Outsmart Food Cravings- Part 3

Posted on by mustardseedmia 
Chocoholic
noun
1.a person who is excessively fond of chocolate.
Origin of chocoholic
choco(late) + -holic
Chocoholic
A chocoholic is a person who craves or compulsively consumes chocolate.
'Chocoholism' is quite common. In studies of food cravings, chocolate and chocolate confectioneries almost always top the list of foods people say they crave.[3] According to WebMD women are especially vulnerable to having this behavior.

An addiction so powerful it has earned its way into dictionary.com and wikipedia.org. Well played chocolate, well played…but what brings this rich chocolate delight to the top of everyones list of foods they crave? What’s in this little bean that has lead so many people, especially women, so vulnerable? It can’t be the taste, I mean raw cacao bean has got to be one of the most offensive things I have ever put in my mouth. Some might argue that when working with the right accomplices – sugar and milk – it’s taste quite divine, but so does everything else short of mud. When doing a comparison on just taste, I might even say I prefer vanilla, but I don’t ever crave a vanilla cake. In fact, according to my sources – dictionary.com and wikipedia.org – vanillaholic isn’t even a word. Not even a word, despite being the secret weapon in so many desserts. The chocolate puzzle must have another layer.

I will refer to that layer as Magnesium.

Magnesium is an essential mineral, meaning we need it to survive. We exhausted our body’s reserves more rapidly in times of stress, fatigue, physical exertion and of course – if you’re lucky enough to be a lady – when aunt flow comes to town. Hurray for being a lady…Not! Dietary sources of magnesium include spices, nuts, cereals, dark leafy green vegetables and cacao.

Well then, you could argue it must be healthy if chocolate is on that list. While the philosophy on cacao bean and nutrition wavers depending on the nutritionist, the kind of chocolate confectionary you crave when you are stressed is pretty unanimously agreed by all experts to be a nutritional villain.

The thought pattern that “I am craving it, so my body must need it” falls a little short here, as most people don’t crave many of those other foods on that list the way they do chocolate, yet some of them are even more abundant sources of magnesium. Ah, yet another layer to this addictive thriller.

This layer can also be known as Zinc.

Zinc is the most common of mineral deficiencies, and happens to be used up more rapidly in the body when we consume and metabolize sweet treats. Some of the first signs of a zinc deficiency include reduced sense of smell, loss of appetite, and taste changes. All of these factors make you less likely to reach for spinach when magnesium stores are low and more likely to reach for a more powerful sensation – like a hit of chocolate. The taste of nuts and cereals just don’t have quiet the same bite as that dark bean.

It’s a vicious little spiral; as each time we succumb to the compulsion to reach for our favourite chocolate dessert, we simultaneously create another deficiency that leads us to prefer to reach for that same chocolate dessert next time around and less likely to want anything to do with the much healthier options. What’s worse is, it is often those with powerful food cravings who are also the notorious perpetual dieters. Adding yet another portion to the recipe for your zinc deficiency disaster.

It’s those who restrict food intake that are most vulnerable to this compounding wreck. Restricting calories, skipping meals and cutting off certain food sources are among the main culprits to so many nutritional deficiencies in first world countries, zinc being right there at the top of mineral deficiency list. Although no less wicked than another other nutritional deficiency – as an absence in any essential nutrient will devastate the body.

Don’t play nutritional shaman of your own life if you don’t really know what the consequences are. Just because some fad diet where you only ate two days a week and starved yourself the other five days of the week worked for you a year ago, doesn’t mean it will continue to and the consequences to your body could be very difficult to undo.

There is no diet as impressive as the one that mother nature sets for us, no google search quiet as clever at constructing a meal plan as she is. If you don’t really know what you are doing, and you don’t really understand the power of eating the right foods – real food – then be open to learning from someone who does.

I hope you learned something from this post. I appreciate your feedback and looking forward to hearing from you in the discussions below.

P.S. Yes I know the fad diet is eat 5 days and starve yourself for 2 days, but really, does that make it any less absurd?

Sending love from Sydney

-Maria

The Yeasty Beasties

Posted on by mustardseedmia

I wanted to start off by apologizing for the hiatus I have taken.  After the death of a family member my desire to write diminished, and then I got caught up with life, trying to survive by myself in a whole new hemisphere – but I have landed on my feet now and viola, I am inspired to write.

I left in the middle of a series of posts about food cravings.  You might recall me, justifiably, calling your brain a selfish bitch.  This post is about how the tiny ecosystem in your gut might also be contributing.

Before you put me in a stray-jacket for suggesting that singled-celled organisms might be controlling your thoughts, and you protest “They can’t do that!” let me tell you a few things they can do…

Evolve

While your genetic code takes a human lifetime to be passed down to the next generation, these tiny microbes only take hours.  Their ability to reproduce so fast also increases their opportunities to evolve as rapidly as our external environment is changing.  For millions of years they have been co-evolving alongside animals, just as they are continuing to do on us – their survival is partly dependant on us and they also return the favour.

When one of these critters living on our bodies does something that we like or that we feel benefits us, we call them ‘good bacteria’ and when they do something we don’t like or cause our bodies to respond in an undesirable manner, we call them ‘bad bacteria’.

What are a few things they do that we like and don’t like?

Well for starters, they can help us digest our food.

How much impact can they possibly make on digestion?  Well cows – who eat a grass diet – don’t actually have much of an ability to get any nutrition from the grass on their own.  Instead, they depend on the bugs living in their four-chambered stomach, to produce the enzymes they need to digest this high-fibre diet.  I know what you are thinking, “but we aren’t cows” and while that’s a fantastic observation, just know that they do a similar thing for us.

Synthesize Vitamins

We’ve known for a long time now that the bacteria in our gut also produce vitamins essential to our health.  For example, vitamin k which is a nutrient needed for blood clotting is produced by our bacteria in our gut. Without this vitamin you could bleed to death from a tiny cut, and there is increasing attention towards the idea that a lack of it may be linked to colitis.  So digesting our food and producing vitamins we need, so far these pests aren’t so bad.

Until of course you’re standing at the check-out aisle flirting with the hottest human you’ve ever seen–you can’t even believe your luck. Then suddenly, oh no is that gas? Damn it, you knew you shouldn’t have had that milk in your latte this morning!  As a bead of sweat drips down your face you think, “maybe I can hoooold…” oh there it goes, and it’s a stinker.  The smell wafts through the store, while all eyes turn on you, you look back and your future husband has already b-lined it straight out the door and into his car where he is safe from your obnoxious fumes.  You can thank your gut bacteria for that chemical warfare too.

Besides toxic chemicals, they can release hormones.  Hormones are the power chemicals that lead to all kinds of reactions within the body. Even our ability to feel an emotion is governed by hormones; dopamine makes you feel happy and motivated; serotonin can lead to euphoria and reduced appetite; and of course there are others such as the hormone leptin, which is released by the lining of your stomach when your stomach has been filled.  Leptin travels to your brain signalling that you are full and you should stop eating. Without leptin you would never feel satisfied, you would continue to eat everything within site.  To complicate matters a little bit, it’s now known that bacteria can interfere with hormones, one of those said hormones being leptin. Uh oh

Thousands of different species inhabiting your body and calling it their home, while they are all fighting for the greater portion of real estate and for their chance to dominate.  Their desire to let each other cross borders seems to be even less tolerant than ours.  Each one doing what it takes to survive and reproduce as fast as they can. All these passengers are at an ongoing dinner party, while we are playing the host, they eat what we serve them.  Unfortunately the diet each species needs to thrive are not all alike.  The choices we make at each and every meal determines which species gets a fighting chance and which ones are at a major disadvantage.

When you put together all these facts about these little guys, the notion that they might be influencing your food cravings becomes a little easier to digest.

Ultimately you are in charge though and your food choices matter.  A high fibre plant based diet will lead to greater numbers of some species, while a diet low in fibre and richer in meat sources could lead you to house a whole other group, on the same note a highly refined junk-food diet has the capacity to sway the power towards a whole other group all together.  It is likely that the foods you are a custom to eating are the exact foods the predominate species in your gut need to continue to survive.  You can trust me when I say that for billions of years if bacteria have shown us one thing at all, it is that they will do absolutely whatever they need to do to survive.  These microbes are under no moral obligations to play fair, and the fact that you want to get beach body ready ranks a whooping no where on their priority list.

Moral of the story?

Play it safe and eat real food, it shows that over time, you actually start to prefer this lifestyle and your body learns to adapt to crave these foods.

 

 

 

I hope you enjoyed this post and much as I enjoyed writing it.  Comments shares and likes are very appreciated and the feedback, positive or negative, helps me determine what more I should share.

-Maria

 

 

Outsmart Food Cravings

Posted on by mustardseedmia

Being a Nutritionist can sometimes be incredibly frustrating, especially when it comes to the subject of shedding weight.  When passing suggestions to people, I often get cut off before I can offer any guidance.  “I already know what I need to do” they often say, generally followed with an “I just have to do it.”

Okay honestly, I am aware that you know what to do…Everyone and their dog knows that if you quit eating lollies and you start eating kale, then you are likely to shed weight.  What it takes to lose the love handles is really no secret.  Those who state that they already know what to do are often no different than the vast majority.

I have also never heard anyone say to me, “Starting Monday morning I am going to start being as unhealthy as possible.  I am going to do whatever it takes to quit the gym, I’m going to hire a trainer and he is going to force me to binge eat on fast food, ice cream and chips.”  I think then that it is fairly safe to assume that the masses want to be fitter and healthier.  So, if we all want to be in great shape and we already know what it takes to be healthier, why then aren’t we all successfully doing it?

The answer is not in the what, but in the why.

Knowing what not to eat doesn’t address or defeat the most deliciously evil part of the battle – the insidious food cravings!

The next 3 posts are meant to help you understand why we all have so much trouble doing what we know we need to do, sprinkled with a few suggestions on what may make it easier to accomplish it.

Here are among the top 3 reasons why food cravings can be so powerful.

1.  Your brain is a selfish bitch

2. The yeasty beasties

3. You don’t really know what to do and you’re only making your problems worse by causing mineral deficiencies

 

Your brain is a selfish bitch

During fasting or starvation all of the organs in your body will make adjustments to conserve energy – they can actually shrink in size (40%) to adapt to the current situation – except for your brain.  The brain is the most demanding organ of the body. It puts its needs first and serves itself first.  The brain’s main source of fuel is glucose (sugar), and it also happens to be the primary consumer of glucose.  At only 2% of the total body weight, the brain uses a whooping 25% of the body’s energy, give or take about 500kcal/day.

Moreover, the brain doesn’t have much of an energy storing system, for that, it depends on the body.  This is referred to as “energy on demand”. When the brain needs energy and the blood stores are low, it takes it from the energy stores (fat stores) of the body, turning the fat into glucose and using it as fuel…it’s genius really.  When the body’s stores eventually run out, it will demand it from the environment (food).  There can be a glitch in this system if there is a defect in the control systems of the brain: extreme stress, advertising from sweets, and conditioning of eating behaviour, can be among the factors leading to these defects. So instead of using first the body’s energy store for glucose, it demands it directly from food. This surplus of energy can accumulate, leading to increased fat store in the body, but your selfish brain doesn’t mind because it is temporarily happy,  albeit a bitch! This phenomenon is known as “The Selfish Brain Theory”

If you have satisfied your low blood sugar with lollies then you have given your subconscious mind positive reinforcement that these foods will relatively quickly give your brain what it wants. Each time you repeat this behaviour you strengthen the synaptic connections in your brain, turning binge eating into a wickedly powerful and dangerously impulsive habit, leaving even the strongest mind feeling like a hopeless prisoner who repeatedly surrenders their conscious mind’s goals and needs.

You may say, but I don’t crave sugar, I lean toward salty or savoury.  Don’t fool yourself, even those who think they aren’t addicted to sugar often are.  Try going off sugar for a week – no sweeteners, including honey – and tell me that you aren’t addicted.  Nonetheless, if your cravings tend to be for salty or savoury things then this is still largely in part due to the selfish brain theory.

The brain gets its nutrients from the blood, passing the blood brain barrier via a special insulin-independent transport system.  When your blood pressure gets low, the blood flow to your brain decreases.  This makes your selfish brain very angry >:(.   It has very cleverly learned from past experience that where salt goes water goes. In other words the salt pulls fluid into your blood vessels, expanding your blood, making it easier for your heart to pump blood to your brain.  Savvy your little brain is.  Again, every time you repeat this behaviour you reinforce your brain to behave in this manner.   It’s like coddling a screaming child, it might seem like a great idea at the time, but often in long term it reveals to be a very bad choice.

Here’s the kicker, low blood pressure is often caused by a sugar crash, whether it be induced by caffeine, lollies or simply a heavy carbohydrate meal. This is why sweet cravings are often followed by ravenous salt cravings…your brain knows what’s coming.  In some instances it gets really sly and demands both at the same time.  Next thing you know you are eating ice cream straight out the tub only to takes breaks to shove a handful of pretzels down your face.

So what to do?

1.  Don’t panic and don’t beat yourself up over it!  Blame, shame, guilt and anger only give way to comfort eating, turning your “treat” into a guilty pleasure.  I swear, we were all doomed since the introduction of the word “treat”.

Anytime you have one of these negative thoughts you release a neurotransmitter that allows you to feel that thought.  Repeating that thought over and over in your mind repeats the release of the neurotransmitter in brain.  Overtime, you can cause a self-induced chemical imbalance in your brain.

Ever wonder why you don’t emotional eat when you are happy?  Because happy thoughts release the neurotransmitter serotonin.  Serotonin is an appetite suppressant.  Anyone who has ever sampled street drugs that artificially raise serotonin levels – such as ecstasy or MDMA – can testify how powerful the appetite-suppressant effects of serotonin can be.

Instead call friends, do yoga, have sex, smile, watch a comedy, take a bath, or do anything that works for you.  Write down a list of the things that make you happy:  raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, anything but more eating!

I work around food all day long, when something doesn’t always go my way, I mitigate stress-eating by having a quick chat with a co-worker who thinks my sarcastic bitchy humour is actually funny.  She laughs at everything I say, which makes me happy and then I go merrily about my day.  Do whatever works for you.

2. Don’t let your blood glucose levels drop to dangerous levels.  If you are trying to adopt new eating habits then make sure you are always prepared with a wholesome meal that is ready to eat.  Don’t get caught with low blood sugar and nothing healthy that’s ready to go.  You will be doomed in this case.  Rarely does willpower stand a chance against low blood sugar.

Caffiene, heavy carbohydrate meals and stress can lead to fluctuating hyper and hypoglycaemia. Do what it takes to reduce these, and for god sakes don’t start your day with sugar!  I explain the reason for this a bit more throughly in a past post “Say No to Crack”

3. Fruit is a great way to quickly raise blood sugar.  If you aren’t eating fruit right now because you are on a special diet then try a spoon full of raw coconut oil.  Coconut oil is a medium-chain fatty acid that can be converted very quickly by your liver into energy.

For salt cravings, try bone broth, it works just as efficiently as any salty treat at increasing blood volume, and it’s healthy.

4. Don’t keep garbage in the house!  If you are stressed, tired, or hangry, and the lollies are right there staring you dead in the eye, then you will eat them. Why set yourself up for failure?  If your partner isn’t on board with your food-revolution, and he or she makes that clear by asking why they can’t have treats around the house because you have a problem, then refrain from punching them straight in the mouth, and perhaps just try changing the location of the sweets.  Breaking patterns is key!  Replace everything that was in your usual junk filled pantry with healthy alternatives, encouraging notes, or pictures of your goals.

5. Chew your food!   Chewing your food thoroughly before you swallow is incredibly underrated.  The first stage of digestion happens in your mouth.  Chewing not only helps break down the food while it is in your mouth, but it also sends signals to your stomach that food is coming. These signals allow your stomach to release the appropriate enzymes it needs in order digest that particular food.   Your body is amazing!  Failing to chew slows down the digestive processes.  Selfish brain doesn’t have the patience for slow, don’t make it angry.

And finally of course there is exercise, which amazing for everything and deserves a whole blog on it’s own.

This post was Part 1 on how to outsmart food cravings.  If you liked it then help me reach more people by sharing.   Feedback is always appreciated!  Feel free to comment straight on the blog rather than the facebook page, as it opens up the conversation to everyone.   Very much looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

Sending love from Sydney,

Maria