Cravings! How to Manage Them

How to be successful in determining the difference between hunger and cravings

Craving - the urge to eat something you just can’t get enough of or at a time that you don’t require more fuel.  They can be difficult to ignore and may even derail your progress, making you irritable or out of control. 

These extreme desires for something, usually a particular food,  can be so intense they can’t be curbed until you finally indulge them. The problem with cravings is they’re not grounded in nutritional needs but rather a response to the environment, emotions, or stressful moments. 

You can handle cravings in many ways, though they all are harder at first and get easier with repetition and practice. Be patient with yourself, and don’t pass judgment on your process if you fail the first few challenges.

What Started the Craving?

If you find yourself really focused on eating a food that you should not eat, you’re having a craving. Take a moment to consider a few details as you look for clues as to why this is happening:

• Do you get cravings consistently at the same times or similar situations? 
• What were you engaged in doing in the time leading up to the craving?
• If you did fulfill the craving and ate the item you craved, how did you feel afterward, both emotionally and physically?
• Do you have a similar response after every craving?

What Type of Craving Is It?

Most cravings are either driven by a physiological need, like low blood sugar, or an emotional component such as stress or frustration. 

You have an ongoing need to balance both of these needs, and it’s possible that a craving could be telling you that you’ve been neglecting that aspect. Perhaps there’s a stress in your life that you haven’t addressed, or you need to make more diet changes but keep postponing it. A food craving can result from these. 

An important difference between these types of cravings is that physiological needs can be met with food, whereas emotional needs cannot. If you try to achieve emotional balance through eating, it can lead to eating disorders.

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Physiologic needs-based cravings can be caused by many variables:

• Have you been eating hyperpalatable processed foods or artificially sweetened foods? These are known for driving cravings.
• How has your sleep hygiene and sleep schedule been going? Are you sleeping well? Poor or inadequate sleep can drive hormonally-based cravings.
• Have your hormones changed? Or, are your cravings happening on a monthly cycle in sync with your menstrual cycle? 
• Do you have other symptoms? Sometimes an accurate explanation can only be seen when considering all symptoms together. 
• Are you still working at becoming fat-adapted or keto-adapted? Your cravings may be a normal symptom during these transitions. 
• Are you eating enough, and are your macronutrients balanced? If you’re either not eating enough, or do not have sufficient fats in your diet, your body may still be burning carbohydrates while you’re trying to not eat many of them. 

Your emotional needs or imbalances are best addressed with social activities, relationship work, journaling, talking to your health coach, and similar emotional work. While these type of cravings may take a bit more homework to identify and solve, they can be overcome in time. Work with your health coach to discuss emotionally-triggered cravings.