to be the most effective way to overwhelm the body fat homeostasis system in rats, and neither fat nor sugar alone is able to fully explain why it’s so fattening. Importantly, over time, rats become highly motivated to obtain this diet—so motivated they’ll voluntarily endure extreme cold temperatures and electric shocks to obtain it, even when regular bland rodent pellets are freely available (11, 12)."