Tapping for Chocolate Cravings
WHAT’S THE ISSUE: Struggling with chocolate cravings? Discover how EFT Tapping can help! Emotional eating doesn’t just affect those who want to lose weight – it impacts people of all sizes, even those at a healthy weight. If you find yourself battling irresistible chocolate cravings, you’re not alone. In my latest article, “Tapping for Chocolate Cravings,” I dive into a real EFT session where we successfully reduced intense chocolate cravings using Borrowing Benefits & targeted EFT Tapping techniques. As always, the person I’m tapping with gave informed consent for these recordings to be published here in this format.
You’ll learn how a single, guided EFT Tapping session helped to:
Lower craving intensity from 9/10 down to 0/10.
Shift stressful thoughts around chocolate into empowering new perspectives.
Break free from the emotional urge, making healthier, mindful choices.
Maintain lasting transformation — even 3 years later!
Whether you’re curious about EFT Tapping or ready to address your emotional eating habits, this article offers valuable insights and practical guidance.
PART I: TAPPING FOR CHOCOLATE CRAVINGS
One effective EFT technique is called Borrowing Benefits. Below, you will find guided videos where you can tap along to this one-to-one EFT session to work on a type of chococlate that you are having a hard time resisting. All you need to borrow benefits and make a step forward in your journey towards mindful eating is to have the specific type of chocolate you are craving out in front of you, and a way to track your craving intensity before and after tapping – a piece of paper or a Word document – so that you can track your craving intensity progress.
Next, simply press play, tap along, and make a note of any shifts and insights you observe inside yourself. Enjoy!
In the first part of the Borrowing Benefits tapping exercise, the teacher’s craving for two speciality chocolates. Before EFT, her Hazelnut Ferrero Rocher craving felt like a 9/10 and for the Chocolate Mint Slice biscuit it felt like an 8/10. Physical sensations associated with the cravings – saliva, and a sense of the silky smooth feeling of the Ferrero Rocher adn the taste of the mint in her mouth felt like an 8.5 to a 9 in intensity. The associated thought was ‘This would make you feel good’ felt like a 4/10. Finally, when asked to rate how stressful the craving was right now, she reported an 8/10 stress.
We then do the first few rounds of tapping on how stressful it feels to have this chocolate craving, while acknowledging that it would be comforting to eat them as well as and acknowledging the internal battle that was going on inside of her. After a few rounds of EFT, we re-tested her craving intensity. For the Ferreror Rocher the intensity had dropped from a 9/10 to a 6/10 with the new thought being ‘Maybe it’s not going to be as comforting as I thought, or make me feel good, but it still tastes nice’, so I still have that ‘Oh well, what the heck?” Meanwhile the Chocolate Mint Slice the craving also dropped to about a 6, and the associated thoughts were ‘It still smells good. It’s just a small biscuit, it’s not a very big biscuit.’ Followed by ‘I feel like I’m making excuses, because it would still be nice to have it’. The physical sensations of the craving also dropped to a 5.5/10, and the intensity of how stressful the craving had now dropped to about a 5/10.
NOW OVER TO YOU: Notice if you resonate with any of these changes as you tap along to this first part of the exercise. Are you also experiencing any shifts in your thoughts or perception of the unit of alcohol that you are tapping on? Any reductions in the intensity of the physical sensations of your craving?
PART II: TAPPING FOR CHOCOLATE CRAVINGS
In this second part of the Borrowing Benefits exercise, we do some targetted tapping for the ‘what the heck – it would be comforting’ part of her that is battling with her logical part (‘It’s not worth it, really they are not comforting’) to enter a conversation. Before doing the parts work, she characterized the Logic Part as a teacher part that goes ‘you’ve studied this, you know that’, whereas the Comforting Part is the ‘Let me choose, let me be free’ part. After the parts work via one round of EFT, we re-tested the intensity of the chocolate cravings.
The new somatic and cognitive observation was “The smells not as good now”, “It’s just a mild, chocolatey smell, a bit more like they every day kind of chocolate, not the speciality chocolate concept that I had before.” The intensity of the stress of the craving was now down to a 3/10.
NOW OVER TO YOU: Check in with the intensity of your alcohol craving as you look at the unit of alcohol in front of you having done a few more rounds of Borrowing Benefits tapping. Any shifts in your perception? Any ‘aha!’ moments?
Part III: Tapping for Chocolate Cravings
In this final part of the session, we tapped on her left over 3/10 stress of her chocolate cravings using the clinical EFT Tapping Choices Technique. As we work through the Clinical EFT Tapping points, she noticed that there is no longer a physical salivating craving reaction left in her mouth, it was more a visual connection. The Choices Technique invovles doing three rounds of targetted tapping: the first round is where we tap on the negative, in the second round we tap on the positive, and in the third round of tapping we alternate between negative (what you want to let go of) and positive (what you want to tap on/create more space for).
Her final new choice of thought: ‘I’d like to realize that I don’t need these to feel special’. And in the final test ‘I don’t want them now, so not going to have them’. The cravings went to a 0/10. Somatically she felt ‘lighter’, ‘happy’, ‘freer’, and ‘I feel like I’ve made a better choice’. She no longer felt stressed about the chocolates sitting there, even though they are still on the table and in her eye sight. In EFT we call this a Client Cognitive Reframe, because it comes from the client, not from the EFT therapist/coach. If I was the one that said ‘Why don’t you think about it this way’, that would be me doing the cognitive reframe for her and offering it to her to consider. But in this case, as is considered good practice in EFT, the client achieve a Cognitive Reframe independently once her stress response dropped to a 0.
Did thE results GAINED last?
Perhaps more important than just the intensity of a craving going down to a 0/10 in the moment is this question of whether the results lasted long-term.
So the habit transformation that followed from the processing done in the session lasted long-term. That being said, it’s important to be aware that, in this case, the chocolate craving habit wasn’t severe or complex. That is important for managing expectations, because not all chocolate cravings can be dealt with via just one EFT session with a tapping therapist or coach.
The purpose of sharing this caes was simply to show you what’s possible when we are NOT working with a complex emotional eating habit. For more complex cases, read on!
When One EFT Session Isn’t Enough: Recognizing Complex EMOTIONAL EATING CHALLENGES
Before beginning EFT sessions for chocolate cravings, it’s crucial to honestly assess the complexity of your emotional eating habits. This helps set realistic expectations about whether one or two sessions will suffice or if a longer commitment is needed. From my experience, a single session—with your preferred food of choice in front of you—can sometimes be enough to reduce cravings, BUT only if your problem is relatively simple.
If your weight is above the healthy range and you are in overweight or obese categories of weight, that may be a sign that one of EFT session for chocolate cravings won’t be enough as there may be more complex factors like chronic stress and more complex stress eating habits at play.
Meanwhile, if you find yourself emotional eating most days of the week, that may also suggest that you may have an emotional eating problem that’s bigger than just a chocolate craving problem. In other words, frequency of emotional eating is a key indicator of complexity.
Eating a bit more than what your body needs at a festive holiday dinner or when on holiday or at a dinner party is very different from feeling like most of you day is consumed by thoughts of when you will eat next, and trying to control food cravings most of your day.
When eating food becomes habitual or addictive, parts of your psyche may resist change. Skilled EFT practitioners use parts work to help you navigate these internal conflicts and make meaningful progress.
Consider also when your emotional eating pattern began. If it started during a traumatic or deeply painful time—such as after a significant loss or period of grief—your alcohol use may be a way to numb unresolved emotions. After working on cravings and beliefs, trauma-informed EFT can help you process these underlying wounds, which is often essential for lasting healing.
Finally, remember that food is unavoidable. It’s not like alcohol or cigarettes where you can avoid letting them into your life to a significant degree, if you so choose. We all need to eat. That in itself adds an additional layer of complexity. It’s not about abstinence, it’s about changing your relationship to food.
If this article has sparked your curiosity and you’re ready to explore personalized EFT sessions for your health goals and health habits transformations, learn more about my services below or schedule an initial consultation.
Would you rather do it yourself?
Don’t want to or not ready to invest in professional EFT sessions with a tapping expert? Here is an easy DIY tapping exercise you can do if you want to try addressing your processed sugar craving on your own. Happy tapping!
About ELENI VARDAKI
Eleni offers online and in-person services supporting children, adolescent, and adult well-being. She is a Therapeutic Coach specialized in body based tapping techniques for stress, anxiety, and achieving goals. You can go to her EFT Practitioner services page if you would like to book an intitial consultation to discuss your food craving problem, habits, and health goals.
