What’s your weakness?
Is it chocolate? Chips? Sweets? A glass of wine every night? Mid afternoon munchies? Late night indulgences? Coffee?
In my case, at one stage in my life: All of the above. I have eaten perfectly filling meals, only to dig into a large pile of my children’s left-over french fries right after. I have gone out of my way (think significant detours) to get my morning cup of coffee. I have inhaled family size bags of chips in the middle of the afternoon. And I have suffered from serious pre dinner itches for that glass of wine.
A craving is like an unstoppable urge to give in to something you know you shouldn’t be having but you just can’t seem to help yourself.
Once you start understanding the science behind it, you realize cravings involve many different factors such as habits, addictions, emotions, nutritional deficiencies, and more. Managing cravings is therefore not easy but it is doable. Let me share how I personally got to the point of being free from cravings (most of the time at least) with a few tried and tested tips to kick your cravings to the curb.
1) Balance your meals, starting with breakfast
Carbohydrates, protein , and fats are the macronutrients we need in our diet every day. They form the building blocks and energy sources of our bodies. If you don’t get enough of one or more of these, it will affect you in the long run but it can also can cause cravings on a short term basis.
It is important to include all these components in every meal. When you are tuned in to your body you will find that if one of these macro nutrients is not adequate you do not feel satisfied or simply hungry more quickly. A lack of protein or healthy fats especially at breakfast is one example. That was a big eye opener for me when I was streamlining my routine. Being used to eating some granola with milk or a fruit salad in the mornings for most of my life I was quite dependent on a mid morning snack to keep the hunger at bay till lunch. When I started including more protein through eggs, nuts and seeds, dinner left overs, or adding a high quality protein powder and a healthy source of fat (avocado, coconut oil) to a smoothie I could easily last till lunch time.
Macro nutrient ratios differ from person to person. That’s the beauty (and challenge sometimes) of bio individuality. Your genetic make-up, level of activity, age, health, etc. will determine how much protein and carbs you need. I have found the Metabolic Typing diet to be a great and reliable tool to find out what works for your body genetically.
Generally speaking most people these days eat too many (refined) carbohydrates and so a great place to start is to include more high quality protein in your meals, switching to healthy fats and reducing your intake of carbohydrates.
2) Stay full longer: complex carbs and high quality fats
In addition to the protein component, you want to make sure you eat the right kinds of carbohydrates and fats. These are what keep you satisfied and fuller longer. Complex carbs help avoid the blood sugar swings that inevitably lead to cravings and healthy fats such as coconut oil, extra virgin olive oil, ghee, avocados are not just only super good for you, just a small amount can really make you feel satisfied.
Good and safe carbohydrates to eat include low sugar fruit (such as berries), nutrient dense (starchy) vegetables and safe root starches. You can read more on the Paleo way of eating, which follows these principles, here.
3) Wean yourself from addictive foods (like caffeine and sugar) – or go cold turkey
We all know it yet it is so hard to do… Anyone who has ever tried to give up coffee and had to deal with withdrawal symptoms in the form of headaches and lack of energy can confirm that coffee is indeed addictive. But sugar is no less… There are studies that have shown that sugar can be even more addictive then cocaine. It’s consumption triggers an intense release of dopamine which is a chemical that controls pleasure in the brain.
Ask the person with the sweet tooth and horrible sugar cravings and they will tell you how hard it is to give up sugar or say no to the intense cravings for sweets. In this interesting article Dr. Mark Hyman * speaks about how certain people might be more susceptible to sugar addiction because of a genetic predisposition. Either way, dear people, you must engage in this battle with full force. There is no other, more gentle way to say this: sugar is toxic and you need to remove it from your diet completely if you want to be your healthiest self. Read my article for more on this and some tips on how to do this. Once sugar has made an exit, so will many of your cravings.
4) Become aware – journal your food habits
The best tool to fine tune your diet, identify what works for you and minimize cravings is keeping a food journal. Note down everything you eat as well as how it affects you: right after a meal and a couple of hours later. Are you energised, lethargic, is your thinking clear or are you unfocused. Are you satisfied or craving more food, do you feel happy or low? These are all fantastic clues that will help you complete the puzzle of your ideal diet. If you stumble on a meal that worked perfectly for lunch: analyse it a bit and use it as a platform to put together other meals. Did something cause cravings.. Hmmm try a different combo next time.
5) Hydrate
Hunger is often thirst in disguise. When you are craving something, try drinking a glass of water first. Most of us are walking around dehydrated and we don’t even know it. The body sends out signs and signals to let us know it urgently needs water and we mistake it for hunger. Read more on this here.
6) Change your brain chemistry: exercise
The appropriate amount of exercise (note: too much of anything is not good) can have a positive impact on certain brain chemicals that help make you feel better and that lower your need to eat. Exercise helps to increase levels of endorphins thereby increasing levels of contentment and lowering your need to eat. At the same time it helps regulate levels of norepinephrine thereby stabilising your mood and controlling your appetite. So next time you feel the urge to dig into a bag of chips, try hitting the gym instead.
7) Sleep well
Whether you have had a full night sleep or not also affects your level of cravings. A lack of sleep lowers the level of leptin, a hormone that controls your appetite. It also raises grehlin, a hormone which is responsible for creating the urge to eat. So simply by ensuring you are well rested you set yourself up strong in the battle against cravings. Around 7 to 8 hours of good quality sleep a night should do the trick. Here ‘s another article on this to read for you.
8) Choose healthy substitutes & nutrient dense food
We talked about macro nutrients earlier but micro nutrients (vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients etc.) are equally important to ensure you minimize cravings. If the body lacks a certain mineral or vitamin you can be sure that it will send you signals that may be in the form of a craving. Eating a nutrient dense diet is therefore important to get the maximum out of your food. Read more on that here.
Having said that, if you have digestive issues you may not be absorbing all the nutrients from your food properly. As it turned out, this was my problem for a long time. If you have been following my blog for a while you’ll know it was a H. Pylori infection that messed up my digestive system and for a long time I could eat all I wanted but the right building blocks would just not get into my system. I can’t stress enough how important it is to ensure you have a healthy digestion. Sorting out your digestion with a digestive health program will help take care of this.
9) Feeding your emotions
Even if you follow all the tips I gave above, it can be very difficult to withstand the desire for food that stems from an emotional need. A stressful event, depression or even deep rooted emotional issues from the past can be a trigger to find comfort in food. Certain types of food such as chocolate increase endorphins, the feel-good hormones, and are therefore often used as a way to temporarily feel better. This solution is always short term however and will never help you resolve the underlying problem. In other words: food is not the answer! Take your mind off food by finding something else to do, go for a walk, or pamper yourself in other ways by getting a massage, taking a hot bath, meeting a friend or get help from a professional if the problem is deep rooted and you feel you can’t resolve it on your own.
I like to recommend to my clients a book written by Geneen Roth: “Women, Food and God” ** which explores in a very engaging way our emotional needs and desires and how we use food to fill the voids. At the end of the day this can be traced back to the deep rooted desire that exists in all of us to connect to that part of us that is whole and complete, call it your higher self, supreme consciousness, divinity or God. A must read for those that are dealing with food related issues.
Mind body practices like yoga and meditation are great ways to help you become more mindful and aware and able to make better choices when it comes to food and many other things.
10) Look for food sensitivities
Funny as it may sound, sometimes it is the food that we are sensitive to that we crave the most. Dr. Jonathan Brostoff ***, a leading authority on food allergy and intolerance, explains that this is because of the immune reaction that occurs when we eat those foods. This immune reaction triggers the release of adrenalin and thereby causes a sort of short term “high.” When this reaction wears off we crave the food that caused this feel-good factor. And because food sensitivities are often delayed we might not make the connection.
If you suspect you have a food intolerance or sensitivity you might want to consider doing a food sensitivity test (which is not the same as a food allergy test). There are a number of different tests available. I recommend doing either a MRT test which is very comprehensive or an IgG blood test which is relatively simple to do.
So there you go. 10 doable things to help you move past your cravings and be free of those incontrollable urges to eat. Meanwhile please share your personal experience with cravings by posting your comments below!
x
Monique
Resources:
* http://drhyman.com/blog/2011/02/04/stopping-addiction-to-sugar-willpower-or-genetics/
** http://www.amazon.com/Women-Food-God-Unexpected-Everything/dp/1416543082
