Help a girl with her chocolate addiction

[Lobsterp]

Today - feeling positive, ready to cut down on the chocolate. Fruit, granola and yoghurt for breakfast, mango for a mid morning snack, salad with avocado, couscous, croutons, lettuce, celery, peppers for lunch, bananas and grapes then a mid afternoon dark chocolate biscuit bar. Get home from work and am super hungry - 2 x hot cross buns, half a pack of chocolate digestives and a cookie. I try to look for alternatives but anything but chocolate doesn't seem to cut it! Any advice?

Two ideas: first, you have a healthy but possibly still quite sugary diet (check your granola, yoghurt, etc - those plus fruit can really add up). You might need to cut sugar altogether to prevent chocolate cravings. Second, chocolate cravings can be linked to magnesium deficiency. Try taking a supplement and see if it helps.

Your diet is all sugar and no protein. I would start by trying to massively reduce it, the more you have the more you want.

That sounds like a lot of sugar and not much protein, I'm not surprised you were starving by the time you got home. You could try adding some pulses or lean meat to your lunch salad perhaps.

Any ideas on how to add less sugary things with minimal effort? Just don't fancy prepping things like chicken the night before for lunch. There's also something about eating cold pulses/beans in my salad which doesn't sound appealing...

I'm like you in terms of the chocolatey craving.

For breakfast I have a good quality 0% yogurt with berries and a tsp honey. More filling than you'd think!

If I snack it's on fruit.

Do you have access to a microwave at work? I find if I have a large lunch with protein (lean chicken or small amount of cheese) usually left overs heated up, then a protein rich yogurt with fruit then I don't need an afternoon snack.
When I get home I can have my Skinny crunch with a banana or other fruit and get cooking dinner.

It works for me.

Also I find eating a large amount of carbs often makes me crave something sweet. So if I'm really trying to lose a few pounds I cut down my carb intake for the week.

I agree with what previous posters said about protein. It's no wonder you're hungry.

For non-chocolate (n.b. not "non-sugary") snacks I love nuts, pre-sliced cheese (not American cheese, just regular cheese in slices), cottage cheese, Nakd bars, dates (the ones that do not have added sugar) and celery sticks/slices pepper dipped in hoummus.

I wouldn't keep digestive biscuits or hot cross buns in the house whatsoever as that's just setting yourself up to fail by keeping temptation close at hand- half a pack of chocolate digestives is a huge amount of calories. I also had to Google "Skinny Crunch" and that appears to be a junk/ultra-processed food, too, so that's not something I'd turn to and possibly worse.

If you treat the milk chocolate like an addiction then it makes sense, you wouldn't expect an alcoholic to be able keep bottles of vodka in the house, would you?

A quick way to up protein would be to get some sliced beef and break it up, add it to your lunches. Or have cheese/cold meat and sliced raw veg as afternoon snack. How are you with nuts? You could make up some healthy trail mix and portion it out for the week for straight when you get home.

My favourite breakfast is Greek yoghurt with sprinkle of homemade muesli and raspberries. I don’t snack so lunch then would be jacket potato and veg&bean chilli, then dinner something light like an omelette and salad.

The only way to mange a chocolate addiction is to not have it in the house. Go cold turkey. Cravings will disappear after a few days. Then amazingly you will be able to eat chocolate in moderation. Of course, with Easter just around the corner this will make it hard! Maybe try after?!

Herbal tea. Find one you like and have a mug of that instead.
I love chocolate. If I have a cup of breakfast tea, I snack on all the bad stuff.
If I have a mug of Twinnings Cleanse it seems to quell the appetite. If I still want to eat something I don't feel the urge for anything sweet then, so have some mixed nuts instead.

Thanks all, I have a nut allergy but love snacking on seeds. I'm not a big meat eater either but will occasionally bring in leftovers if a cheesy chicken bake for lunch.

This ready-to-eat Quorn pieces are delicious and savoury:

https://www.trolley.co.uk/product/quorn-roast-style-sliced-fillets/GEG427

I usually look out for them being on offer.

Something I enjoy is stirring some unsweetened cocoa powder into cottage cheese with some Stevia and frozen raspberries (or others). Put in the fridge for a little bit to allow the cocoa to hydrate and thicken the cottage cheese and the berries to defrost a little. It really is good and the cottage cheese has lots of protein.

Can you take tins of tuna or packets of cooked salmon to go with your salad? You are lacking protein so starving when you get in

Rather than avoid choc all together eat more protein then have something like a small bar? Better than half a pack of biscuits?