Riverside Medical Clinic
Handling Hunger
and Controlling
Cravings
Health Education
Department
Sheila Clarke, MBA, RD
Registered Dietitian
Health Education
Handling Hunger and
Controlling Cravings
Distinguish between hunger and
cravings.
Learn what triggers a craving.
Identify strategies to head off a craving
before it starts.
List techniques to manage a craving
once it hits.
The Primal Hunger Drive
Biological (not an issue of willpower!)
Under eating causes a brain chemical to
trigger our desire for carbohydrates.
The more you deny your true hunger,
the stronger and more intense the
cravings become.
Accompanied by physical sensations
Basic Hunger Scale
0 Starving
2 Preoccupied with feeling of hunger
4 A little hungry but can wait to eat
6 You sense food in your belly, but could eat
more
8 Full belly not uncomfortable
10 Thanksgiving-day full painful
The Continuum of
Emotional Eating
Sensory
Gratification Comfort Distraction Sedation Punishment
Sensory Gratification
(Cravings)
May never disappear completely… just
need to be managed.
Caused by environmental cues or
emotional triggers.
Temporarily boosts the brains reward
center.
New Theories on Why
We Overeat
The layering of sugar, fat and salt
overstimulates the brain’s reward
center.
Food industry’s role in marketing,
portion explosion and availability has
added to the problem.
From The End of Overeating by David Kessler, MD
New Theories on Why
We Overeat
Once the brain’s nuerocircutry is
stimulated, it doesn’t shut off.
Conditioned hyper eating emerges.
From The End of Overeating by David Kessler, MD
Emotional Eating…
Drive to eat originates in thoughts and
feelings.
Compelled to seek food to distract,
cover up, and/or push down feelings to
change thoughts/feelings.
Since food can’t resolve an emotional
issue, the eating continues.
Food is temporarily soothing.
Hunger vs Desire vs Cravings
You haven’t eaten for hours and your
stomach is rumbling and you feel ravenous
…Hunger
You ate a big meal and you still wanted to
continue to eat more…Desire
You had a very strong desire to eat,
accompanied by tension, and an unpleasant
yearning sensation in your body…Craving
Emotional Triggers
Boredom and procrastination
Bribery and reward
Excitement
Stress
Anxiety
Emotional Triggers
Figure out your emotional triggers by keeping
an ABC food and mood diary.
A= Antecedent (the trigger situations or
emotions that come before eating).
B=Behavior of eating (what did you eat or
drink and how much).
C= Consequences (what were your feelings
and attitudes that occurred after eating.
ABC Food Journal
www. Nourishingconnections.com
Heading off a Craving
Planned eating
Avoid hunger by eating every 3-4 hours.
Have healthy snacks on hand.
Get adequate sleep
Reset your sweet stat
Heading off a Craving..
Recognize it for what it is( it’s a craving,
not an emergency!)
Create negative associations with the
food and positive associations with
healthy eating.
Empower yourself with positive self-talk.
Handling a
Craving..Learn to Wait
It Out
Cravings are like waves…
The Stop Watch Method
The average craving only
lasts 8-14 minutes!
1. Set an alarm for 15
minutes.
2. Drink a glass of water
and have a protein
snack.
3. Distraction game plan.
Environmental Cues
Food Rehab
Avoidance of cues
Avoid deprivation, which primes the cues
Retrain your brain so the salient stimuli
loses its power.
Rules
Disclosure
Public Health Successes
From The End of Overeating by David Kessler, MD
“Part of the secret of success in
life is to eat what you want and
let the food fight it out inside.”
Mark twain (1835-1910)
Additional Resources
www.bedaonlin.com
www.intuitiveeating.com
Crave; Why You Binge Eat and How To
Stop by Cynthia Bulik, PhD
The End of Overeating
by David Kessler, MD