How do you resist junk food?
 

I know it is okay sometimes, but sometimes it seems like that's all I eat. I am trying to eat healthier, but it doesn't help that virtually everything here is carbs. I am also trying not to eat when I am bored.

Hi Tuck , looks like you are aware of the problem, so that is a good first step.
While you need some carbos in your diet, you also need protein more.
Carbos as in fast food smell and taste good, and can be hard to resist. But you need more and more to feel satisfied.
If you can, make your mind up to really stay off the junk food.
Avoid anything that is highly processed.
Avoid breakfast cereals.
Avoid sugar.
Avoid soft drink.
Avoid white bread.
Avoid salty snacks, biscuits, cakes, sweets.
Avoid processed meats.
For breakfast, try oats. These can be boiled as in porridge, or made into homemade muesli (that is what I do).
For snacks, prepare a container of mixed nuts, primarily almonds. Keep it in the fridge and grab a handful when you feel like a snack.
Fruit is also very good.
The 'nice' foods are OK occasionally, so you don't need to miss out on them all of the time.
But you will just be on a roller-coaster ride with a high carbo diet, as there is nothing of value and you get a rush for a while, then feel desperately hungry in a short time. You have carbos again, and on it goes.
If you have protein, you actually feel full for longer.
Have a look at the Zone Diet.
Take it all bit by bit, but make some definite changes to your diet and stick to them.
I don't know how much influence you can have on what foods are available, but give it a go whenever you can.

I like what the previous poster said.
NOt too long ago,I had to lose a few pounds and almost eliminated sugar from my diet for about ten days. I also ate more lean protein. I reduced the amount of starchy carbohydrates that I ate (bread/pasta) but did not eliminate them and made sure they were whole wheat, etc. I just kept the portions very small.
Now, I find that I don't really crave sugar as much. What I am doing is eating a sugary type food (obvious dessert...like a cookie) for special occassions only and then only in a very small portion. This seems to me, is what it really is suppose to be generally speaking anyway.
I still eat plenty of vegetables and I have some fruit several times a week.
I have lots of yogurt (almost daily) and low fat or ff cheese once in a while.
The bottom line is that what I don't want/don't need and what gets me in trouble...are the cravings for the sugary food.
Reducing/controlling sugar significantly and keeping the lean protein relatively high, has helped me keep things more in control.
BTW...sometimes I eat beans for my protein. This works too!
Now, I chose when I will have sugar and I keep things very conservative.

I understand where you are coming from. The junk food doesn't bother me that bad, but it's too handy.

If I'm hungry and tired, I grab the quickest thing I can find. Which is usually junk food.
Lately, we just don't buy the junk food. No snack cakes, cookies, chips. We quit buying soda's.

Today I went to the grocery store and did buy some junk. That is because we are fixing to get an ice storm. Around here, that could translate into no electricity in an all electric house. So now there is chips and dip, cookies, hot chocolate, pop tarts, cereals, in my house.

Hopefully I will be good and stay out of it.


DAY

i think the trick is 2 things:

1. get it out of the house. purge everything you have and toss it.
2. go shopping and replace it with something else.

fruits that you can easily eat like bananas and apples. anything fresh.
veggies that have been already cut for you in the produce aisle.
low fat salad dressing.

even pretzels are less offensive than chips.
start to read labels. for carbs, sugar, salt etc. you'll get educated.

eat when you're hungry and stop when you're full.
eat more protein.
watch portion sizes.

i'm still struggling so i know what you mean. but that helped me.

I forgot to mention that I almost always keep two things around that I have learned to substitute instead of sweets. They are cherry tomatoes (sometimes with low fat salad dressing as a dip) and on other nights, I"ll have grapes. They will do the trick in a pinch very nicely for me.

I really like fruits, and I eat them every chance I can, but they go bad so fast. I also have a habit of eating when I am bored, which is frustrating! Sometimes I feel like all I do when I am home is eat. I have put on a few pounds, but that was over a months time. I have been doing this for years, then I stopped for a few months, but now it is back. I just don't want it to become a lifelong habit

Don't buy it. Ever.

I'm a grabber, whatever is quick and easy is usually my first pick. So, I keep cut up produce available, raisins, grapes, whole grain saltines for the incidental salt rush, cottage cheese that I eat by the tablespoon right out of the carton, sometimes a whole grain baguette cut up in a suckerware tub. Being able to just snag the right stuff in passing really helps me stay on track.

I don't have much of a choice. My dad eats junk food all the time, and my mom picks out a lot of groceries, so I can't just put stuff back. I put in healthy food for myself, but everybody else eats it unless I hide it. Healthy food is also so expensive and comes in little packages

I'm a grazer! My DH is a carnivore; loves his meat and potatoes, so I do cook a nice dinner, but I'm not a big meat eater, so I tend to graze. In reality, I'm probably getting more calories by picking at this and that than I would by sitting down and eating a regular dinner.

DH also sabotages me; he's been bringing home sweets all the time lately. Seems he can't pass up a sale on my favorite treat~~~~ CHOCOLATE! I keep telling him to stop, but he thinks he's being sweet. (no pun intended) AY YI YI!!!!!!!! I can leave an unopened bag of chocolate alone, but once it's opened~ watch out!

I am putting more fruit into my diet and that seems to curb the appetite more.