Food cravings

Let’s Talk About Cravings

Hey EarthFIT Fam! You have questions? Hopefully I have the answer. In today’s Q and A, I’m gonna talk about food cravings. So the question was asked, “What can we do when we’re really craving certain types of foods like pizza or chinese food?”. We’re gonna address that in this video, let’s get right into it. So food cravings, like I said, question was asked specifically about Chinese food and pizza. What do we do when we’re craving those types of foods? So let’s backtrack and dive into why may we be experiencing these cravings? There’s several reasons:

(1) First one, maybe we’ve cut this out of our nutritional lifestyle for a long time. Our diet, it’s otherwise known as for a long time. And we’re just really craving that food. That could be one reason why we’re having cravings.

(2) Another reason we’re having cravings, maybe it’s a micronutrient deficiency. So we have macronutrients which are proteins, carbohydrates, and fats. We have micronutrients, the micronutrients are all those little vitamins. Sometimes if they’re thrown way out of balance, you can really have certain cravings because you’re actually craving that micronutrient. In the case of pizza and chinese food that aren’t very micronutrient or nutrient dense, probably not the case. We probably rule that one out in this one.

(3) Third thing, maybe you were a little bit dehydrated. Those are the three common things that I see when people are really craving food. To recap, that is maybe we’ve cut that out of our diet for a long time. And we, we just can’t take it anymore. Maybe it’s micronutrient deficiency, or maybe it is water.

(4) Another one would be, really high stress levels, lack of sleep. Those are, those also really can contribute to food cravings because it’ll actually mess with your hunger hormones in your brain. 

So let’s address each of these, how do we get around them… So, first one, what do we do when we’ve cut something out? And that’s the reason we’re craving it? Well, simply you could add it back in, in smaller quantities or an even better approach would be to make your pizza and chinese food in this case.

So try to make your own at first and if you just can’t get it down right. What I would recommend is ordering a very small portion of whatever that is that you are craving. If you allow it a little bit here and there in your diet, the chances are, you’re not gonna have these huge binges later on because you’ve cut it out for three months. So instead of eating, you know, one serving, we eat three months worth. So just add it back in little by little second, one micronutrient deficiency that can be solved with a good multivitamin, in most cases a healthy serving of fruits, vegetables. Make sure we’re getting all of those in, to really maximize our micronutrient intake.

Third one dehydration, I’ve spoken at length on this, make sure you, if you took your body weight and times it by 0.75, that’s how many fluid ounces of water you want to be drinking. So again, you take your body weight and you times that by 0.75, that would make sure you’re properly hydrated. That should eliminate any cravings. And then the last one, like I spoke on, was stress and sleep. You have to dial those in with a sleep routine, stress management techniques, and do healthy activities to lower that stress. Those can all kind of help you fight off some of those cravings. And I know coach Andrew also just did an excellent video on this topic. So I would also recommend checking out what he has. He has a little framework to walk through what to do when you have a craving. So just to recap, really focus on the things that lead to the craving. So if you’re cutting it out, try to add it back in either by making your own or allowing smaller portions into your life. Micronutrients, if you don’t adequately get enough greens, vegetables, things like that, make sure that you’re adding those in, a multivitamin can really help. Hydration, makes sure we’re drinking 0.75 ounces of water per pound of bodyweight.

And then the fourth and final one, make sure we’re managing our stress and our sleep. If we take care of all those things, the chances that we’re going to have extreme cravings that lead to these binges are very minimal.

So that’s all hope you guys found value in this video. If you guys have any questions for me, feel free to drop them in the comments below, or shoot me a direct message on Facebook. I would love to help you guys out with any of your health or fitness goals. You probably don’t wanna to ask me much about anything else. That is all I have for today. If you’d love this video, give me a heart. If you only liked it, give me a thumbs up though, and as always stay strong.

-EarthFIT Coach Sam