Stop Food Cravings by Jane Thurnell-Read

Many people suffer from food cravings. They spend a lot of time thinking about food, fantasising about food and trying (and not always succeeding) in restraining themselves in order to lose weight or eat healthily. If you’re one of these people, what can you do about it? Do you often feel ‘hungry’ even when you should be full. You know you’ve eaten enough, but somehow you still feel vaguely hungry and dissatisfied. You tell yourself you’ll leave the rest of the packet for another day, but somehow 15 minutes later the packet is just back in your hand.

It Could Be Food Allergies

If you often get the urge to eat something and feel almost immediately better after you eat it, you could be allergic to what gives you this good feeling. If you find yourself saying,” I’d be happy if I could live on X”, whatever X is may well be an allergen for you. If you sympathise with the woman who broke a plate glass window to get at some chocolate, you know how an allergy to a food can drive you insane! Food allergies tend to be addictive – you crave the allergen. No one knows for sure why this is so, but it seems to be linked to endorphin production; endorphins are the body’s natural painkillers.

People with allergy cravings often wake with a ‘hangover’ even when they haven’t been drinking. They wake feeling tired, headachy and possibly thirsty. Some people with severe allergy addictions feel compelled to get up in the middle of the night and eat or drink the thing they crave. It’s always the same food that weaves its magic spell. Do you wake up, eat or drink it, and then you snuggle down and easily fall asleep again? It may be the middle of the night, but food (or a cup of tea or coffee) is calling you. If so, that food or drink is likely to be an allergen.

What can you do about it? You can switch off allergy reactions quickly using a simple allergy tapping technique. This will not stop you reacting to the substance in the future, but will almost certainly give you immediate relief from your cravings and any other symptoms. The great thing about this procedure is that you don’t need to know what is causing the problem; you can just switch off the problem using this acupuncture tapping technique. If you want to turn off your allergies permanently, I suggest you find a health kinesiology practitioner, who knows techniques to do just that. Read a book on Health Kinesiology.

It Could Be Nutritional Imbalances

Craving particular foods can be a sign of a need for a nutrient that is in the food that is craved, e.g. a deficiency of potassium may result in a craving for avocados and bananas, and a shortage of zinc may stimulate a desire for sunflower seeds and oysters.

When there was lead in petrol, I found that a lot of clients who had a problem with lead loved apples. These are an excellent source of pectin, which helps to remove lead from the body. You may know little about nutrition, but instinctively your body is trying to do the right thing.

So, if you crave a food, check out its nutritional content, and consider whether it is possible you could be deficient in that vitamin and minerals. Consider taking a good quality multi-vitamin supplement to cover all your bases.

It Could Be Blood Sugar Problems

It is important for health that blood sugar levels stay within reasonable limits. This is taken care of by two hormones – glucagon and insulin produced by the pancreas. Glucagon stimulates the conversion of glycogen into glucose and so raises blood sugar levels. Insulin lowers blood sugar levels by stimulating the conversion of glucose into glycogen, which can then be stored until needed, and also by allowing glucose to enter cells through special glucose channels.

Most of the time this works fine, but sometimes blood sugar levels can drop. Low blood sugar has a very detrimental effect on the functioning of the brain. As this can threaten your survival, low blood sugar is treated by the body as an emergency situation. When blood sugar drops suddenly a really primitive reflex tells you to eat immediately. It is difficult to ignore this command, and in general you eat whatever happens to be handy and is sufficiently rich in carbohydrate. This is not necessarily nutritious food. Other signs of badly fluctuating blood sugar levels include headaches, trembling, panic attacks, sudden sweating and anxiety.

From this you can see that maintaining stable blood sugar levels can be vitally important in reducing cravings, but how do you do that? There are two important things you can do – avoiding high glycaemic index food and making sure you have an adequate supply of nutrients that affect blood sugar levels.

High glycaemic foods cause the blood sugar level to increase suddenly and then drop steeply. Avoiding high glycaemic index food can help to stabilise blood sugar.

Chromium, a trace mineral, can help the body use insulin more effectively, and can help stabilise blood sugar. Good food sources of chromium include brewers yeast, whole grains, legumes, nuts and molasses, but if your blood sugar is very erratic you would probably do better to take a chromium supplement at least for a while.

It Could Be Emotional

Sometimes people crave foods that they associate with comfort. Usually this is fairly easy to spot because it’s often one food, and you know the origin. May be it was what your mother cooked for you when you were sick.

There are other less obvious emotional connections. Some people eat to reward themselves or to suppress emotions or to counteract boredom. Are you one of these? Do you keep stuffing food down to stop yourself opening your mouth and expressing your emotions? If this is the true, try taking some flower remedies or seeing a therapist. Do you find the evening is the worse time for cravings? Is that because you are bored? If so, get a good book to read, take up a new hobby or go out and meet new people.

Food cravings don’t have to rule your life, but you do need to take action to change what’s happening in your body.

Copyright 2008 Jane Thurnell-Read