What Are Your Trigger Foods?

Foods that cause "out of control eating" are called "trigger foods". Trigger foods are foods that once tasted, cause you to eat more and more.

For some people, sugary foods may be a trigger food. Others may long for pasta or other carb-heavy foods like pizza or bread.

Trigger foods vary from person to person. Pinpointing your trigger foods is the first step and developing a plan to make sure they don't wreck your weight loss goals is the next step.

Slowly reduce your trigger foods

Aggressive diets and cold-turkey methods usually fail, leaving you depressed and defeated. To succeed, you should adopt a gradual approach.

When you feel like you absolutely must have the trigger food, add a small helping of fruit or vegetables before you indulge. Do this each time you eat the trigger food or foods, each time adding a little more of the healthy food and eating a little less of the trigger food. Eventually, you will not only associate the healthy food with the dopamine response of the trigger food, but you will ultimately remove the trigger food from your diet.

Exercise

Trigger foods give a much-desired high, a rewarding feeling in the body. But exercise delivers the same results with much better benefits. I have personally found that exercise greatly reduces the desire for trigger foods.

Making healthy choices

When making food choices, ask yourself which choice is wiser for weight management. Following are some healthy choices that will help you achieve your weight loss goals:

• Choose smaller portions
• Use a small plate for all meals
  
• Fill your plate once and don't go back for seconds
• Eat more vegetables
• Snack on carrots and celery instead of cheese
• Use less butter or sour cream on a baked potato, or skip the butter and add lowfat cottage cheese and salsa instead
• Choose a piece of fruit instead of a candy bar for a snack
• Choose a piece of fruit instead of cookies, cake or ice cream for dessert
• Choose skim milk instead of whole milk or cream
• Choose fat-free frozen yogurt instead of ice cream
• Choose to share a dessert with a friend rather than eat it all yourself
  

Health is a choice. Be sure to choose wisely.

Related Article: What Everybody Ought To Know About Exercise

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