Understanding and Managing Food Cravings
Most of us experience food cravings from time to time. For some, it is a daily occurrence. The first step to managing those pesky cravings that sabotage our efforts at maintaining healthy dietary habits is to understand the origins of the cravings. This will help you understand why we have the overwhelming yearning for food and provide solutions to dealing with both physiological and emotional cravings.
If you have dietary deficiencies, your body will crave those missing nutrients.
Cravings for the following foods indicate the following nutrient deficiencies:
Food cravings Deficient Nutrients
Chocolate and acidic foods Magnesium
Leafy greens, bananas, dairy, seafood, potatoes B-Vitamins
Refined carbohydrates, such as bread and pasta Nitrogen
Oily and fatty foods Calcium
Coffee or tea Phosphorus
Ice Iron
Sugar and salt Zinc
Salty foods Silicon and/or chloride
Sugary foods Chromium, Phosphorus, Sulphur, Carbon
Think of cravings as your body’s way to communicate what it needs to be healthy. To curb these food cravings, it is best if you eat foods rich in these nutrients to nourish the body and curb the cravings rather than indulging in unhealthy choices like sugar, which is going to cause an insulin response and put the body into fat storage mode.
Much of the research on food cravings suggests that mood has more influence over cravings than physiological hunger. One of the biggest challenges is that you may have trouble discriminating between emotional and physiological hunger. It is critical to be able to develop an awareness of the difference if you want to win the battle with cravings. To help you learn to discriminate between these two types of cravings, I will begin with a simplified explanation of how your hormones affect feeding behavior when you are physiologically hungry.
When your blood sugar drops below a certain level, the hormone ghrelin sends the message to the hypothalamus, “I’m hungry; feed me.” When you are satiated, the hormone leptin is released, which causes the release of a polypeptide called pro-opiomelanocortin, an appetite suppressant hormone, into the bloodstream. A message is then sent back to the hypothalamus to tell you to “stop eating.” The critical point is that low blood sugar can affect physiological cravings.
You can prevent physiological cravings by avoiding dramatic decreases in blood sugar. To do so, you need to eat a balanced meal or snack every 3 to 5 hours (depending on the speed of your metabolism), which helps to keep the blood sugar more stable. To keep your meals and snacks balanced, you must balance the macronutrients (carbohydrates, protein, and fat) you consume in each meal and snack. This requires you to read nutrient labels and food charts so you are aware of how many grams of protein is in a large chicken breast for example. If you eat at least half the number of grams of protein as carbohydrates as well as about 30% of those calories from fat, it will prevent the a dramatic drop in blood sugar. Fiber and fat slow down the metabolism of the food, which prevents carbohydrates from converting to sugar in the blood stream too quickly. This macronutrient balance allows for a more timed-release effect on blood sugar.
While this strategy allows you to control the physiological cravings, it does not prevent psychological cravings. The key to managing emotionally-based cravings is awareness. If you have some insight as to why you are feeling hungry even though you are full, you can employ strategies that will prevent you from indulging in the craving.
How do psychological factors influence feeding behavior? As an infant, you learned that food is comforting and calming. If you had responsive caregivers, when you cried, you would be held and comforted by being held and given milk from a bottle or mothers breast. Early in life, this became a conditioned response that was reinforced repeatedly, and you learned that food has a calming effect on you. When you experience a negative emotional state, you may seek food to comfort yourself. This feeding behavior is reinforced by the fact that certain foods actually temporarily increase the mood enhancing neurotransmitters in your brain.
As a result of emotional hunger, you may find yourself standing in front of the open refrigerator door wondering what you feel like eating. This may be your response to sadness, loneliness, boredom, or an environmental stressor. You may turn to food to fill an emotional void, or the desire to eat may be an avoidant response, a way of distracting you from and postponing the inevitability of confronting a problem. Under these circumstances, you may think we are physiologically hungry, but you need to consciously recognize that this hunger has an emotional basis.
When you are experiencing a craving, try to determine whether your hunger is physiological or emotional. Once you have determined that you are not physically hungry, ask yourself what event preceded the trip to the refrigerator. Examine the thought or emotion that led to the craving. Before you indulge the craving, take a moment to process how your thoughts led you to think you are hungry. If you still want to eat after you’ve explored the cause of the emotional eating, then do so. This strategy eliminates the automatic feeding response and gives you time to process what is behind the emotional hunger, bringing subconscious thoughts to conscious awareness. This exercise often results in the development of alternative ways of coping with the stressor as well as a more productive resolution to the issue.
Perhaps the most effective way of coping with cravings is to engage in some form of exercise rather than giving in to the craving. Physical activity will elevate the level of serotonin in your brain, which regulates hunger as well as mood. Even the simple act of stretching for a few minutes can shift your body’s energies and eliminate the need to feed.
Mindfulness practices and meditation are a very effective way of staving off cravings. Research shows that these practices are very effective at reducing stress, which will minimize the release of the stress hormone, cortisol. The release of cortisol can trigger cravings that may lead to a binge, which may contribute to the belly fat associated with excessive cortisol.
One of the most effective ways to shift your thoughts when you are emotionally hungry is to use the energy psychology technique known as Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT). EFT involves tapping on energy meridians while addressing emotions that may lead us to binge eat. Though it might seem a bit strange at first, it works remarkably well.
Another helpful strategy is to find healthy substitutions that will satisfy cravings. Try eating low-glycemic fruits, such as avocados, pears, berries, or cherries when you are craving foods high in saturated fat and refined sugars. Sometimes the sugar in these will satisfy the sweet tooth without all the sugar in the triple chocolate brownie smothered in caramel sauce.
If you are the type of person who cannot deal with a sense of deprivation, it is crucial for you to feed your craving, otherwise the sense of deprivation may consume you. Try postponing your indulgence by distracting yourself with another activity such as checking your email or some online shopping. Sometimes this will curtail the craving and you will forget you were feeling hungry.
If you still feel you need to eat after engaging in another activity for 15 minutes then go ahead and eat, but eat mindfully, slowly savoring the taste with every bite.
Try to minimize the damage by balancing the macronutrients in the foods you consume; at least 30% protein, 30% healthy fats, and not more than 40% carbohydrates. This will prevent your blood sugar from dropping precipitously, leading to physiological cravings as a result of the rebound effect of low blood sugar.
These strategies are very effective if practiced on a regular basis. Everyone is unique, and you have to determine, through trial and error, the strategy that works best for you. These strategies require consistent repetition to be successful, but like most things, mastery comes with practice.
In good health,
Valerie Folsom-Martin, MSW, LCSW, CIMHP, CCTP, FDN-P, CHHC
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