Managing Cravings

All of us have experienced food cravings at some point in our lives. After all, we all share the same type of physiology, we are wired with emotions, and everyone has the faculty of creating thoughts. All these different kinds of biochemical, physical, and bio-psychological processes take place in our bodies every single day. So, when a single part suffers an alteration, many parts that are directly connected get affected too. The distinction between hunger vs. food cravings takes place at this point.

Hunger is a physiological response in the body that happens in response to the cells being low in nutrition and energy, and also being inflamed. Hunger leads us to eat any food in general. Food cravings, on the other hand, are a physical, emotional, or mental desire or need for a specific food. One of the most validated reasons in relation to this topic is that most food cravings are connected to our mood and state of mind.

We are living beings who have emotions that arise when we are aware that something unexpected, unpredicted, or even uncertain is occurring. These emotions are our way of responding to any specific situation. Thoughts, on the contrary, are our way of dealing with these responses and are our ways of finding solutions that meet the needs that lie behind our emotions. Thus, thinking derives from learning, that is, from the process of internalizing these perceptual experiences of the world and putting solutions for these needs into effect.

As a result, an imbalance occurs when our emotional and mental needs are being neglected or suppressed, and we begin to compensate with food cravings. These needs take control of our actions to fill the emptiness and replace the lack of connectivity with ourselves and the environment surrounding us. Therefore, the acts of control are, in this case, the intensity with which we are letting our thoughts and emotions be in charge of the situation and the type of craving we are experiencing: either emotional or mental, (it’s rarely physical).

Physical food cravings

At this point, we can make a clear distinction between real foods vs. fake foods. Our body is made of cells that are our building blocks and, therefore, they have daily nutritional needs. The exact needs are only known by each cell. Since we have an estimated 60 billion cells, we do not have the ability to know exactly what kind of food and how much of it all our cells require each day for good performance. What we are left to do is to nourish our body with natural, varied, fresh, and preferably seasonal and local foods and let our cells do the rest of the job.

A growing number of people believe that food cravings are the body’s subconscious way of filling a nutritional need. They assume that when the body lacks a specific nutrient, it naturally craves foods that are rich in that nutrient. For instance, chocolate cravings are often blamed on low magnesium levels, whereas cravings for cheese are often seen as a sign of low calcium levels. Fulfilling your cravings is believed to help your body meet its nutrient needs and correct a particular nutrient deficiency. That could be possible in some cases; however, there is evidence that this is not always the case.

For example, let us take a closer look at pregnancy. A baby’s development can double the requirements of certain nutrients during the nine months of pregnancy. The “nutrient deficiency” hypothesis would predict that pregnant women would crave nutrient-rich foods, especially during the later stages of the baby’s development when nutrient needs are highest. Yet, studies report that women tend to crave high-carb, high-saturated-fat, and non-dense nutrient foods during the ninth-month period, rather than the nutrient-rich alternatives.

Let us look at another example: calcium deficiency. Craving milk products is often viewed as the body’s way of compensating for low levels of calcium because of their allegedly high content of this particular mineral. Nevertheless, craving foods like spinach, broccoli, some nuts, grains, beans, and avocado, among others, would make more sense since they not only have a rich amount of calcium but also magnesium and potassium — minerals that are extremely necessary for proper calcium absorption in the body.

Moreover, after looking at both cases, it could be argued that people with nutrient deficiencies would benefit from craving a wider variety of foods containing the required nutrient, rather than from a single source.

Emotional food cravings

These are due to certain feelings triggering physical hunger signals. When emotional needs are perceived to have not been met by ourselves or by others, then food is used as a replacement for emotional support. For example, if we are experiencing anger, resentment, worthlessness, being lost, apathy, or pain, this means we are missing out on feeling connection, inspiration, love, being cared for, and meaning, among others. Food will act as a substitute when all these essential emotional needs lack in our lives.

Mental food cravings

These are due to our thoughts being out of alignment with our feelings and our actions. Our thoughts have been created according to the experiences we have learned throughout our lives. We have learned to build these images, these visions, that allow us to align ourselves in harmony with what we desire and the values that come along with these desires. Any decrease in or loss of the desires in accordance with our carefully selected values can create depression and anxiety, which can cause food cravings as an escape valve or as a means of compensation.

Let us consider the example of a state of being stressed. During periods of time when our levels of stress increase, the performance of our digestion and its tracts diminish. As a consequence, blood flow becomes inefficient, which shuts down our ability to absorb food. Yet, whenever we fall into a stress phase, we resort to energy-dense foods as if our lives depended on them. Logically speaking, our body would try to avoid by all means possible eating anything during this time, considering the poor physiological performance of the body.

Cravings are generally very specific and, in cases of emotional and mental cravings, often not satisfied by eating anything other than the craved food. So, based on what we are craving, we can establish our type:

When a food craving hits us

Mindful eating helps you distinguish between emotional and physical hunger. It also increases your awareness of food-related triggers and gives you the freedom to choose your response to them. This is a step-by-step technique that can help you put into practice mindful eating.

Practice the art of noticing stress

Begin to notice how your thinking makes you stressed. Practice letting go of worry. Life is a constant flow. We are constantly in motion. Stress takes place when our current lifestyle is stuck and errant. We feel physically, emotionally, and mentally stagnant.

Practice the art of clarity of body-mind:

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