WHY DO WE HAVE CRAVINGS? AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT

Monday morning I woke up and said, “Today is the day! I’m going to stop eating cookies after lunch, I have to get these cravings under control.” I was motivated, committed, and had the best intentions. But then 3pm came by and I had those 5 cookies that I had promised myself I would avoid.

And then the guilt-filled inner dialogue came: “I have no willpower... If I can’t even control what I eat, how can I control my life… I’m fat… Something’s wrong with me.”Cravings have been my #1 challenge in my health journey.

As a Health and Nutrition Advisor I set out to find the answer. For the last year, I’ve been trying different strategies to see if I can get to the root of my cravings problem.Guess what? I did!

And now I want to share how you, too, can eliminate your cravings to finally have that healthy lifestyle you want.

So the first important thing to know is: why do we have cravings?

I discovered that there are two types of cravings: physical food cravings and emotional food cravings. Physical food cravings occur because of nutritional deficiencies. In her amazing e-book The Life Force Diet, Dr. Michelle Schoffro Cook explains that craving chocolate can indicate a magnesium deficiency, craving sweets can indicate of blood sugar fluctuation, craving salty foods can indicate a stress hormone fluctuation and craving red meat can be an iron deficiency.

This is why I say that we should thank our body for our symptom: it’s the only way the body can communicate what it needs.

When you have a food craving the part of the brain responsible for memory, pleasure, and reward lights up. This is why emotional food cravings are common. It’s not uncommon to use candy or sweets to soothe children, for example. And from a very early age, we learn that certain foods equal comfort. It’s not necessary to track down how a craving started to be able to get rid of it. It’s just important that you know that many of your cravings are associated with pleasure.

In my next blog post I’ll show you 3 strategies to tackle both physical and emotional food cravings so that you finally stop feeling like your worst enemy (when it comes to food), and so you can control your cravings (and not the other way around).

For today I want you to ask yourself: What foods do I crave? When did I first start eating these foods?

I really want to know, so tell me over on Instagram.