Addiction research

If you're a slave to your cheese curls, there's hope: Addiction research on drugs and alcohol has unearthed a technique to handle temptation that is effective for food cravings too. It works like this: Instead of pushing away the thought of what you desire, acknowledge it without immediately giving in. Try to ride out the craving as you would a wave while you evaluate your physical and emotional state including how hungry you really are and consider objectively how healthy the snack is, advises Deborah Tate, Ph.D. Professor of nutrition and health behavior, University of North Caroline. Then, if what you're obsessing over is something that's going to sabotage your weight goals, choose one of the following tactics: delay say "I'll reassess my choice to eat this in 20 minutes," distract say "I'm going to take a walk instead of eating," or substitute "I'll have an apple instead of a brownie." (Women's Health)