Potato Chips are where Satan lives

Okay...Is anyone else as infatuated with potato chips as I am? I have such a hard time restraining myself from them. I gave up smoking at the beginning of the new year and have had the willpower to eat very healthy, but quitting potato chips is harder for me than everything else combined.

I grew up always having multiple big bags of chips in our household. My mother is just as addicted to them as I am. I think it's the salt. I don't know.

Oh, God..I'm drooling just thinking about all the different flavors...

I'm okay with not buying them myself....but if I so much as see one....if anyone around me has one or GOD FORBID there is a bowl out at a party or get together.....I just get this tunnel vision and can't keep my hands out of them!

Any ideas on how to cope with this particular craving? Any good substitutes? I love baked chips but I do have a tendency to binge on them....and I'm scared to death theyre too good to be true, like a lot of "low fat" things are...

i laughed when i read your title ha but its so true! iam a sucker for chips as well, they are just so good! i wish fruit tasted as good as chips haha.

Potato chips are my biggest hang-up. I have no problem turning down sweets, but chips are another story. Something about the salty/crunchy goodness just makes my mouth water. I'm sure you understand. And there just is no worthy substitute for me!

But I've also learned throughout all this dieting, that depriving myself of things just makes me obsess about them even more. I allow myself to indulge about once a week; and instead of buying a big bag like I did in the beginning, I'm now completely satisfied with one of the little bags you get for a buck at the convenience stores. I have to be naughty once in a while!

When you see a big bowl at a party, just remind yourself of all the germy hands that have been in it and maybe that will help with the willpower! Just a thought. =)

I share this love of potato chips. It's the one thing I miss most. Periodically, I'll go to the store and think I'll buy a bag... just today... as a treat. Then I get there, turn the bag over to read the "Nutrition Label"... and ten painful minutes later, I'm walking away. It's not a treat at all.

I don't want fifteen potato chips. I want half a bag, but when half a bag is something like 1500 calories, I have to walk away empty-handed. (And before you check, the baked potato chips are not much better.)

I'm not sure what you crave. For me, it's the salt, starch and fat. What I have found is that I can satisfy my chip craving with baked potatoes. Oh... I know it's not the same, but it satisfies my craving.

I'm on the downward run to my final weight goal. (16 lbs left) The best thing I have found for all of my cravings is to change the word deprive to something else. For me, the entire phrase has changed to, "replace." As in, change "I am depriving myself of potato chips," to "I have replaced my potato chip habit with baked potato."

Take it day by day... and minute by minute when it's needed. :)

get a baby bag when you want them.

theres not that many cals in those.
lays makes them with sunflower oil now too.

the whole bag that is not the snack bag is only 390 cals (2.5 oz)

then theres the baked ones too.

This too is my biggest binge item.  I will eat the whole bag/bowl, seemingly in moments.  I too have learned that depriving myself entirely is not good, so once in a great while, I will eat one small bag, the littlest bags as in for a kids' lunch.

At parties, I go for other crunchy stuff like veggies and remind myself that I can eat lots and lots of this healthy food vs. a handful of chips.  I will get the same calories but way more nutrients.  I've had to change the way I think about them. As mentioned above, I don't think of it as deprivation, but a good nutritional choice I am making.

Yup I'm a chip lover also. You don't get over it, at least I haven't.

What I do is limit the amount of chips we buy and when we buy them they are bought in single serving packs, either lunch size or "grab bag" size depending on the amount of calories I have for them. I we buy one bag I weigh mine and just eat those.

I have found also that cutting out sodium from your diet as a whole makes it harder to binge on chips, if I have been near the 2,400mg sodium intake I can't really take eating about that in a sitting.

Yeah, I think I am going to allow myself a small bag maybe once a week just to keep myself from going crazy. That way *hopefully* if I get tempted I'll know I'll get my fix if I wait.

The baked potato is a great idea in theory...except in order for me to enjoy a baked potato at all it needs to be loaded with extra fattening stuff. :(

By the way Mfchill, I just looked at your picture gallery and I've gotta say that is some IMPRESSIVE stuff!!! I am floored by the difference in your start picture and most recent one. Best motivation ever.

it's my all time favorite food.  I can't allow them in the house.  When I really crave some, I make myself walk 4 blocks to the convenience store, buy just one little bag, that is the smallest bag, and eat them on the way home.  I've gotten so I don't really miss them anymore.... much...

Im in that same boat. I would go so far as to say chips are my favorite food. If they can actually be called a food. Anyway, they are my weakness and I try my best to limit them. I cant have them in the house and when I buy them, it is almost always a planned event. I cant see me ever giving them up and to be honest, I dont want to. I just enjoy them too much to think of giving them up. Ive tried many substitutes and the only thing that comes close is french fries and they are no less calories or fat so Im sticking with the chips. If you find a healthy replacement or a way to resist those little yummies, please let me know. Until then, its got to be pure self control. Good luck!!

SIgh.  I actually have a big bag of them in my pantry right now, and even at 6 in the morning, I hear them calling my name.  I've always had a soft spot for all sorts of salty snacks.  I never eat them straight out of the bag, though.  I usually pour one serving out (I love the food scale) into a bowl first.

My weakness has always been Doritos.  I have learned how to love Baked Doritos.  There are lots of varieties of the new Baked Chips.  I have learned with this dieting thing that sometimes you have to sacrifice but eventually you learn to like the things that are good for you.  LOL.

I actually have a very strange solution to the same problem.  If I want potato chips, I drive to the store, buy ONE POTATO, bring it home, get out my vegetable mandoline, and make my own baked chips.

It's a lot of trouble for one potato's worth of chips, and sometimes i can talk myself out of chips for the effort involved.  Also then I can control precisely how much oil/seasoning goes onto them.

If I am having a 'salty crunchy' craving I have had good luck with putting about 2cups of cheerios in a jelly roll pan, spreading them evenly, spritzing a couple squirts of butter spray over them, and then sprinking salt sparingly and fresh cracked pepper liberally over them and toasting in the oven.  It's way better hot so I don't keep any made up.   I kind of think of it like popcorn.

Carrots, pickles, and saltines are my substitutes...

But Saturday night I'm going to eat real chips to my heart's content... because I have it in my head that eating chips helps me run my best and I have a 5K on Sunday. :-)

I have the same problem, so I keep a bag of habanero chips around. After three or four of them, I'm rolling around on the floor whimpering, and when I recover I've forgotten why I wanted chips in the first place.

Also, they taste really good.

Just wanted to give you an update on my chip addiction. I went shopping on Friday and decided to buy a bag of small portion chips. You know, the kind you get at halloween. There were 15 bags with an average of 145 cals per bag, assorted flavors. I thought this would be good. I would eat one bag once in a while and voila. " What The Hell Was I Thinking ". Hubby and I ate the last of them last night. Thats 15 bags between two of us in 4 nights. So what is the moral of this story? Chips and me can not reside in the same house!! Thats fact and something I have to live with. I will continue to eat my favorite little chippies but I will buy them the day I plan to eat them and will buy only what I plan to eat. Its sad but true. 

I occasionally buy a single small bag of baked chips at the dollar store. The are not the personal size ones, but like the smaller 50 cent ones. Its only like 120 calories for the baked cheetos or 140 for baked doritos. I dont really like the "real" chips, but i imagine they are about the same.

Sometimes dry cereal will stop a craving. but not usually...

Hahaha..I can't keep them in my house either. I've even banned my boyfriend from buying them. The other weekend he bought a big bag and I ended up binging on them and feeling terrible afterward.

What I've been doing lately is just making room for chips in my diet. As unhealthy as it may be, if I'm craving chips really badly I'll skip supper or something so I can have a small bag. I did it tonight actually. I've put a once per week limit on doing this though.

mmmmmm...chippies...

hey alicia,

I am surprised that sooo many people have the same problem as i do!

Potato chips is the culprit that made me gain all  this weight in the first place. i have gained 20 lbs in the last 2 yrs because i had  chips as snacks.

What i have done is have count down all my bad habits because me and my other friend have this bet that whomever slips from a list that we prepared together of what to eat and what not to eat... that we would have to  pay  each other 50 bucks to the other person and it exponentially grows so that we dont slip up... so if you slip once you have to fork up 50, then 100 then 200... and on AND we are not allowed to slip up on purpose that it will cancel out one another

Also, you can reward yourself from restraining chips from  ur diet by having a few at the end of the week like on sunday. This way you wont eat it when you see them around and wait till ur freebie day.

I think it has worked for me, i havent had coke or chips in a month and now i snack on veggies like broccoli, carrots and cherry tomatoes instead.

I have lost 5 lbs and now i am stuck at 140 but that is because i wasnt eating enough calories.

When I was going to WW in the '90's, potato chips killed that.  I was doing really good.  I had got down to 152 from 180.  Then along comes Halloween.  The girls got the little bags of chips and I put them away.  I figured that a bag once and a while would be my treat, wrong.  I finished their chips before they finished their candies.  I quit not to long after that. 

I was in the same postition when I came to college a few years ago...I had no problem in high school because I had very little opportunity to snack and was even able to stay at 145 pounds...but after spending months with roomates who were able to eat whatever they wanted without gaining a pound OR working out...the chips progressed to the 161 where im at now...a good substitute for me lately has been the sweet and salty Mojo Cliff bars...they have just enough salt to remind me of a chip and keep me away from the Lays!