My experiments with doing elimination diets and cutting out comfort foods like chocolate and ice-cream have taught me a few things:

1. Your taste buds change a couple of weeks after you change your diet. If you can manage to cut out chocolate, sugar, artificial sweeteners and other ultra-processed foods for at least a couple of weeks, you may even develop pan aversion to very sweet things. You should notice that you can taste more subtle flavours in your food and enjoy unprocessed, real food a lot more as well.
2. Cravings are strongest for the first couple of weeks after you give something up. Try to tough it out as best you can for those first 2 weeks. Things are going to start getting easier after that.
3. If you have a tendency towards addictions, it can take just a single taste to bring all those old cravings come rushing back. So if you’re that sort of person, you’re probably better off abstaining completely once you get off chocolate.
4. When you’re better nourished, you’ll likely notice you have far fewer cravings. The best way to improve your nutritional status is to focus on the most nutrient-dense foods. That means liver, kidneys, heart, organs, red meat, fish, and shellfish. I’m not kidding. Yes, I was surprised as well. Before I started on this journey, I thought fruit and vegetables held primacy for nutrient density. That’s what we’re told. Don’t believe me? I’ve analysed a few diets in this post and broken it right down so you can see where the contributions for each vitamin and mineral come from. Still skeptical? I’ve also reviewed the National Diet and Nutrition Survey results that prove people in the UK are becoming frighteningly malnourished – every year the malnutrition gets worse. So bad that they gave up analysing most micronutrients in 2020. I suspect they’re worried people will start suing them for giving out lethal dietary advice that makes malnutrition worse.
5. Eat real food. This means cooking things from scratch. Batch cook to make your job easier. Add lots of salt. Consider doing an elimination diet, like paleo, real food keto, AIP, or even a carnivore diet. But watch out for oxalates and oxalate dumping which can be very unpleasant.
6. Plan out what you’re going to eat when you’re hungry and for snacks. Make sure you have something healthy to hand so that you’re not reaching for a handy bar of chocolate for a quick fix.
7. Better yet, eat at least 1 or 2 very large, animal-sourced protein meals every day. This will keep you feeling full all day. Then you don’t have to worry as much about snacks.
8. If you eat a big enough meal once or twice a day, you can combine this with intermittent fasting. One way to incorporate intermittent fasting is to have a restricted eating window. So you choose to only eat during an 8 hour eating window during the day. After your last big meal of the day, only drink water, tea, or herbal teas. You can skip breakfast so that you’re you’re not eating for at least 16 hours in a row. You shouldn’t really feel hungry. If you’re getting ravenous, you’re not eating enough meat and organs for your main meals. Eat more!
9. Don’t buy the stuff you shouldn’t be eating. Don’t bring it into your house, workplace or home. Don’t make up excuses about needing to have something to hand if visitors call around. The temptation of having it there will be too great. You’ll hear it calling your name in the evenings when you’re stressed out and tired.
10. Do things to alleviate stress. A lot of the time, when you eat junk or comfort foods it’s because you’re looking for a treat since life sucks and you deserve a little bit of joy. If you need some inspiration for things that will help manage your stress and don’t revolve around food, check out these stress-reducing techniques.
11. Get a good night’s sleep. Exhaustion zaps your willpower. Plus, you’ll be looking for that sugar hit along with a cup of coffee to get you through the day. If you’re seriously struggling with your energy levels, you’ll also need to get serious about your diet as well. Because chances are you have some inflammation in your gut from an imbalance in your gut microbes and food intolerances. Inflammation steals your energy.
12. Incorporate some movement outdoors during the daytime as often as you can. Walking meetings are a real thing, so you can still be productive and move about. Movement, whether it’s exercise, active hobbies, gardening, walking, or commuting on your bike, is great for improving optimism, energy levels, and mental health. All of which can give you the strength to withstand those cravings.
13. Consider taking some high quality nutritional supplements. Professor Julia Rucklidge noted that a micronutrient supplement helped with addictions and withdrawal during a clinical trial she was running on nutrition for mental health. If you’re interested in mental health, you might already be aware of the work that a few nutritional psychiatrists and nutritionists are doing helping people with addictions to antidepressants and other psychotropic medications to wean off the drugs with the support of diet, supplements and lifestyle changes. So there’s more evidence out there that the right nutrition can support dealing with addictions than you might expect.
14. Your gut microbiome plays a very important role in the way you think, your mental health, and your cravings. So doing things that focus on microbiome health is also important. I like a probiotic supplement that contains Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG. But you also need to consider whether anything that you’re putting in your mouth is hurting your friendly gut microbes. Antibiotics kill good microbes. But so do pesticides and herbicides, food preservatives and other food additives, toothpastes and mouthwashes. Even plants contain a lot of antimicrobial compounds and these have effects on your gut microbiome. More fibre doesn’t always translate into better microbiome and gut health. The Dirty Dozen/Clean Fifteen list is regularly updated and a great resource to see which crops contain the highest level of pesticides.