Personally I believe major cravings should be met head on.
I have a thing for bacon double cheeseburgers. I like piles and piles of bacon. I also like onion rings shoved into it. One of the motivations for me not to drink ( I'm just not a drinker period) is I'll look at a beer and think, "I'd rather have a bacon double cheeseburger"
One of the most befuddling things in my life was watching Menace II Society, where a crackhead has a bag of cheeseburgers but wants to trade that, plus sexual favors, for crack. Why would you want crack when you could have a bacon double cheeseburger?
The trick to dealing with cravings is to isolate them out. If I want a bacon double cheese burger, it will be the only thing I'll eat all day. ( But I'm a proponent of OMAD/IF) Certainly it's not going to hit all my macro nutrients for that day. But I'll just keep having that meal night after night until the craving dies off.
If you want Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, then eat a whole bag. But just make it that one meal for the entire day. You'll say that will make you sick, just going to town on PBC after PBC. But that's the point.
The mistake is eating a bunch of other stuff all day then eating half a bag of PBCs.
Saturate your cravings. Once in a while is OK. You want it for a reason. Life is short. But get rid of everything else that day. And I mean saturate it. If I eat a bacon double cheese burger three days in a row, after that, I'm not into it anymore. It's kind of like my dating life. I spin plates for a reason. This one here or that one there is only for Tuesdays. Just Tuesdays is plenty of saturation of that one person for the week.
So, no, moderation doesn't really work. Most of you know moderation doesn't really work from personal experience. Selective saturation works.
Some of you will ask, why Tuesdays. Well, when my godson was a kid, Fridays were for miniature golf and making pizzas. We'd make pizzas. One big one for us and he got to make one small one for himself. I made sure no matter what happened, I did not interfere with Friday night. Plates get Tuesdays, they don't get family time.
There was a single mother in Bothell who used to get edgy about that. Why couldn't she get Wednesday night as well. Well, Wednesday is bacon double cheeseburger night. Duh.
I digress.
The point remains. Selective saturation is not good business, but it's better business. Sometimes better business is what you need.