How to Handle Cravings

Cravings play a critical role in understanding what your body needs and shouldn’t be ignored. When you learn how to deconstruct your cravings and understand what they’re really telling you, you will be able to reclaim a sense of balance and harmony.

Cravings can happen for a variety of reasons – hormonal shifts, lack of sleep, and stress, to name a few. Our bodies are amazing and know when to sleep, wake up, go to the bathroom. It can also self-regulate things like our body temperature, heartbeat, and breathing. It is even able to repair itself.

Knowing all this, many people may view cravings as a weakness, but many times they are important messages from your brilliant body to help you maintain balance. When you have a craving, deconstruct it!

Six common reasons for your cravings:

1. Lack of Primary Food - It’s easy to overlook all of the things that contribute to our sense of nourishment and fulfillment. It’s not just the food we eat that affects our health, but all of the other factors present in our daily lives. Healthy relationships, a fulfilling career, regular physical activity, and a spiritual awareness are essential forms of nourishment. When these primary foods are balanced, what you eat becomes secondary.

2. Water - Lack of water can send the message that you’re thirsty and on the verge of dehydration. Dehydration can manifest as hunger, so the first thing to do when you get a craving is drinking a full glass of water. Excess water can also cause cravings, so be sure that your water intake is well-balanced.

3. Lack of Nutrients - If the body has inadequate nutrients, you’ll have odd cravings. For example,

inadequate mineral levels produce salt cravings, and overall inadequate nutrition produces cravings for

non-nutritional forms of energy, like caffeine.

4. Hormonal - When women experience menstruation, pregnancy, or menopause, fluctuating testosterone and estrogen levels may cause unique cravings.

5. De-evolution - When things are going extremely well in your life, sometimes self-sabotage happens. We crave foods that throw us off, thus creating more cravings to balance ourselves. This often happens from low blood sugar and may result in strong mood swings.

6. Seasonal - Often the body craves foods that balance the elements of the season. In the spring, people

crave detoxifying foods like leafy greens and citrus foods. In the summer, people crave cooling foods like fruit, raw foods, and ice cream, and in the fall people crave grounding foods like squash, onions, and nuts. During winter, many crave hot and heat-producing foods like meat, oil, and fat. Cravings can also be associated with the holidays, for foods like turkey, eggnog, and sweets.

While cookies, chocolate, candy, or pizza are some of the most craved foods, here are a few things you may find yourself more drawn to during the warmer months – and why.

Cooling Foods - This may seem obvious to some, but some foods seem cooling like cucumber, watermelon, lettuce, and chilled drinks. Interestingly, while eating or drinking them may seem like the right thing to do, it could actually raise your body's internal temperature.

Salty Foods - Chips, pickles, french fries all could indicate that you are dehydrated. It is the body's attempt to replenish your electrolytes that you may have lost through sweating due to the heat.

Foods tied to memories - Ice cream, pasta salad, and hot dogs, for example, are often tied to barbecuing and summertime picnics. Craving these are likely an emotional response to a nostalgic attempt to re-create those feel-good moments.

Easier/lighter meals - Hot weather and busy schedules make spending time in the kitchen less appealing. Many opt for easier to prepare/lighter meals like salads.

Craving sweets? Almost everyone does! Rather than eating something with processed sugar try adding some sweet foods to your diet to satisfy that sweet tooth. Not only will your sweet tooth be satiated, but many of the sweet veggies are root vegetable thus they are energetically grounding and soothe the internal organ and energize the body. Adding in these sweet veggies will help crowd out - Many nutrition experts give their clients a list of foods to avoid and foods to eat, which explains why so many people are turned off by nutrition. My approach is different – by eating and drinking foods that are good for you, you will naturally have less room and desire for unhealthy foods. Simply put, you will crowd out the unhealthy food in your diet. This takes a little practice to make happen, but I will support you along the way - the less healthy foods in your diet.

Examples of Sweet Vegetable:

Taste sweet when cooked - Corn, Carrots, Onions, Beets, Winter Squashes, Sweet Potatoes, and yams.

Subtly Sweet - Turnips, Parsnips, and Rutabagas

Others - (Don't taste sweet, but have a similar effect on the body when it comes to blood sugar levels and reducing cravings) red radishes, daikon, green cabbage, and burdock.

A simple way to cook these vegetables is to follow this recipe.

Farmers markets are in full swing in the summertime and have an abundance of nutritious and vibrant options to make eating for the summer so easy! Here are some ideas if you are looking to eat more seasonally this summer:

Beets - good source of vitamin C, potassium, fiber, and antioxidants.

Peaches - pair great with blueberries and arugula for a great salad or cinnamon, oats, and pecans for breakfast.

Cabbage - high in sulforaphane which is known to have powerful anti-cancer properties. Try some grilled cabbage wedges, pickle them, or add them to stir-fry.

Corn - Amazing source of fiber! Opt for organic of you are avoiding GMOs. Rather than boiling them like we traditionally do, try grilling or roasting your corn. You can add corn to salads, dips, and fritters.

Tomatoes - Heirlooms are great summer tomatoes! Rich in vitamin c and low in calories. Lend well to raw and cooked dishes.

Craving chocolate?

Reasons such as stress, exhaustion, preoccupation, habit, and your environment could be the reason behind your chocolate cravings.

Chocolate may offer a boost of endorphins when stressed, it is energy-dense and may seem to boost your energy when tired, you may be on a diet and excluding chocolate thus amplifying your desire to eat it, if you have it every day you may crave it every day, and seeing it in the store or on TV may bring it to mind and make you crave it.

Minimizing stress, taking inventory of your sleep habits, exploring your larger relationship with food and how it makes you feel when you eat it, being mindful of your eating habits, and craving cues can help with your chocolate cravings.

If this post helped you and you feel like it could help someone else, please feel free to share. If it spoke to you and you would like to explore more, please contact me to schedule a free consultation.