Do you have food cravings or hunger pangs or is your stomach saying I'm hungry, feed me? How can we keep
this from ruining a healthy food plan?
Yes, the term “Craving” is not well
defined. Many use the term when craving certain foods, or certain
types of foods. Others say this is the impulse to eat in the absence
of hunger. Cravings can be for specific foods, or heading for the
refrigerator for no good reason.
Differentiating between hunger and
cravings is not always easy, and there is possibly some overlap.
Food-specific cravings can often occur at the same time as hunger,
and hunger can manifest itself in different ways. For example, if
you've just eaten a satisfying amount of food and you still feel like
eating, this is most probably what we are calling a craving. On the
other hand, people who have gone with insufficient calories for an
extended period, as in an extended dieting, will also report a
sensation of wanting more food even when they are full.
Some have suggested that one way to
differentiate between cravings and
hunger is to think about a plain but
satisfying food, such as a steak. If eating a steak sounds like a
great idea, it's probably hunger.
What can cause cravings? From my
reading and experience, the following causes of cravings are my
suggestions.
#1) Too much carbohydrate in
the diet. A very common reaction to a low-carb diet is a
dramatic reduction in cravings. People frequently talk about
"feeling normal around food" or not feeling like eating
between meals. This is actually the most-mentioned "favorite
thing" about low-carb eating.
Of course, the same people will usually
find to their dismay that adding too much carbohydrate back into the
diet brings the return of those urges to eat when not hungry.
The obvious remedy is to find out how
much carbohydrate is best for you, and stick to it. It generally
takes about 5-14 days to rid yourself of the cravings (tips for
getting through that time). However, this won't help in the moment
when you're having the craving! Near the end of this blog, (part 2),
I will have strategies for that.
#2) Eating processed,
"hyper-palatable" foods. In recent decades, the
food industry has perfected the art of creating foods that leave you
wanting more of them. As documented by writers that have written
about how these foods work in our brains to create yearnings.
These brain circuits actually have some
commonality with responses and addictions to opioid drugs. The
remedy for this is to not let the food companies get away with this:
don't purchase and eat these foods.
#3) Sweet foods. Even
apart from highly processed foods, sweet foods can be a problem for
many people, for very similar reasons. Obviously, you don't need to
buy highly processed sweet foods; you can make them yourself, and
this can cause problems. This is why even artificial sweeteners
should be used in moderation. Sweet foods can be an occasional treat
for some, but others find that eating any sweet foods make them want
to eat more.
#4) Other trigger foods.
If you are eliminating sweet foods and processed foods, and are
eating the right amount of carbohydrate for you, there aren't many
trigger foods left. But, there are people who, for example, do fine
on a moderate amount of carbohydrate, but find that potatoes or some
other specific food trigger unwanted eating.
#5) Emotional
eating.
People do eat for emotional reasons: sadness, boredom, etc.
However, before jumping to the conclusion that you are doing this, I
urge you to carefully check out numbers 1-4, because many, many
people have found that their "compulsive emotional eating"
vanishes when they figure out the way of eating that works best for
them. I was one of these people. I spent several years trying to
figure out why I was overeating. Turned out it was simply "too
much carbohydrate".
#6) Habits. If we get
in the habit of having certain foods at certain times or in certain
settings, we'll often find ourselves wanting that food whether or not
we are hungry.
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