Cravings are by far the number one saboteur of any eating plan, diet, challenge or nutritional program.
They appear at unexpected times and aggressively destroy the most well affirmed dietary intentions.
The good news is that your cravings are guaranteed to diminish and dissipate as you begin to replenish the nutrients in your body. This can take some time. In the interim, we have some tips and suggestions to reduce the impact of your cravings and restore balance to your body and mind.
Let’s begin by deconstructing the craving from a physiological standpoint:
Cravings come from four root sources:
1. Bacterial
Bacterial imbalance in the digestive system can cause raging sugar cravings to feed the yeasts and fungi that need these carbohydrates to survive.
2. Nutritional
Mineral and vitamin deficiencies lead the body to crave foods that provide a burst of energy, or a reliable dose of some missing or depleted nutrients.
3. Emotional
Physiological yearnings for joy, connection, and relaxation often result in cravings for sugar and fat to help calm the physical manifestations of fear, anger, and anxiety.
4. Physical
As humans, we instinctively seek physical pleasure. Our modern sedentary, physically disconnected lifestyle keeps us from physical touch and connection, or finding joy in moving our bodies. We have forgotten that the body is designed to thrive with consistent, enlivening movement. The connection with our body has disappeared and we now encounter feelings of shame and guilt around desires and cravings. The overlap between the sensual pleasures from food and companionship creates confusion resulting in food often becoming a replacement for intimacy.
Below are a few tools to positively and constructively deal with the emergence of any type of craving:
1. Stop fighting
One of the biggest mistakes people make when they change their eating habits, clean up their diets or embark on a new nutritional program is that they eat way too little. This means too little food overall, or insufficient fats and nutritious carbohydrates (both vilified by the media) for their individual needs. Too little fat in the diet is directly correlated with increased sugar cravings and eating too little food in general is