Regardless of if you posses unfaltering will power or the motivation of a marathon runner, cravings happen to almost everyone. While trying to focus on eating healthy, an obscure craving can be enough to send some of us sprinting to store 24 at 11:30 for a bag of M&M’s (guilty!) and ruining a week dedicated to your diet plan. So what causes these cravings anyways? There’s no way my body wants me to feed it half the bag of family sized Lays!
What is a craving?
Like hunger, a craving is a signal from your body telling you it wants something. Ever notice that cravings are often unusual or random? This might mean that your body is trying to let you know its running low on a specific nutrient. Of course, cravings don’t always result from actual hunger. A good way to tell if you’re actually lacking nutrients is to do the “apple test”. Next time you’re craving something sweet like gummy worms or a strawberry cupcake, ask yourself if an apple also sounds good. If yes, then you’re likely actually suffering from hunger if not, then eating something sweet will likely only add to your waistline and not your overall well being.
What this can tell us:
When you’re craving something in particular whether it be food, alcohol or even the drag from a cigarette it means you’re missing out on something somewhere in your diet. Usually vitamins and minerals. Here’s some basic rules of thumb:
Sweets:
What you want: candy, chocolate, cake, basically anything that contains tons of suagr
What you need: chromium, carbon, phosphorus, sulfur, trytophan
How to get it:
Chromium: broccoli, grapes, cheese, chicken, dried beans
Carbon: fresh fruit
Phosphorus: chicken, beef, liver, poultry, eggs, fish, dairy, nuts, legumes
Sulfur: cranberries, horseradish, kale, cabbage, egg yolks, red peppers, garlic, onion
Trytophan: cheese, liver, turkey, sweet potato, spinach
Bread:
What you want: pizza, rolls, and almost anything that has carbs
What you need: nitrogen
How to get it:
Nitorgen: high protein foods, fish, nuts, beans
Fatty Snacks:
What you want: Cheeots, Doritos, Fritos and all other unhealthy snacks ending in -ito.
What you need: calcium
How to get it:
Calcium: broccoli, kale, all dairy products
Coffee:
What you want: a pipping hot cup of Trenta joe from Starbucks with 2 shots of espresso
What you need: phosphorus, sulfur, salt, iron
How to get it:
Phosphorus: chicken, beef, liver, poultry, eggs, fish, dairy, nuts, legumes
Sulfur: cranberries, horseradish, kale, cabbage, egg yolks, red peppers, garlic, onion
Salt (NaCl): sea salt, apple cider vinegar
Iron: meat, fish, poultry, seaweed, dark leafy greens, black cherries
Alcohol/ Marijuana:
What you want: this one is pretty self explanatory…
What you need: protein, avenin, calcium, glutamine, potassium
How to get it:
Protein: meat, poultry, seafood, nuts
Avenin: granola, oatmeal
Calcium: broccoli, kale, all dairy products
Glutamine: supplement with glutamine powder unless you’re willing to drink cabbage juice! Yuck!
Potassium: bananas, kiwis, black olives, any bitter green veggie
(You only need a couple…)
Soda:
What you want: Get this girl a Diet Coke right now before she has a mental breakdown!
What you need: calcium
How to get it:
Calcium: broccoli, kale, all dairy products
Salty Snacks:
What you want: pretzels, goldfish, movie theatre butter popcorn with extra salt, potato chips, french fries, sunchips
What you need: chloride
How to get it:
Chloride: raw goats milk, seafood, unrefined sea salt, olives, celery
Tobacco:
What you want: cigarettes, chewing tobacco etc.
What you need: silicon, tyrosine
How to get it:
Silicon: nuts and seeds of all varietes
Tyrosine: orange, green or red fruits and vegetables