CONTROLLING FOOD CRAVINGS As described earlier, restricting certain types of foods can decrease food cravings. In the study of obese patients with restriction of carbohydrates and high-sugar foods it was found that food preferences and to a lesser extent food cravings were suppressed during a two-year period, suggesting long-term benefits. Committing to implementing change is not easy. Cognitive techniques such as mindfulness can help. Researchers gave 110 self-identified chocolate cravers a bag of chocolates each to carry around for a week. They instructed half the group in “cognitive restructuring”, a technique that involves challenging inaccurate thoughts and replacing these with more accurate ones. The other half of the group was taught a mindfulness-based technique – “cognitive defusion”. Participants were asked not to change their thoughts but simply to notice their thoughts and to visualize themselves as different from their thoughts. At the end of the study participants in the diffusion group were more than three times more likely to abstain from chocolate than participants in the restructuring group. Defusion interventions work to resist food cravings by creating a sense of distance from them rather than trying to eradicate and replace them.
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