Cravings
Cravings suck.
No other way of putting it. No matter what you’ve been doing all week, no matter how hard you’re trying to stay on point with your diet, there’s an inner tribe in your subconscious chanting “CHEAT, CHEAT, CHEAT!” over and over until you cave.
We all have cravings, but the question is why?
Cravings are actually an evolutionary adaptation learning that we’ve created over the years of surviving on this planet.
Typically, we come to crave certain foods that have these key elements. Sugar, Starch, fat, protein, salt and glutamate. Nearly all of those elements have one critical commonality: calories.
Cravings are a type of motivational state and is often the body’s way of telling us that it wants a certain thing. In our history, it was a way for our body to tell us we potentially needed more energy to survive or get by.
When we eat things that are high in those elements, we get a significant dopamine release, noting everything about our surroundings so that we eventually crave the same experience once again.
Foods that are high in fats, carbs and are salty for example, are some of the most craved foods in North America. The problem is that today, food scarcity isn’t the thing it was even 200 years ago meaning that when we succumb to our cravings, we often go overboard more often than not consuming far too many calories.
When we consume more calories than we need, no one needs a scientific background to predict what comes next. Weight gain.
How does one avoid it?
We will cover that in future posts this week so that you can become a master of your cravings and the author of your own diet.