April 1, 2008 by Kavit Haria

What are food cravings and why do I get them?

This is a part one in a two-part article on food cravings and ways to curb your craving.

Photo from aprilandrandy

Food cravings aren’t just for women, it’s totally natural for men to get them as well. Cravings could be for sweet things, savory foods, carbohydrates, smoking and alcohol amongst other things. Food cravings means that the body has its signals mixed up. In other words, when our body is depleted in resources such as sugar levels, serotonin levels, etc the brain needs a quick pick-me-up and so turns to satisfy itself with cravings.

If you eat a diet that is biased and unbalanced, you will likely suffer from cravings until you learn to deal with them. For example, if you eat a low-fat diet in the hope of losing weight, you will make the problem worse as you may have become insulin resistant and when your cells don’t get the insulin they need and so turn to satisfying their cravings in order to get the quick and unhealthy sugars from junk food.

And if you think that’s bad, read this: insulin resistance and then a whole surge can lead to obesity, diabetes and heart disease. Most people diet incorrectly and in the process become the opposite of what they are aiming for and that’s why it’s important to understand nutrition before you diet or detox.

Put simply, a food craving is an intense desire for a particular food and they are commonly found in people with a diet that is one-sided as well as in pregnant women. If you ever thought, “I really want chocolate cake, triple-decker and with cream in the middle” and its a feeling not going away and you really want to have it, that’s a craving. Smokers have the same thing when they try to quit smoking without replacing it with something and within a few days find they go back to have a cigarette.

Let’s look at two main types of cravings individually:

Sugar Cravings

We usually have sugar cravings when we try to get off sugar and haven’t had it in a while. The fact is, we’re only trying to stop processed sugars and not natural sugars. So when we decide to stop having sugars, we should instead turn to having lots of fruit to try and replace the sugars our body requires.

One of the reasons we have sugar cravings is because we have low adrenal functions. The adrenal glands sit about our kidneys and they secrete adrenaline which provides us with energy. If we don’t have enough sugar in our body to secrete this, it becomes depleted and can lead to stress which then leads to cravings as a quick pick-me-up to satisfy our body.

Carbohydrate Cravings

These cravings can simply result from hunger if your blood sugar levels are low. Most people don’t really crave only carbohydrates – you don’t find people craving bread, pasta and wheat often, it’s usually accompanied by sugar cravings.

Look out for part two of this article which shares 15 ways to curb your food cravings in a few days time. 

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