The best tip I can give to anyone, from first hand experience is stop drinking diet soda and using artificial sweetners like splenda. It is actually better to have real sugar (unless your diabetic). The reason for this is simple. There is alot of information on this out on the internet including medical studies but it all boils down to this. Sucrolose, asparteme, and the other artificial sweetner chemicals are poisen to your body. They originally were not approved by the FDA because they caused tumors in lab mice. After an FDA regime change back in the seventies, and money exchanging hands they were magically deemed safe for consumption. Poisen aside, because they are an artificial chemical, your body doesn't know how to process them. This is the root cause of the explosion in obesity in this country, and uncontrollable cravings for junk food.
Everything in our body has a purpose, including the bacteria in our gut. Thats why everyone is now saying probiotics are so important. Everyone should be taking a probiotic supplemant, they are the good bacteria that keep us healthy. These good bacteria are fed by healthy foods, and they in turn keep the bad bacteria that we all have in check. There is a constant battle going on in our gut. The bad bacteria have a purpose too. They have evolved to process carbs, and all of the other things that the good bacteria do not. Overtime the bad bacteria (someone had to do it right?) have learned to process these artificial sweetner chemicals. This causes them to grow out of control. When this happens they start to outnumber the good bacteria. This leads to all of our cravings for bad food. Do you ever wonder why you get random uncontrollable cravings for sweets, or pizza, bread, junkfood?
Personally I read all of this information and I believed it, but recently I confirmed it for myself by accident. I have been making small steady changes to my diet. I used to drink regular soda, then I switched to diet soda and splenda in my coffee thinking it was better. When I did that is seemed like my cravings for junkfood got worse. Overtime I finally got to the point were (just trying to be healthy) I am only drinking water, and I use stevia a natural sweetner now in my coffee). 2 weeks ago after not having any of these chemicals for months I had to go to a lunch meeting. I had already eaten my prepared lunch so while my coworkers ordered food I had a cup of coffee with unlimited refills. We were there for 1 hour and just to keep busy I had 5 cups of coffee (small cups) with 2 splendas each. That night I experienced cravings that I hadn't felt in a long time. They were so strong I broke down and had a mini pizza, some cookies, a bag of chips, and I just wanted more and more. That was the first time I really noticed the connection.
So what is the best way to detox from these chemicals? Their are a number of ways. Sugar in and of itself is an addiction. It affects our brains just like a drug, so switching to real sugar is not really the answer. It's not easy and it takes time. The best way just like detoxing from a drug, is to go through a detox. One way to detox from sugar is atkins. It is difficult but if you try atkins for at least 4 days to a week, you will be amazed at how different you feel. Atkins isn't sustainable however, but it is good for detoxing from sugar and artificial sweetners. Another method is a clean eating cleanse. The method that ultimately worked best for me was the Shakeology cleanse and the 3 day refresh. They are both a detox using healthy shakes that have stevia in them. The shakes hold you over while your body detoxes. If you'd like more info you can email me at ERICFIT78@GMAIL.COM
Their are many different ways to do it, but if you always wondered why no matter how much you diet, you can't get rid of cravings for bad food, maybe it's time to try something different. Maybe you are experiencing the same thing I did. An addiction to sugar and artificial sweetners. When your addicted to something, lowering the amount or stopping for a day doesn't help. The only thing that helps is a complete detox from it to get it out of your system. With these sweetners sometimes it takes a little longer, because you are starving the bad bacteria but you have to rebuild the balance in your body with your good bacteria inorder to make the effect permanent. It's the same as a drug detox program. You have to attack the addiction on many different levels at the same time.