What Are Your Cravings Really Telling You?

Cravings for your favorite snacks are a common experience and a dieter’s nightmare – all your good work of the day can be undone in minutes.

Most people have food cravings at some point – and of course, unusual food cravings are a well noted and often humorous side effect of pregnancy for many women – but why do we have them and what can we do about them?

It turns out there are multiple reasons we have cravings and when we understand these, we can be in much greater control of them.

First, our brains are clever things. Three parts of our gray matter are believed to fire up when we get a food craving. The hippocampus, insula, and caudate are linked with our memory banks and link our preferred foods with rewards.

We often get cravings when we are feeling higher stress levels and our memory links are one way our brains help us to reduce our stress levels by meeting an emotional need for comfort. This is especially true around carbohydrate-based food cravings as carbohydrates have been shown to give our serotonin levels a boost, and this hormone helps govern our levels of calm. Many antidepressants are based on managing serotonin levels.

Unfortunately, as we know, carbs are high in calories and easily converted into fat in our bodies to be stored for later use when we have an excess of them – and throw in that carb-based foods that feature in many cravings often come with fats and sugars and we have a triple whammy to contend with. Of course, these foods are delicious and therefore easy to link to happy memories.

Here is where the next part of cravings kicks in – our evolutionary history. Excess and abundant food is a relatively recent phenomenon in the world – only a few generations and parts of the globe have experienced an obesity problem. 

Since historically food was often in short supply and very seasonal, our bodies have carefully evolved to actively seek out and store calories for when food is scarce. While we do not hibernate as a species, it is a similar instinct to the bear that deliberately puts on weight to get through the winter.

So our bodies are working against us in today’s abundance as they are designed to happily pack on fat. We are built to want to take advantage of easy calories to the extent that it can become a problem.

If we have a fairly bland and repetitive diet, we may well be adding to our cravings as our bodies recognize we are running short on essential nutrients we may not be getting enough of. This can trigger a craving in an attempt to top up vitamin and mineral levels.

So what can we do about our cravings? The first step is portion control – dieting is about a sustainable lifestyle, not total abstinence, so we should enjoy treats. The issue is how much of them we enjoy. If you find you can demolish an entire family-sized pack of chips, buy multipacks of small portions or get in the habit of weighing out a small portion to enjoy and satisfy the craving.

Look at what you are craving and look for lower-calorie versions – if you love sugary sodas, have the diet or zero versions and maybe just add a splash of the preferred one for flavor. If you like chips, go for the baked or reduced-fat varieties.

Do not let yourself get hungry – this may seem counterintuitive to a dieter, but hunger is a problem as it is unpleasant and a warning sign so we will make rash food choices. If we eat when we are not hungry we will naturally eat a lot less as we are not looking to sate a desire.

Drink liquids – nonsugary, naturally. Many times when we feel hungry we are actually dehydrated and a simple glass of water will stop the cravings within a few minutes.

If you are still feeling a food craving after a suitable portion size, wait 10 minutes – our minds work faster than our bodies and we often find we actually fulfilled our craving just fine, we just have to let our bodies catch up.