Many people find they can’t stop eating chocolate and so conclude they are addicted.  But is there any truth in chocolate being addictive or are we just too weak to resist it?  Well, the truth is, chocolate is addictive in 2 ways.  Chocolate can be physically and emotionally addictive.

Physical Addiction

Chocolate Targets The Same Spot In Your Brain As Heroin

Although chocolate doesn’t affect you as strongly as heroin, it still affects your brain and you can still become addictive as you may well know.

On top of having opiate properties, chocolate also contains caffeine, theobromine (a strong stimulant similar to caffeine that affects the nervous system, particularly the heart), phenylethylaminphy (an amphetamine-like substance) and also traces of compounds similar to THC (the active ingredient in Marijuana).

So as you can see chocolate is full of addictive properties. But chocolate also contains sugar, milk and dairy products which also have highly addictive properties.

The best way to overcome these issues is to quit cold turkey but also to make it easy to quit cold turkey, you need to nourish your body properly. When you eat healthily and the right food you will not have intense cravings.

Chocolate can also, of course, be emotionally addictive. Like many other foods, chocolate is frequently used to comfort us.

Emotional Addiction

Emotional addiction to chocolate involves using chocolate in times of stress, boredom, depression and to cope with life.

To determine whether you are an emotional eater read this article: Are You An Emotional Eater? 6 Signs of Emotional Eating

If you still are unsure, take a few days to observe yourself and write down what triggers your cravings for chocolate. If they are related to stress or emotion, then you know you have some emotional eating tendencies at the very least!

The best way to deal with emotional eating is:

1. Become aware – by doing the observation task above you will know what your craving triggers are.

2. Learn to do something else to unwind instead of eating – To help you do this you can spend time writing a list. Sometimes having time alone to simply feel the emotions is all you need, other times you may feel a walk is more helpful to you. If you find that you are bored in the evenings and this is a time you will eat the most, then being creative or being active will better suit you. Write a list of things you have always wanted to do or activities that will satisfy your creativity. Make your lists specific to the emotions that trigger you chocolate cravings.

3. Get support – sometimes its simply not enough to work on it yourself and you may need someone to talk through your feelings to stop you reaching for food. Try to find someone supportive. Alternatively a great website for emotional eating which also has a forum is ShrinkYourself.com. ShrinkYourself.com also has lots of useful articles on emotional eating and offers a great 12 week intensive emotional eating program if you find you can’t cope alone. For more information about this program Emotional Eating Program.

Hopefully this should be enough information to get you started on your road to overcoming chocolate addiction.

This is a quick tip to help you overcome cravings:

To overcome cravings, some times it takes more then eating enough and having a clean healthy diet. Sometimes our cravings have become such a pattern or habit to us, sometimes our thinking has been changed so rigidly, that we have to do more then eat properly – we have to change our thinking.

Once you have admitted that you have a problem with food, that you have intense cravings or addiction and that you DEFINITELY want to give them up for good, you need to COMPLETELY REFUSE to consider them for even a second longer from that moment on.

Once you know what you must avoid (sugar, chocolate, coffee whatever it is) and what you must do to improve your health, you should start observing and be attentive to the thoughts that pass through your mind. Just as soon as you become aware that you desire some chocolate or any other food which you have chosen not to eat anymore, as that very moment dismiss it. Completely refuse to give it another second’s thought.

You must be alert here though because quickly the thought can arouse emotion in you and this can result in you becoming weak or inattentive to your decisions. You will find you start trying to rationalize having that desired food and get caught up in your feelings.

Don’t play with this desire! But don’t struggle with it. If you try to use willpower to force it out of the mind it will just accentuate it and make it stronger. You become frustrated and risk caving or you do cave. Just simply drop the thought from your attention – get on with a chore, distract yourself essentially. Give this other subject/activity your FULL attention and stay fully immersed in it until you have calmed down.

I also found simply saying to myself “I don’t really fancy that/desire that food right now” really helped to calm the craving. I know normally I am saying “I really want that” and keep obsessing over it, so to convince myself I actually don’t want it reverses the obsession. You must say it like you mean it in your head though, otherwise it doesn’t work.

Emotions are much stronger than reason – we tend to rationalize the irrational when we are caught up in them and can talk ourselves into anything. This is dangerous, so don’t play with them just divert your attention.

This is one of the first and most crucial steps to being free – Your freedom from cravings is possible but you must have self-awareness if you want to be rid of cravings for good.

Stop Cravings

“Please take me seriously when I say I am addicted to chocolate because I AM. No matter what I do I just can’t go a day without it. Even though I don’t buy it I still end up making a special trip out just to get my hands on some. I know that it isn’t doing me any favors because I end up feeling really grumpy and irritable especially when I don’t get it. Not to mention it isn’t exactly doing wonders for my wasitline~! What can I do to overcome this in the easiest way possible?”

Sound familiar? Many people really feel addicted to chocolate and it isn’t surprising when chocolate stimulates opiate receptors in the brain (not to degree of heroin but enough to keep you coming back for more and more).

So what can you do to overcome this chocolate addiction as painlessly as possible? First to overcome the physical cravings you experience for chocolate you have to eat right. Your diet plays a key role. If you want to overcome the cravings without having to really fight against them, then give yourself the right foods. One key food that most people do not eat enough of is fruit. Eat as much fruit as you desire before every meal and if you crave eat 4-5 pieces of one type of fruit. When we crave we crave for two reasons. The first reason being that we have not eaten enough, so we crave nutritionally. We go for the chocolate because this is the habit we have gotten ourselves into (even though it isn’t nutritious our body will search for the first and best familiar food item). If you eat 4-5 pieces of fruit and continue to so with physical cravings, you will find this will be the new habit you pick up. You will also feel satiated and quickly as fruit is easily absorbed and contains nearly all the nutrients the human body needs.

If physical cravings are the only thing you have to worry about then this should be enough to overcome them very easily. Make sure you do not even have a little piece of chocolate as a “treat” because after the first bite it is much harder to resist.

The second reason we crave is due to emotional triggers. In a society that uses food for comfort, celebration and mourning, many of us from an early age have adapted to use food as a way to comfort us and to repress emotions. This can be ok if it is on the odd occasion, but for some we do it more often than we should. Those emotions need to come out at some point so better now then never.

The best way to tackle the emotional addiction to chocolate is to know what triggers the cravings for chocolate. Once you know the triggers you can then start to make a plan of action to stop yourself giving in to the craving and also to replace the craving with something much more healthy when resolving emotions. There are some great articles available at Eating Naturally for emotional eating and there are also some great tools at ShrinkYourself.com.

Chocolate is an addiction many people suffer with, especially women. I once too had a crazy chocolate addiction where I was eating a large bar daily and would go out especially to get chocolate, even late at night. I always wonder how to stop chocolate cravings so I could leave a more balanced life, because chocolate was making me grumpy, tired and carrying excess weight.

Chocolate addiction or any food addiction isn’t taken very seriously in my mind. We use the term craving, as though food can not really be an addiction like drugs or alcohol can. But it can and IS.

Chocolate is an addictive drug and targets the same spot on your brain as heroin and morphine. Although its effect isn’t as strong as heroin, it still affects your brain and you still become addicted, as you may very well know.

On top of having opiate properties, chocolate also contains caffeine, theobromine (a stimulant similar to caffeine), phenylethylamine (an amphetamine-like substance) and also traces of compounds similar to THC (the active ingredient in Marijuana).

So as you can see chocolate is full of addictive properties – on top of this is usually is mixed with milk and dairy products which also have highly addictive properties.

Not only is chocolate physically addictive but it also can be emotionally addictive too. Many of us use chocolate for comfort in times of depression, stress and boredom. Emotional addiction tied in with physical addiction seems like an almost impossible task to overcome but it can be done and you can quite easily overcome the physical addiction straight away.

How to stop chocolate cravings is quite simple. You need to first learn how to nourish your body properly. When you eat the right foods you can overcome any physical addiction almost instantly. Also ensuring that you have a proper breakfast can also help with cravings later on in the day.

Second you must overcome the emotional addiction you have to chocolate, if you have it. To see and acknowledge whether you use chocolate to comfort yourself, observe your eating habits over a few days. See what triggers your cravings for chocolate – is it hunger? Is it an emotion? Once you know whether you do use chocolate as an emotional comfort, you can then start to address the issues surrounding it.

For more information on how to stop chocolate cravings: Stop Chocolate Cravings