Your Food Cravings: 5 Facts to Know About the Mystery of Cravings!
We all experience food cravings from time to time.
Have you ever stopped to ask why
you’re craving certain foods?
I’m sure you have!
Food cravings are a complex phenomenon.
Feeling overwhelmed by cravings is a common concern when going through the perimenopause to menopause transition.
This overwhelm can easily turn into a shame spiral about the cravings you may continuously have.
Having a food craving can trigger a shame spiral:
Before you eat that desired food
During the eating of it, and
After you finish it.
If you feel this way, it’s good self care to ask yourself, “what might be behind these cravings?”
Have you ever stopped to think about what could be driving your cravings?
Understanding why we crave certain foods is part of building a better relationship to food.
Knowing some facts about food cravings can help you understand how your cravings fit into the bigger picture of your food story.
What are Food Cravings?
When you think of your food cravings, what comes to mind?
Do you think of an intense desire for chocolate or chips?
Do you think of cravings as a desire for unhealthy foods?
Food cravings can be for any type of food, like the comfort of mashed potatoes to a large crispy fresh salad. Or french fries. Or your mom’s pie.
They occur with and without hunger.
In holistic health circles, it is said that craving certain foods can be a sign of underlying issues, such as nutrient deficiencies.
This may not be accurate, and we’ll explore that in this blog post.
Cravings can also be a sign of emotional issues, such as stress or boredom.
Whatever the cause, food cravings are a normal part of human life. Especially one where there seems to be highly palatable (think sugary, salty) food everywhere.
Cravings are part of being human.
Some health information websites label food cravings as as “problematic” when they begin to interfere with our daily lives. For some people, they can be
Cravings can be a coping mechanism for strong emotions. If food is your only coping mechanism for stressful times and hard to deal with emotions, it might be time to take a look at that.
It’s important to understand that cravings leave clues.
They are an opportunity to learn about yourself and your food relationship!
I invite you to explore your cravings as a message from your body, and mind.
If you start to reframe cravings as normal, as something that happens to humans, you might get out of your shame spiral when all you think about is chocolate. Or potato chips.
5 Facts to Know About Food Cravings
Let’s look at five facts about cravings that can help you understand yours on a different level.
ONE: Cravings are caused by nutrient deficiencies.
This isn’t so much a fact. I might be debunking something that is taken as fact.
There is a common theory that cravings can be caused by nutrient deficiencies.
If you have a craving for a certain food, is it a sign that your body is lacking a certain nutrient?
It’s possible, but slim, that your cravings are a sign of a deficiency. There isn’t a lot of science behind this theory (1).
If you were craving chocolate, and had a magnesium deficiency, would you not crave pumpkin seeds? If we look at magnesium alone, pumpkin seeds contain 262 mg of magnesium, compared to 146 mg in dark chocolate, per serving.
TWO: Cravings can be triggered by emotional states.
Stress, boredom, and loneliness can all trigger cravings for comfort foods.
Why is this? There is a set of theories that fall under “emotional regulation theories” (2).
This looks at overeating due to emotions as a strategy we learned to down-regulate our overwhelming feelings.
Certain foods can provide a temporary mood boost. Foods high in sugar and carbohydrates can provide a temporary boost in mood, which can lead to repeated cravings.
Memories of certain people, or good times, can also trigger craving, or a desire for a certain food.
Holiday Eating is definitely a time for this, as well as cravings triggered by something called heart hunger!
THREE: External cues can trigger cravings.
The sight or smell of a certain food can trigger cravings. Donuts in the lunchroom, smelling fresh bread, or something cooking on the stove, triggers cravings.
In this world of food abundance, we can experience cravings all the time!
Think about the cue of advertising, in a movie theatre, or even subliminal advertising, with food product placed in subtle areas.
The clock, signalling lunch or dinner, can trigger a desire for food.
Understanding why you’re experiencing cravings, helps you see the underlying emotions, patterns and habits that drive them.
FOUR: Cravings are triggered by deprivation
In the non diet world, there is a lot of talk about how diets, and deprivation, trigger cravings. This falls into the realm of cognitive theory, where overeating is attributed to chronic dieting behaviour.
You may have experienced this. Have you labeled certain foods as “bad”, when going on the diet?
And when you go “off” the diet, you may have moments where you want ALL the chocolate, and subsequently EAT all the chocolate. or it seems like “all” the chocolate.
Cue: shame spiral, right?
Intuitive eating points directly at diet culture for creating this deprivation state within ourselves and driving us to the very foods we are trying to stay away from.
This study asks a whole other question: do dieters experience food cravings in different ways? Are they more susceptible to to food cravings, and weight gain, therefore THIS makes them want to diet.
(I am not saying this is fact, I am just looking at this study as an interesting discussion point. One study does not make a fact)
FIVE: Your hormones cause your cravings.
This isn’t necessarily a theory. You DO have hunger hormones, sex hormones, thyroid hormones …
They all work together.
Hunger hormones, like leptin and ghrelin, work together to regulate appetite.
What do they have to do with sex hormones?
Sex hormones may also play a role in cravings. (3).
Estrogen may reduce some of your cravings, and when estrogen decreases, cravings may go up. This is what the PMS cravings look like (4).
Then there is the topic of food addiction, and the reward system in the brain.
That’s a whole other topic!
Where to start with food cravings?
As you can see, food cravings may be caused by many different factors, and we can experience them all at one time or another.
I like to have clients tune in to their emotions, environment, biology, and behaviour.
I call this the EBB and flow of cravings.
I use the ONE “E” because emotions, while linked to these factors, can also be delicate.
They can be hard to address.
If there is emotional stress from traumatic events, a therapist might be needed.
Emotions DO get tied to behaviour.
When we feel something, we usually DO something in reaction.
What are your EBB?
Environmental. Behaviour. Biology.
Environmental cravings are the ones that are triggered by the things happening around us. Events, or external cues, such as the sight or smell of certain foods. You would know this if you walked into the lunchroom, and saw donuts. You didn’t have donuts on your mind before you saw them. The sight of them triggered the WANT of a donut, right?
If you actually like donuts.
Events, like family holidays, birthdays, religious holidays, celebrations, cultural events, and even funerals may trigger cravings.
Biological cravings are the kind where our bodies crave certain foods because of something physical. Back to that nutrient deficiency theory.
Are you low in iron, and now experience a craving for red meat?
Are you deficient in zinc, and now experience a craving for oysters?
Is that magnesium really tied to chocolate?
If you are sleep deprived, which many menopausal women are, you may crave carbohydrates.
If you let yourself get too hungry, you may also crave carbohydrates, as the body is looking for quick fuel.
Behaviour Cravings cravings can be triggered by emotional states or habits too. You may be used to eating by the clock. I talk about this in my post about Inner and Outer Wisdom.
Outer triggers, are also called Outer Wisdom, in the Mindful Eating world.
These outer triggers can result in habit patterns, like always eating lunch at noon, whether you are hungry or not.
(Sometimes work schedules dictate that we HAVE to eat at this time or go hungry later. This is different, and falls into a “flexible”eating approach.)
Emotions like stress, boredom, and loneliness can all trigger cravings for foods as a way of stress buffering or filling time. A lot of this is not conscious either.
The starting point is to track these cravings.
Get Curious.
Emotions can be tied to all the things above.
If you are sleep deprived, due to night sweats or anxious thoughts, you might be more emotional, than when fully rested.
Become Aware.
Awareness is one of the foundations of Mindful Eating.
Cultivating awareness, self awareness, helps you see how your emotions can influence your cravings.
The message “try to find healthy ways to cope, such as taking a walk or talking to a friend” is well meaning, but if you struggle with emotional eating, and cravings, this advice isn’t straightforward.
Start tuning into your body cues
Do you recognize physical hunger over all the other hungers you may feel?
My Mindless to Mindful Eater Course will help you see the difference.
What do you hunger for?
Did that give you more insight about YOUR cravings?
Unlock the mystery of YOUR food cravings.
Start taking note of those EBB’s.
Take note of timing of your cravings.
See any themes?
Remember, this is not about making “better” choices. It’s about honoring what works for you.
Cravings are normal. YOU are normal.
Cravings are teachers, and can lead you to a much better relationship to food.
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Sources
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7399671/#CR64
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnbeh.2020.00091/full
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22281161/
https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/physiol.00013.2019