Cant Stop Eating Chocolate

LegacyUser

I am a young adult who can't stop eating chocolate. Its probably the food I comsume the most. I have a rather good diet and don't particularly crave or want bad food at all, I can give up most bad, unhealthy foods easily enough but chocolate.....I just can't. And its becoming a problem. I'm known in work as tge girl who is first to open the sweets. My friends remark on how much of it I eat. I just can't seem to stop myself. I can't go more than 2 days without a sharing pack or bar. It seems to be a mental thing (part physiological too). I started taking chromium and apple cider vinegar and it worked for like 2 days but that was it. If I have a big event coming up I tend to follow a strict diet but always I just find myself *needing* a big portion of chocolate to get through the day (normally right at the end of the day, sometimes 2). I can't seem to power through no matter what motivation I have. What can I do?

Emme

Are you stressed? Do you get enough sleep? If so address these issues.

It might help to talk to your GP and get some tests for vitamin/mineral deficiencies.

B0jangles

What kind of chocolate are you eating? I ask because I've found that while I could easily chomp my way through a ridiculous amount of ordinary milk chocolate, I'll happily stop after a couple of squares of a strong dark chocolate - it just doesn't seem to trigger the same urge to keep on eating and eating.

Mokuba

If you are going to the gym or exercising, then you could have some dark chocolate after, maybe 2/3 squares. That way you can satisfy your craving as long as the rest of your diet is in check.

As a rule I would recommend tracking whatever you eat with myfitnesspal.

seamus

It's all in your head, literally.

There is something of a physiological aspect to it - if you eat sugary foods, then you will get an insulin spike, followed later by a sugar crash where you feel hungry and lethargic. This makes you want more sugar/chocolate to pick you up. It's a bit of a vicious cycle. The best way to avoid it is to ensure that your main meals are nutritionally diverse and not just 90% carbs/sugar. This will help you feel full until the next meal and not get the "3pm slump" - which is a made-up marketing thing, but it works because people identify with it.

But overall, it's in your head. Your cravings for chocolate are completely in your head, it's not your body screaming out for chromium (WTF) or vinegar or potassium, or anything else. It's a habit, and nothing except willpower can break it.

You need two weeks. Two weeks where you don't eat it. Or if you do fall off the wagon, you get straight back on it again.

- Don't have chocolate at home. Seriously. None whatsoever. If you do the shopping, then just don't buy it. Any chocolate that's currently at home, bag it up and bring it into work and be rid of it. If someone else does the shopping, ask them to stop buying it, at least for the time being.

- Fight the urge in work. If treats appear, then remove yourself from their presence, either by moving them to another location, or taking yourself off somewhere else. Once you break that initial urge to grab one, you should be OK.

- Drink water. Constantly. Like if you don't have water within reach at any point, then you should make the effort to go get some. This will fight hunger pangs, and water and chocolate don't go well together. If you do succumb, water will also wash away that "tastes like more" feeling.

It's a tough two weeks, but it gets much easier after that. You'll find cravings subsiding significantly. But you can't give up then. You need another two weeks before the cravings are gone completely. And then you need to be vigilant. Because chocolate is awesome, you're never going to not enjoy it. But you want to be able to look at it and think, "Nah, not right now".

If you do fail, tomorrow is new day. A day to start again. Don't give up.

beans

I'm working on a similar issue re: sweet treats at the minute. I'm finding it difficult but a few things are helping

- 2 or 3 pots of green tea in the afternoons at work (currently Jiogulan, it's sweet and fills me up)
- having pieces of fruit on-hand
- not having sweet treats at home
- anything I need for the week at work, buying on a Monday and avoiding daily trips to the local Spar... because I'm forced to walk past those tasty things, usually when I'm hungry


I've tried doing this in the past, and it's worked well when I've got something I'm aiming for. A sporting event or such. Having a goal, outside of the stopping itself, helps me.

FurBabyMomma

I am the exact same as you except I can't get through a day without chocolate. There is some good advice in the post above, and I would think it makes sense to follow it. However, what is missing from it is the emotional element. I don't eat chocolate because I'm hungry, feeling a slump or need energy. I'll reach for it at any time of the day as I've managed to make chocolate an emotional crutch. I suffer from anxiety and insomnia and used as a coping mechanism, chocolate helps me literally 'eat' my feelings. I don't know if that's the case with you, but thought I'd put it out there.

milli milli

Op I agree with the poster that says it’s a habit. Follow that advice for sure to kick the habit.
But I don’t agree with completely cutting out goodies from your life either.
What I do is I make healthier versions of goodies. There’s loads of recipes online for this. It’s easy to replace ingredients with healthier substitutes, e.g. use cacao powder instead of cocoa powder. Cacao is the pure form of chocolate and has loads of nutrients in it. Yogurt instead of butter or oil, etc, etc.

I regularly make chocolate brownies that taste like regular brownies but have no oil, no excess sugar, and are made with healthy things like oats.
So you can still get your chocolate fix but you’re not filling your body with rubbish.

Greyfox

FurBabyMomma wrote: »

I don't eat chocolate because I'm hungry, feeling a slump or need energy. I'll reach for it at any time of the day as I've managed to make chocolate an emotional crutch.

I completely agree with this, it's what I use to make myself feel good, the problem is once you have some you want more. Going cold turkey didn't work for me, I'm now doing the choc once at the weekend and besides 1 lapse of 2 bars in 1 day I'm sticking to it. The main thing is not having any choc in the house as once you know it's there it's impossible to resist

Baby4

This post has been deleted.

seamus

^^ I would just note that having a "crutch" doesn't necessarily mean there are unresolved issues.

There's a school of thought which says that any kind of "odd" eating is always the result of a specific unresolved emotional issue, but that's really not the case for most people.

For many, food can be a "crutch", but only insofar as it helps to relieve stress in general. In the same way that some people might find going for a pint, or a walk, or watching trashy TV to be a stress reliever, some will find a bit of sugary junk food to relieve their general stress.

You can't necessarily make general stress go away completely, but you can change your approach to how you deal with it and swap out a "bad" crutch like chocolate, for a good one, like walking.

That's not to say the OP definitely doesn't have a specific emotional issue they need help with, but it doesn't mean they do either

ginandtonicsky

Are you eating enough calories otherwise? You mentioned "strict dieting" regularly. Your body is going to have a physiological reaction to this, which is quite commonly bingeing on high fat, high sugar foods. This might be playing into the need for your chocolate fix. Your body needs enough calories to fulfill its energy requirements and will get them one way or another, regardless of your plans to semi-starve yourself regularly.

Another thing I'd say is there's nothing wrong with a bit of chocolate, regardless of what our diet-obsessed society says. I have a classic sweet tooth and a diabetic in the family so I have to be careful with my urge to chow down on sweet crap constantly. I stopped dieting and stopped thinking of chocolate as "bad" or "off limits" or "I'm being so naughty" and suddenly the urges seemed to fade.

I still have something sweet every day - just finished a Twirl a few minutes ago - but also get my daily dose of fruit and veg and lots of protein and that treat usually keeps me from eating entire bumper packs of chocolate bars because I've taken it off the "i'm a terrible person this is the WORST OMG" list. Diminishing its power can really help. Black-and-white thinking about food can really play an emotional toll.

rondog

I have a choc addiction too but I use Kinetica protein bars.Check out their cookies and cream and choc deluxe.They have very small amount of sugar and lots of protein and are an all around healthy snack.When I feel like im falling off the wagon I have one.they are deeelish and only a few grams of sugar compared to 30+ grams of sugar in a regular bar of choc.

brevity

Have you tried the "Don't break the chain" method.

Get a calendar and a red marker. Stick the calendar somewhere where you will see it everyday. It should be a calendar where each day of the month is a box.

Mark an X for every day you don't eat chocolate. Eventually you will build up a chain of X's and you won't want to break the chain.