Are you constantly craving something? Chips, chocolate, coffee? And does this NEED, sometimes feel bigger than you? It’s very likely that your body is starving! Not for the extra calories in these junk foods though, for nutrients!
When stress rises, so too does our need for good quality nutrition. Unforuntately, times of stress tend to cater to more self neglect, not less.
Continually reaching for nutrient void (refined food) and stimulating / energy robbing food (caffeine, sugar) however, will ultimately lead to food “cravings.” And furthermore, I would absolutely say there is a correlation between increasingly making poor choices, and the increased incidence of food cravings.
What do you crave?
Fatty foods numb the receptors in our brains that regulate emotional response. So when you crave and then cave to high fat foods, you may temporarily be able escape from uncomfortable feelings. This however, is not a solution! “The only way out, is through,” (Bob Hoffman), so try to process difficult feelings by talking to someone, meditating, doing yoga, etc, ditch, the Haagen-dazs! Besides, come on, we already learned why that crap is detrimental last week!
Sugar releases Seratonin (another chemical released in our brain), and seratonin makes us feel good, and well, who doesn’t want this! But there are natural ways to increase seratonin, ways that won’t (unlike sugar) leave our bodies taxed and robbed. Unfortunately, we are a society that loves quick fixes. We don’t want to do the work to feel good, but just the same, we feel entitled to it. Refined sugar creates nutritional deficiency, nothing about it, nor its effect in our body is good for us. It suppresses our immune systems, wrecks havoc on our blood sugar levels, and, it makes us fat! Find another way to feel good! Get out in the sunshine, enjoy a walk with a friend, do yoga, make love, you do deserve to feel good, and the natural highs are where it’s at:)
Coffee / caffeine strips our body of essential minerals, creates blood sugar imbalance, taxes our adrenals, increases blood pressure, burdens our livers, etc, and though indeed it does have some antioxidants in it, there are tons of foods with antioxidants that don’t simultaneously, deplete you. Brendan Brazier, the famous vegan triathlete / formulator of Vega talks about coffee as being “borrowed energy,” something you can get up front, but then have to pay for later. Stimulation and fatigue he explains, go together, and each time you reach for artificial energy you send yourself further into “biological debt.” This said, I personally have a love / hate relationship with caffeine. I love that it makes me feel “super human,” I despise how it makes me feel 4 hours later. I continue to meditate on why I love caffeine, why I want / need to feel “bigger” then perhaps I am, this is humbling, and hard sometimes, but it helps me say no... more often:)
Next time you feel a craving hit, check in with yourself and see if you can identify what your body is trying to tell you. Why do you think the craving is showing up? Could it be because you are on some kind of restrictive diet (for example, eating only protein)? Is it because you are running on 4 hours of sleep? Are you PMS’ing and think you need chocolate, while what your body really needs, is more the mineral magnesium.
We never truly “need” a chocolate bar, a coffee, or an entire tube of pringles chips, we might think we do, but don’t fool yourself, we don’t! That said, if you love these “entertainment” foods, enjoy them, every once in a while, but don’t depend on them to gain energy or to feel “good.” There will be a consequence for this, whether you are wise enough to see the connection, or not.
People often ask me things like, for example, “don’t you ever crave pizza.” I honestly don’t! I have absolutely no desire to eat pizza, and I can’t even begin to imagine how ill I would feel if I did. My point here is, feed yourself well, and the cravings will go away. You won’t feel deprived, you simply and genuinely won’t want the crap anymore.
As Albert Einstein so brilliantly put it, insanity, is doing the same thing over and over, while expecting different results. Instead of having another coffee the next time you encounter that 3pm energy crash, try having a healthy and balanced snack instead. Just try it, I bet you’ll be pleasantly surprised by how your energy / emotions level themselves out.
Your body is very wise, just give it what it needs, and you’ll be rewarded.
When stress rises, so too does our need for good quality nutrition. Unforuntately, times of stress tend to cater to more self neglect, not less.
Continually reaching for nutrient void (refined food) and stimulating / energy robbing food (caffeine, sugar) however, will ultimately lead to food “cravings.” And furthermore, I would absolutely say there is a correlation between increasingly making poor choices, and the increased incidence of food cravings.
What do you crave?
Fatty foods numb the receptors in our brains that regulate emotional response. So when you crave and then cave to high fat foods, you may temporarily be able escape from uncomfortable feelings. This however, is not a solution! “The only way out, is through,” (Bob Hoffman), so try to process difficult feelings by talking to someone, meditating, doing yoga, etc, ditch, the Haagen-dazs! Besides, come on, we already learned why that crap is detrimental last week!
Sugar releases Seratonin (another chemical released in our brain), and seratonin makes us feel good, and well, who doesn’t want this! But there are natural ways to increase seratonin, ways that won’t (unlike sugar) leave our bodies taxed and robbed. Unfortunately, we are a society that loves quick fixes. We don’t want to do the work to feel good, but just the same, we feel entitled to it. Refined sugar creates nutritional deficiency, nothing about it, nor its effect in our body is good for us. It suppresses our immune systems, wrecks havoc on our blood sugar levels, and, it makes us fat! Find another way to feel good! Get out in the sunshine, enjoy a walk with a friend, do yoga, make love, you do deserve to feel good, and the natural highs are where it’s at:)
Coffee / caffeine strips our body of essential minerals, creates blood sugar imbalance, taxes our adrenals, increases blood pressure, burdens our livers, etc, and though indeed it does have some antioxidants in it, there are tons of foods with antioxidants that don’t simultaneously, deplete you. Brendan Brazier, the famous vegan triathlete / formulator of Vega talks about coffee as being “borrowed energy,” something you can get up front, but then have to pay for later. Stimulation and fatigue he explains, go together, and each time you reach for artificial energy you send yourself further into “biological debt.” This said, I personally have a love / hate relationship with caffeine. I love that it makes me feel “super human,” I despise how it makes me feel 4 hours later. I continue to meditate on why I love caffeine, why I want / need to feel “bigger” then perhaps I am, this is humbling, and hard sometimes, but it helps me say no... more often:)
Next time you feel a craving hit, check in with yourself and see if you can identify what your body is trying to tell you. Why do you think the craving is showing up? Could it be because you are on some kind of restrictive diet (for example, eating only protein)? Is it because you are running on 4 hours of sleep? Are you PMS’ing and think you need chocolate, while what your body really needs, is more the mineral magnesium.
We never truly “need” a chocolate bar, a coffee, or an entire tube of pringles chips, we might think we do, but don’t fool yourself, we don’t! That said, if you love these “entertainment” foods, enjoy them, every once in a while, but don’t depend on them to gain energy or to feel “good.” There will be a consequence for this, whether you are wise enough to see the connection, or not.
People often ask me things like, for example, “don’t you ever crave pizza.” I honestly don’t! I have absolutely no desire to eat pizza, and I can’t even begin to imagine how ill I would feel if I did. My point here is, feed yourself well, and the cravings will go away. You won’t feel deprived, you simply and genuinely won’t want the crap anymore.
As Albert Einstein so brilliantly put it, insanity, is doing the same thing over and over, while expecting different results. Instead of having another coffee the next time you encounter that 3pm energy crash, try having a healthy and balanced snack instead. Just try it, I bet you’ll be pleasantly surprised by how your energy / emotions level themselves out.
Your body is very wise, just give it what it needs, and you’ll be rewarded.