During the first three-quarters of my life, it didn't seem to matter what I ate or did, my weight didn't vary by more than five or ten pounds from 140. However, during the latter part of my life, I have struggled to keep it down below 200. Although I have tried several diets, all of which seem to work very well for a month, I am not currently on any specific diet, but do try to eat healthy foods, and to control the amount of food that I eat, to some extent. While I could do so without repercussions, I never particularly craved potato chips. Rather, they were something that I would eat with dip every now and then, but it was more of an activity than a snack. Now that I have been trying to control my diet, I sometimes crave potato chips and dip, and it's not the sort of thing that is satisfied with a small bag, such as you might get from a snack machine. Instead, what I crave is a family sized bag of dark russet potato chips, with onion dip. I give in to that every now and then and I must say that they taste terrific. Before I finish half the bag, I am no longer craving them, so I am able to throw the rest away, and even with that much, I am feeling a little sick from it. Still, buying a smaller bag would never do.
For me, it's sweets - cakes, cookies, brownies, donuts, candy - you get the picture. Like you said, you can fight it successfully for a while, but every once in a while you have to give in. Unfortunately for me, once I do, it's a slippery slope. Like alcoholics say, "one is too many, and 100 aren't enough". I try to not have sweets in the house, it's easier now that my son has gone off to college. But still, at the grocery store, those things call me - and they're really loud!!
Occasionally I get cravings and I have always felt that when you crave a food, or dream about it, you should eat it because the body is telling you there is something in that food you need. Something in a deficit. I don't as a rule eat much junk food these days, as a matter of fact I can tell you there are whole aisles in the supermarket I don't even go down anymore because I will not eat most prepared or over processed food (If you can even call these things food) I know I am a total food snob. I crave red meat from time to time because I simply do not eat anywhere near enough meat. Earlier today I was craving juice. I have a juicer and make my own juice so I will probably go to the farmers market tomorrow and see what talks to me fruit wise. I also found today i wanted nuts, I think I need some protein or something. I know I will figure it out, there is nothing worse then wanting something and you just don't know for sure what.
There was a time i crave soft drinks when i was pregnant with my daughter. When she was born, the crave to drink Coca Cola was naturally forgotten.
Every once in awhile I have this need for something sweet and crunchy. I will make my own peanut butter cookies to help take care of that need to have somethine sweet.
I tend to crave both salty and sweet foods, usually something that I don't have at the house. I try not to buy too many snacks, but always have a little stash of both sweet and salty, just in case the craving is too severe, and I don't feel like going out. What I usually do is buy the fun size candy bars, so I don't go overboard. I don't see the sense in buying small bags of chips either, so I just use a chip clip. I probably go through a 10 or 13-oz bag of chips a month, which I don't think is a lot, especially compared to some of my friends. I usually keep a box of the soft pretzels in the freezer, and one of those will satisfy my salt urge. For my sweet tooth, besides the fun size candy bars, I buy a large chocolate malt at Sonic, and put most of it in the freezer right away. Then, when a craving hits, I have a spoonful or two, and that usually does the trick.