It’s a Friday night after dinner and you’ve got a craving. You think of the bag of chips tucked away in the cupboard and the urge just won’t go away. You’re desperate to eat them. You try to think of other things, but the urge keeps coming back. You have a craving. You don’t want to give in, because you know that if you do, you’ll find it hard to stop.
This situation has probably happened to you in the past. In fact, cravings are normal. However, if they happen frequently, if they affect your well-being or lead you to feel guilty, that’s when we want to try and better understand the situation so we can intervene. Here are a few tips to help you better understand the possible causes of cravings.
Not meeting your needs
One of the first things to look for in people who often have cravings is whether their diet is balanced and their needs are being met. For example, if someone’s carbohydrate needs aren’t being met, they may want to eat more carbohydrates, especially in their simple form, to help meet those needs. So, if I had a salad with chicken for dinner and tried to stay away from pasta, rice or bread, I might want to eat cake, muffins, chips or popcorn at another time of day to boost my daily carbohydrate intake. The same thing usually happens to people who don’t meet their calorie needs… the body likes to be in balance.
Go long periods without eating
It’s normal to feel hungry 3 to 4 hours after a meal. So, if you go much longer without eating, your body may experience more cravings or have difficulty stopping when it comes to intake. Our bodies are intelligent, and their goal is usually to restore a certain balance as quickly as possible. If it lacks energy, its goal will be to turn to sweet and often fatty foods to ensure that the caloric deficit that was building up is quickly restored. The more hunger we feel, the more our body’s goal is to remedy the situation quickly, even if this means exceeding our needs to restore balance. You can refer to the article on snacks to learn more about this situation.
Unsatisfied eating
One of the most common causes of cravings is food dissatisfaction. In fact, if I wasn’t satisfied with what I ate at my last meal, I’m much more likely to feel like I’m still hungry and want to fill that need in other ways. In fact, ideally, we’d like to maximize colors, textures and flavors in order to derive maximum satisfaction from our meal. Craving the crunch of potato chips? Why not add some as a garnish or side dish? There’s no such thing as a good or bad food: it’s all a question of portion size and frequency. By increasing your satisfaction from day to day, you minimize the risk of frequent, uncontrollable cravings. Depending on your cravings, crunchy foods can also be obtained with nuts, crackers, dried corn or raw vegetables: we want variety!
Denying yourself food groups
“Don’t think of a pink elephant”. I’m pretty sure the first thing you thought of when you read that sentence was a pink elephant. This example is very simple, but demonstrates very easily what the brain tends to do if given constraints, and food is no exception. When we tell ourselves we can’t eat bread, potato chips or jujubes, we usually tend to want them even more than usual if they’re foods we like. And not because “sugar is a drug” as some falsely claim, but rather because we tend to think about it more frequently and imagine the forbidden as more appealing. Of course, if we forbid ourselves for reasons of allergy, food preference, value or digestive disorders, it’s not the same situation, since other factors and consequences help dictate our decision-making. In short, banning food groups for non-decisive reasons increases the risk of craving them even more.
You’ve now learned about some of the causes of cravings. Cravings are perfectly normal, but if they’re affecting your well-being, they’re something you can work on with the help of a nutritionist and/or psychologist. It’s never too late to improve your relationship with food and your quality of life.
By : Joanie Séguin, Dt. P.
Nutritionnist, Clinique Hexa Physio
