CRAVINGS!!
We have all been there, driving home from work or walking through a store when, BAM! A craving hits you! It doesn't matter what the craving is for, what matters is what your brain is trying to communicate.There are many things that trigger certain cravings, one of them being a need for a certain nutrient that you are currently running low on. Here are some examples:
Other types of cravings are triggered by stressors that trigger an emotional need for a certain food.
So, how do we approach cravings? Well, first, you should try to identify if something is stressing you and causing the craving or whether your body is deficient in a nutrient. If you feel like it is not stress but rather a nutrient issue, reference the column "What to Eat Instead" related to your craving.
Sugary foods are also craved to release seratonin. The best ways to naturally boost seratonin are Natural light and Healthy, Nutrient-rich foods.
In order to relieve stress-related cravings, you have to target the stressor itself.
There are 3 main types of stress (according to Brendan Brazier's Thrive):
1. Complimentary- Ex: Exercise
2. Uncomplimentary- Ex:Psycological stress/general stress
3. Production- Ex: Meeting deadline for work/personal goal
Complimentary and Production stress yield benefits where Uncomplimentary does not. Because of this we are going to focus on Uncomplimentary stress primarily.
There are 3 Main causes of Uncomplimentary stress, do you want to try to guess what makes up 70% of this stress?
No?
The Foods we eat. Nutritional stress is the largest percentage in a normal person's daily stressors, psychological and environmental make up 20 and 10% respectively.
Eating processed garbage is a huge stress on our body. Our body has to try to figure out how to process this unnatural thing and pull whatever fuel it can salvage to keep our bodies functioning and generating new cells, etc. Not eating enough nutrient-rich foods is also stressful. We could talk about this for hours which is why my next post introduces us to clean eating.
If we do not give our bodies the proper nutrients and maintain a generally alkaline diet, our body will begin to pull resources from other places within our bodies, like our BONES! No thanks!
I know homework sucks, I hate it too, but you have homework! Write down all of your Stressors and identify which ones are beneficial and which ones we need to get to work on!
The next post is about Clean Eating. This means eating a well-balanced diet that focuses on long-term sustainability. ;)
XOs,
Jess
