Hey there! How is this week treating you? My Monday was a crazy one but at least I have it behind me now and I can move on. Is there a day of the week that is your favorite? Mine is Saturday or Sunday for sure. I like so many, dislike Mondays. Needless to say, I welcomed this rainy Tuesday. I am getting some pretty darn cool stuff this week to review and I cant wait to share some new things with you. One of which I NEED! Guess you'll have to keep reading to see what I am talking about ;)
Did anyone try out the "donut" recipe? If you haven't tried it yet you should! It is so simple and packed with flavor!
This morning I thought instead of showing you what I have already showed you (last week I gave you the run down of my food for the week.) I thought that today called for a different kind of post! I have gotten so many questions recently about cravings. I have friends and clients that ask me all the time "why am I craving sugar? nuts? greasy foods?) Well my friends, I wish that it was as simple as your body actually wanting those things but I have to say, it's not. Your body would never "crave" a whopper with cheese...you do know that right? If you are in tune you can actually crack the code so to speak and find out what your body is really telling you. Sit back folks...this is going to be a long post. I wish that I could go into all the foods that our body's crave (if I did I would be writing a book) so I am just going to stick with the most common cravings.
Let's start with sugar:
Most people have a sweet tooth. As a matter of fact, humans are predisposed to like sweet things. Science has long known that there are sweet “receptors” on the tongue that practically guarantee that we are going to want a sweet treat every now and again.
And, many scientists agree that this predisposition was born of a need for nature to ensure that humans were drawn to the taste of nutritional necessities such as apples, oranges, bananas, and other naturally sweet, and vitamin packed, biologically indispensable foods.
But, a desire for a piece of chocolate after a meal or even for an apple as a mid-afternoon snack is not the same as craving sugar-laden foods. A craving is more than a desire; it’s a physical reaction to a physiological need.
The body craves what it feels it is missing. And, in the case of a sugar addiction, the body interprets a lack of sugar, and other high-carb foods, as an actual nutritional deficiency.
Yet, it’s what’s in those sugar-laden foods that the body really wants. It only associates the need for sugar as part of the usual method of getting those nutrients. For instance, at the core of every chocolate bar is the cacao bean. And cacao beans are loaded with magnesium.
So, when you crave a chocolate bar, your body actually wants more magnesium. Satisfy the body’s need for magnesium and you might eliminate those late-night cravings for chocolate.
The body craves other high-carb foods for the same reason. Once upon a time, carbs were less of a taste temptation, and more of a nutritional requirement. Whole grains were once the only way the body received certain nutritional components such as fiber, selenium, potassium and magnesium. Today’s food processing and decades of bad farming removes those nutrients.
Although food manufacturers often add vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients to their products you will never be able to take in all the vitamins and minerals you need from a standard diet; nutrients your body needs to function properly.
Essentially, modern farming and food processing methods, in addition to the way we eat, has practically guaranteed that you will forever have cravings and that these cravings will, more often than not, lead to overeating – and weight gain.
And, as a final cementing of what has become a vicious circle, our need for the nutrients our bodies have been designed to believe are in certain foods, makes us crave foods that are less and less nutritious, creating even stronger cravings!
If you want to turn off your sugar cravings for good — before you go from irritable to violent — you will have to change your eating habits and enrich your diet with vitamins, minerals and other healthy, natural supplements.
And, the best way to get minerals back into your body is to eat plants grown in mineral-rich soil. Not only are the plants themselves loaded with natural sources of vitally important vitamins and minerals, growing food in nutrient rich soil promotes even healthier plants instead of leaching those nutrients from the plants.
So, the next time your body craves a Hershey bar, recognize the craving for what it is; your body’s signal that you are lacking what you need to maintain optimal health, and forgo the chocolate for foods that actually feed your body, not the craving.
Did anyone try out the "donut" recipe? If you haven't tried it yet you should! It is so simple and packed with flavor!
This morning I thought instead of showing you what I have already showed you (last week I gave you the run down of my food for the week.) I thought that today called for a different kind of post! I have gotten so many questions recently about cravings. I have friends and clients that ask me all the time "why am I craving sugar? nuts? greasy foods?) Well my friends, I wish that it was as simple as your body actually wanting those things but I have to say, it's not. Your body would never "crave" a whopper with cheese...you do know that right? If you are in tune you can actually crack the code so to speak and find out what your body is really telling you. Sit back folks...this is going to be a long post. I wish that I could go into all the foods that our body's crave (if I did I would be writing a book) so I am just going to stick with the most common cravings.
Let's start with sugar:
Most people have a sweet tooth. As a matter of fact, humans are predisposed to like sweet things. Science has long known that there are sweet “receptors” on the tongue that practically guarantee that we are going to want a sweet treat every now and again.
And, many scientists agree that this predisposition was born of a need for nature to ensure that humans were drawn to the taste of nutritional necessities such as apples, oranges, bananas, and other naturally sweet, and vitamin packed, biologically indispensable foods.
But, a desire for a piece of chocolate after a meal or even for an apple as a mid-afternoon snack is not the same as craving sugar-laden foods. A craving is more than a desire; it’s a physical reaction to a physiological need.
The body craves what it feels it is missing. And, in the case of a sugar addiction, the body interprets a lack of sugar, and other high-carb foods, as an actual nutritional deficiency.
Yet, it’s what’s in those sugar-laden foods that the body really wants. It only associates the need for sugar as part of the usual method of getting those nutrients. For instance, at the core of every chocolate bar is the cacao bean. And cacao beans are loaded with magnesium.
So, when you crave a chocolate bar, your body actually wants more magnesium. Satisfy the body’s need for magnesium and you might eliminate those late-night cravings for chocolate.
The body craves other high-carb foods for the same reason. Once upon a time, carbs were less of a taste temptation, and more of a nutritional requirement. Whole grains were once the only way the body received certain nutritional components such as fiber, selenium, potassium and magnesium. Today’s food processing and decades of bad farming removes those nutrients.
Although food manufacturers often add vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients to their products you will never be able to take in all the vitamins and minerals you need from a standard diet; nutrients your body needs to function properly.
Essentially, modern farming and food processing methods, in addition to the way we eat, has practically guaranteed that you will forever have cravings and that these cravings will, more often than not, lead to overeating – and weight gain.
And, as a final cementing of what has become a vicious circle, our need for the nutrients our bodies have been designed to believe are in certain foods, makes us crave foods that are less and less nutritious, creating even stronger cravings!
If you want to turn off your sugar cravings for good — before you go from irritable to violent — you will have to change your eating habits and enrich your diet with vitamins, minerals and other healthy, natural supplements.
And, the best way to get minerals back into your body is to eat plants grown in mineral-rich soil. Not only are the plants themselves loaded with natural sources of vitally important vitamins and minerals, growing food in nutrient rich soil promotes even healthier plants instead of leaching those nutrients from the plants.
So, the next time your body craves a Hershey bar, recognize the craving for what it is; your body’s signal that you are lacking what you need to maintain optimal health, and forgo the chocolate for foods that actually feed your body, not the craving.
Why do I crave salt?
Craving salt may be more than a salt addiction requiring treatment by your family doctor. For the salt addict, the more one sprinkles on, the more one wants. In turn too much salt may do the following:
- impact blood pressure
- create water retention
- be taxing on the body
If you find that you are a salt addict, try cutting back until you kick the habit. Opt for other seasonings over salt and discuss the use of salt substitutes with your doctor. As a note, salt substitutes may be dangerous for some individuals with heart disease and other medical conditions, so it is important to discuss the implementation of this product in your daily diet with your doctor before doing such.
Why do I crave fatty foods?
There is an emerging link between stress and people's desire to eat fatty foods. Often under pressure, people tend to reach for the fatty foods. There are two explanations for this:
1. At a psychological level the emotional comfort that fatty food has played in your life could drive you towards the chocolate bar on "bad hair" days. If, when crying as a child, you were comforted with fatty and sweet foods, then this nurture pattern may prevail.
2. At a biological level, under stress we tend to use our adrenal system or "fight or flight" chemistry. Fatty food stimulates dopamine and nor-adrenaline, both responsible for giving us the "rush" we need to cope with crisis.
To combat this we need to manage our stress levels better and practise pausing before reacting to stress triggers. Foods high in dietary fibre such as bran cereals and wholemeal breads are suggested as ideal tools for dampening this fat craving. The first step to controlling your emotional hunger is to identify whether you are hungering for food or simply emotional satisfaction. You can do this by keeping a food journal. Write down for one week what you eat, the time you eat and the amount and quality of the food you eat. As you write each entry, note down how you are feeling emotionally. Then review the week and identify when you ate food that related to how you felt emotionally at that time.
Why do I crave chocolate?
In addition to marijuana like substances, chocolate also contains tryptophan, an essential amino acid, which plays a role in the production of the neurotransmitter serotonin. Serotonin is a calming neurotransmitter that makes people feel relaxed and satisfied and is essential for a well-balanced mood. Many people eat chocolate to relieve anxiety, but is unlikely that tryptophan is solely responsible for chocolate cravings or a chocolate addiction because it can be obtained from other food sources, such as carbohydrates, as well.
Chocolate contains bioactive agents that increase the level of serotonin in the brain, prolong the effects of anandamide in the brain, produce mild stimulation, and signal the release of mesolimbic dopamine. However, few studies have invested the role of chocolate's bioactive agents as the basis of chocolate cravings. In a 1994 study men and women were given milk chocolate, white chocolate, which lacks cocoa and the bioactive agents found in chocolate, cocoa capsules, which lack the sensory components of chocolate, or placebo capsules. The researchers found that only milk chocolate fully satisfied the chocolate cravings of the subjects. In addition, both men and women preferred white chocolate to the cocoa capsules. This suggests that chocolate craving can be attributed to its aroma, texture, sweetness and psychological associations with chocolate.
Psychological associations with chocolate are influenced by a multitude of things, including hormonal and cultural influences. Women's bodies scream for chocolate when premenstrual food cravings surface once a month. Many researchers argue that women crave chocolate prior to menstruation because it contains high levels of magnesium. Women experience magnesium deficiency prior to menstruation. However, many other non-craved foods also contain high levels of magnesium. If that craving for chocolate sometimes feels like it is coming from deep in your gut, that is because maybe it is.A small study links the type of bacteria living in people's digestive system to a desire for chocolate. Everyone has a vast community of microbes in their guts. But people who crave daily chocolate show signs of having different colonies of bacteria than people who are immune to chocolate's allure.That may be the case for other foods, too. The idea could eventually lead to treating some types of obesity by changing the composition of the trillions of bacteria occupying the intestines and stomach, said Sunil Kochhar, co-author of the study. It appears Friday in the peer-reviewed Journal of Proteome Research.Kochhar is in charge of metabolism research at the Nestle Research Center in Lausanne, Switzerland. The food conglomerate Nestle SA paid for the study. But this is not part of an effort to convert a few to the dark side (or even milk) side of cocoa, Kocchar said.In fact, the study was delayed because it took a year for the researchers to find 11 men who do not eat chocolate.Kochhar compared the blood and urine of those 11 men, who he jokingly called "weird" for their indifference to chocolate, to 11 similar men who ate chocolate daily. They were all healthy, not obese, and were fed the same food for five days.The researchers examined the byproducts of metabolism in their blood and urine and found that a dozen substances were significantly different between the two groups. For example, the amino acid glycine was higher in chocolate lovers, while taurine (an active ingredient in energy drinks) was higher in people who did not eat chocolate. Also chocolate lovers had lower levels of the bad cholesterol, LDL.The levels of several of the specific substances that were different in the two groups are known to be linked to different types of bacteria, Kochhar said.Still to be determined is if the bacteria cause the craving, or if early in life people's diets changed the bacteria, which then reinforced food choices.How gut bacteria affect people is a hot field of scientific research.Past studies have shown that intestinal bacteria change when people lose weight, said Dr. Sam Klein, an obesity expert and professor of medicine at Washington University in St. Louis.Since bacteria interact with what you eat, it is logical to think that there is a connection between those microbes and desires for certain foods, said Klein, who was not part of Kochhar's study.Kochhar's research makes so much sense that people should have thought of it earlier, said J. Bruce German, professor of food chemistry at the University of California Davis. While five outside scientists thought the study was intriguing, Dr. Richard Bergman at the University of Southern California School of Medicine, had concerns about the accuracy of the initial division of the men into groups that wanted chocolate or were indifferent to it.What matters to Kochhar is where the research could lead.Kochhar said the relationship between food, people and what grows in their gut is important for the future: "If we understand the relationship, then we can find ways to nudge it in the right direction."
Last but certainly not least:
Why do I crave alcohol? Craving alcohol is a complicated process that involves several different factors. We are usually first introduced to alcohol at a young age (in our teens). Since no-one under the age of 21 (in the US) is allowed to purchase alcohol, it becomes “cool” and desirable for young adults under 21 to give drinking a try.
Later on people grab a bottle of booze to feel better, gain more confidence in a social setting or to forget about their problems. Since the alcohol makes them feel better, at least temporarily, they start to crave it.
Consuming alcohol on a regular basis also becomes a habit after a while, just like driving down a familiar road. If there is a problem, or a social setting that calls for alcohol, you may be grabbing that bottle of beer or glass of wine without even thinking about it.Once you get in the habit of drinking alcohol on a more or less regular basis, your body gets used to the alcohol in the blood stream and reacts with withdrawal symptoms when you stop drinking. These withdrawal symptoms can range from mild to severe.Is Alcohol Really Dangerous Or Addictive?
Yes, alcohol can be extremely dangerous. One of the most common diseases associated with alcohol addiction is liver cirrhosis, which causes liver cells to die and the tissue to harden as a result of drinking. It is by no means the only danger to your health.
Drinking can also lead to heart disease, stroke, dementia and brain damage, cancer (including liver cancer, colon cancer and breast cancer in women).
What Can I Do To Curb My Alcohol Cravings?
If you just crave the occasional glass of wine or beer, make sure you are aware of the craving and make a conscious choice to have a glass, or skip it. Don’t let your cravings or emotions make the decision for you.
If you find yourself addicted to alcohol and are unable to not give in to the cravings, please seek professional help. Alcohol addiction is very serious and the earlier you seek treatment, the easier it will be to kick the habit and take control over your alcohol cravings.
I know that this post is packed with all kinds of info but I think that it could be useful information and if anything make you think twice next time you reach for a cookie when you are stressed out or "craving" something sweet. Think about it next time, feed your body, not the craving!
See you tomorrow! Get ready for some great reviews coming your way! I cant wait to share with you!
-Heather
