How to Kick the Junk Food Habit and Eat Healthy

Kick the junk food habit !

In my previous post, i discussed about What happens to our brain when we eat junk food, and why we crave for it. Now, the question that we face is, what can we do about it? how can we avoid our junk food habit?

Well, the good news is according to researchers less junk food you eat, the less you crave it.

So,If you can find ways to gradually eat healthier, you'll start to experience the cravings of junk food less and less. There are 3 strategies that James Clear posted in his blog.
1. Use the "outer ring" strategy and the "5 ingredient rule" to buy healthier food.

The best course of action is to avoid buying processed and packaged foods. If you don't own it, you can't eat it. Furthermore, if you don't think about it, you can't be lured by it.

We've talked about the power of junk food to pull you in and how memories of tasty food in the past can cause you to crave more of it in the future. Obviously, you can't prevent yourself from ever thinking about junk food, but there are ways to reduce your cravings.

First, you can use "outer ring" strategy to avoid processed and packaged foods at the grocery store. If you limit yourself to purchasing foods that are on the outer ring of the store, then you will generally buy whole foods (fruits, vegetables, meat, eggs, etc.). Not everything on the outer ring is healthy, but you will avoid a lot of unhealthy foods.

You can also follow the "5 ingredient rule" when buying foods at the store. If something has more than 5 ingredients in it, don't buy it. Odds are, it has been designed to fool you into eating more of it. Avoid those products and stick with the more natural options.

2. Eat a variety of foods.

While you may not be able to replicate the crunchy/creamy contrast of an Oreo, you can vary your diet enough to keep things interesting. For example, you could dip a carrot (crunchy) in some hummus (creamy) and get a novel sensation. Similarly, finding ways to add new spices and flavors to your dishes can make eating healthy foods a more desirable experience.

3. Find a better way to deal with your stress.

There's a reason why many people eat as a way to cope with stress. Stress causes certain regions of the brain to release chemicals (specifically, opiates and neuropeptide Y). These chemicals can trigger mechanisms that are similar to the cravings you get from fat and sugar. In other words, when you get stressed, your brain feels the addictive call of fat and sugar and you're pulled back to junk food.

We all have stressful situations that arise in our lives. Learning to deal with stress in a different way can help you overcome the addictive pull of junk food. This could include simple breathing techniques or a short guided meditation. Or something more physical like exercise or making art.
Moral of the story: Eating healthy doesn't have to be bland. Mix up your foods to get different sensations and you may find it easier than eating the same foods over and over again. (At some point, however, you may have to fall in love with boredom.)

See also : Why do we carve for JUNK food and how does it affect our brain

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Why do we carve for JUNK food and how does it affect our brain

Why do we carve for junk food? 

Almost all of us know and agree to a point that Junk food is unhealthy. We also know that poor nutrition is included as a major risk factor for many heart conditions, such as high blood pressure.

But the question is,

why do we still keep eating it?

Well, according to the food scientist Steven Witherly, who has been studying about certain food addictions for about 20 years, there is an answer to this question-

when you eat tasty food, there are two factors that make the experience pleasurable.

First, there is the sensation of eating the food. This includes what it tastes like (salty, sweet,etc.), what it smells like, and how it feels in your mouth. This last quality -- known as "orosensation" -- can be particularly important. Food companies will spend millions of dollars to discover the most satisfying level of crunch in a potato chip. Their scientists will test for the perfect amount of fizzle in a soda. These factors all combine to create the sensation that your brain associates with a particular food or drink.

The second factor is the actual macronutrient makeup of the food -- the blend of proteins, fats, and carbohydrates that it contains. In the case of junk food, food manufacturers are looking for a perfect combination of salt, sugar, and fat that excites your brain and gets you coming back for more.

Here's how they do it...

How Science Creates Cravings

There are a range of factors that scientists and food manufacturers use to make food more addictive.

Dynamic contrast. Dynamic contrast refers to a combination of different sensations in the same food. In the words of Witherly, foods with dynamic contrast have an edible shell that goes crunch followed by something soft or creamy and full of taste-active compounds. This rule applies to a variety of our favorite food structures -- the caramelized top of a creme brulee, a slice of pizza, or an Oreo cookie -- the brain finds crunching through something like this very novel and thrilling.

Salivary response. Salivation is part of the experience of eating food, and the more that a food causes you to salivate, the more it will swim throughout your mouth and cover your taste buds. For example, emulsified foods like butter, chocolate, salad dressing, ice cream, and mayonnaise promote a salivary response that helps to lather your taste buds with goodness. This is one reason why many people enjoy foods that have sauces or glazes on them. The result is that foods that promote salivation do a happy little tap dance on your brain and taste better than ones that don't.

Rapid food meltdown and vanishing caloric density. Foods that rapidly vanish or "melt in your mouth" signal to your brain that you're not eating as much as you actually are. In other words, these foods literally tell your brain that you're not full, even though you're eating a lot of calories.

The result: You tend to overeat.

Sensory specific response. Your brain likes variety. When it comes to food, if you experience the same taste over and over again, then you start to get less pleasure from it. In other words, the sensitivity of that specific sensor will decrease over time. This can happen in just minutes.

Junk foods, however, are designed to avoid this sensory specific response. They provide enough taste to be interesting (your brain doesn't get tired of eating them), but it's not so stimulating that your sensory response is dulled. This is why you can swallow an entire bag of potato chips and still be ready to eat another. To your brain, the crunch and sensation of eating Doritos is novel and interesting every time.

Calorie density. Junk foods are designed to convince your brain that it is getting nutrition, but to not fill you up. Receptors in your mouth and stomach tell your brain about the mixture of proteins, fats, carbohydrates in a particular food, and how filling that food is for your body. Junk food provides just enough calories that your brain says, "Yes, this will give you some energy," but not so many calories that you think, "That's enough, I'm full." The result is that you crave the food to begin with, but it takes quite some time to feel full from it.

Memories of past eating experiences. This is where the psychobiology of junk food really works against you. When you eat something tasty (say, a bag of potato chips), your brain registers that feeling. The next time you see that food, smell that food, or even read about that food, your brain starts to trigger the memories and responses that came when you ate it. These memories can actually cause physical responses like salivation and create the "mouth-watering" craving that you get when thinking about your favorite foods.

See also : How to Kick the Junk Food Habit and Eat Healthy

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Shocking foods that have more fat than a doughnut.

Most people have a negative knee-jerk reaction to the word "fat" — but they shouldn't, as fats promote heart health, keep us feeling full and satisfied, and may even help ward off cognitive decline.
The following foods contain more fat than a glazed doughnut ( which contains 14 grams), but this doesn't mean you should exclude them from your diet , here is why :

1) Half an Avocado : each half of an avocado contains 15 grams of fat, but 10 grams of those fats are monounstaturated fats, which improves cholesterol levels, they may also help to prevent belly fat.

2) Two table spoons of peanut butter : two table spoons of peanut butter contains about 16 grams of fat, half of which is monounsaturated fat, also about 4 grams of it is polyunsaturated fat, which helps to reduce type-2 diabetes.

3) 1 Ounce of unsweetened dried coconut : It contains 18 grams of fat which is almost all saturated fat, but according to a new research that suggests there's a place for saturated fats in our healthy diets (and that they may not be as strongly linked to heart disease as previously thought). Since the recommendation is to get no more than 10 percent of your daily calories from saturated fats (and that comes to about 20 grams for an 1,800-calorie diet), you definitely don't want to go overboard with dried coconut—but you can work some into a healthy diet.

4) 3 large eggs : you'll get about 14 grams of fats from 3 large eggs, but this fat is equally distributed between saturated, unsaturated and polysaturated fats.

5) 12 Olives : these contain about 15 grams of fats, out of which majority of fat is monounsaturated.


All the above mentioned foods have more grams of fat, but they have a lot of nutritional benefits that a doughnut doesn't have.

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5 Foods that you should keep at work for healthy lunches

A lot of people happen to skip their lunch because of their tight schedule, back to back meeting, insane work-load, also some people consider skipping lunch as a part of their so called "diet plan". Personally i know a lot of people around me who skip their lunch, or rather settle for a fast unhealthy lunch just to get off with it, But what they don't understand is the importance of lunch.

Lunch is not just food that you consume in order to relief of a growling stomach, apart from this lunch contributes to a solid foundation of good nutrition on continuing basis, it gives you the energy to retain and remain concentrated on your work, having a lunch break influences the level of stress and work load, also having a proper and healthy lunch in regular routine keeps you away from the risk of certain chronic conditions like Ulcer disease of stomach and duodenum.

Now, that i have mentioned the importance of lunch, let me inform you about some of the options that you might consider for your healthy lunch.

1. Whole-Grain Bread : 

 Now we all know sandwiches are are super easy to make and is a very quick process, a whole-grain bread contains a lot of fibers and the best part is you can put anything you want between the two slices to make a fast and light meal.




2. Nonfat Yogurt :
Some people consider yogurt just as a snack, but if you put in some fruits and nuts to it, you get a highly nutritional rich meal and by keeping it in large containers and consuming it more than normal serving can keep you going till the evening.







3.Canned Tune or Chicken :
These products are rich in protein, and since they are already cooked and canned, they make up for a perfect quick and easy meal. Opt for the water-encased packages since those tend to have fewer calories than ones with oil. You can eat it with your whole-grain bread and for flavor can add a little light mayonnaise or mustard.





4. Almond Butter or Almond :

Almonds are a great source of proteins as well as fats, you can add them in your yogurt or spread almond butter on your bread, but make sure not to snack on the nuts too much as apart from their healthy nutritional benefits, they are also fairly rich in fats.








5.Fruits :


Now of-course mostly all of us consider fruits as a healthy snack, but using it in a right way can provide you more nutritional benefits, for example, u can add fruits to your yogurt, which will give your yogurt a better taste and texture, or put slices of fruits like Bananas or apples together with almond butter over your bread, which would give a really yummy taste.














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