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Break the Cravings Pattern with the Stop! Watch! Method |
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Book Reviews -
Women's Health and Psychology
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Written by Jana Klauer, M.D.
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 The following is an excerpt from the book How the Rich Get Thin
by Jana Klauer, M.D.
Once you have recognized that you have cravings and how they can sabotage your diet, it is time to get them under control. Time will be our ally in this task as we recognize the following simple fact: A craving generally lasts only 8 to 14 minutes.
Refusing to give in to a craving will feel somewhat uncomfortable but it will pass. We are not talking about days or hours, only minutes! You need to realize consciously that these few minutes can make the difference between success and failure on a diet. There is power in this knowledge because it allows us to take action to regain control. I have come up with a technique that I use in my clinical practice to help my patients gain control over their cravings.
First, identify the time of day that you are experiencing cravings. This will allow you to prepare for them by having a healthful snack at hand. Cravings are cyclical in nature. You may intuitively be aware of this hunger pattern but some people are not. I can almost guarantee that there will be a certain time of day when you are more vulnerable to allowing your appetite to go haywire but, if you identify this, you can control it.
The typical time span of most food cravings is 8 to 14 minutes. I know it feels longer, but as Einstein told us, "Time is relative." Knowing that a craving is limited in duration will give you the power to ride through it.
The Stop! Watch! Method
1. When a craving arises I ask my patients to set a stopwatch (which I
provide) for fifteen minutes; during this time they are advised to
drink a large glass of water and eat a protein snack. This allows their blood glucose to become normalized (if it had dropped) and, by
"waiting out" the urge, they gain control. It sounds simple but it
does work. We have all experienced this phenomenon: on the treadmill,
when we want to stop with ten minutes to go and we just count down the
minutes; when sitting in a boring lecture and we watch the minutes
tick away until the time that the class is over; or even when we give
children a "time out" when they are having a tantrum. All of these
situations have the same idea: holding on until a specific amount of
time elapses. A stopwatch quantifies the time that a craving lasts.
And for a dieter to know that there are only a few minutes left is
enormously helpful!
2. Drink a big glass of water. Because our brain may misinterpret the
signal for thirst as a signal for hunger, drinking water eliminates
unrecognized thirst from the picture. You may just be thirsty, so go
for the water first. Drinking a glass of water is filling and good for
you, too.
3. Have a protein snack. If the snack that you chose is in the form of
a high-tryptophan source, which include turkey and dairy products, then
so much the better. L-tryptophan is an amino acid that is converted to
serotonin, a neurotransmitter that impacts satiety, mood, and
cravings. Recall how relaxed you feel after having turkey at
Thanksgiving dinner, or how soundly you slept after having a glass of
milk prior to retiring. These effects are due to the calming action of
serotonin. There is a potent class of antidepressants that increases
the amount of serotonin in the brain (serotonin reuptake inhibitors or
SSRIS), and guess what they are used to treat? Binge-eating disorder!
I am not implying that if you experience cravings you will develop, or
you have, a binge-eating disorder. Binge eating is a recognized
psychiatric diagnosis whereby an individual experiences a loss of control and consumes far more than a normal individual would eat within
a given period of time. But it is interesting to note that serotonin
is implicated in this disorder. By consuming food that can be
converted to serotonin, we may be able to help ourselves resist the
temptations of normal food cravings; at least, that is what my
patients tell me.
Your snack should be a food that will benefit your body and that you
find satisfying. By the latter, I mean there are times when you might
want a food with a creamy consistency -- in such a case, low-fat yogurt
is a great choice. At other times, you may desire a crunchy texture --
here I would suggest baby carrots or raw celery stalks. And don't
forget to drink at least one 8-ounce glass of water; this assures that
you are not misinterpreting the signal for thirst as a hunger signal.
Purchase a stopwatch and try these techniques. They will lead you to
the realization that you are powerful and that your willpower is
stronger than you now believe. After a month or so you may not need the
stopwatch because you will have truly overcome the lure of cravings.
You will find that the power was within you all along and you just
needed to stop and watch for it to appear.
Stop! Watch! Method Summary
1. Set your watch or a timer for 15 minutes
2. Drink a large glass of water
3. Eat a high-protein snack
Copyright © 2006 Jana Klauer, M.D.
Jana Klauer, M.D., is on the medical advisory board at Equinox in New
York City. She was also a research fellow at the New York Obesity
Research Center of St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital and is actively
involved in clinical research on obesity. She is in private practice in
New York City, where she lives.
For more information, please visit www.janaklauermd.com .
How the Rich Get Thin, published by St. Martin's Press; December 2005; $22.95US/$30.95CAN; 0-312-34038-9
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