food cravings
Cravings can be a sign that your body needs a particular nutrient, or that your overall diet needs balance. After all, your body is a miraculous system: It maintains your body temperature of 98.6 degrees; your pupils dilate in dim light to allow you to see; and your heart continually beats to recharge your blood with oxygen. You may also think of your cravings as a sign of weakness. But you should do a mental turnaround when it comes to your attitude about cravings. Here are some very important reasons why you experience cravings:
Dehydration. You don’t experience the sensation of thirst until your body is already on the verge of being dehydrated. Oftentimes, dehydration is even experienced as mild hunger. So when you’re thirsty or you’ve already got the munchies at 9:30 a.m., drink an entire glass of water. Nutrient deficiency. If your overall diet is devoid of nutrients, you may crave unnatural energy sources such as caffeine. Hormonal fluctuations. PMS, menstruation, pregnancy and menopause are accompanied by fluctuating estrogen and testosterone levels-and some very odd cravings such as pickles with ice cream! One reason that women crave chocolate before and during menstruation, for example, is due to magnesium depletion that occurs during menstruation. Seasonal fluctuations. There’s a very good reason why you crave certain foods in certain seasons. When you crave a lot of leafy green salads in the spring, it’s your body’s way of detoxifying after winter. On hot summer days, you may crave cooling foods such as watermelon or cucumber. In fall, you crave hot apple pie with cinnamon because cinnamon is a spice that increases body temperature. In winter, you crave mashed potatoes because they’re a healthy form of carbohydrate that provides fuel and warmth. Imbalance of Yin and Yang. Yin foods possess expanding qualities, such as sugar or raw foods. Yang foods possess contracting qualities, such as meat. If you’re eating too many yin foods, you’ll crave yang foods and vice versa.
Recreating the past. You may crave foods you enjoyed as a child, such as instant pudding. You may even crave foods that your ancestors ate, such as fried pork fat. It’s probably not so difficult to overcome a craving for fried pork fat, but you may not be able to shake the instant pudding craving.
Lack of spiritual nourishment. If you’re lonely, bored, hate your job, are nervous, haven’t healed your emotional wounds, have a spiritual void or are uninspired, you may eat simply as a psychological attempt to fill the void in your life. No amount of ice cream will ever soothe the sting of your parents’ harsh words. Fear of the other shoe dropping. You know those times in your life when everything is going so marvelously that you begin to get suspicious and wonder when the other shoe is going to drop? Sometimes we sabotage our happiness from a subconscious and erroneous belief that we don’t deserve the very best in life-and we compensate by eating downright poisonous foods such as fast-food french fries or an entire bag of potato chips. So listen to your body. Some cravings are easy to overcome, while others aren’t. Working with a Real Life Food Coach will help you learn to listen to your body and overcome your cravings with ease.
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