Satisfying Cravings
I was chatting with someone after a recent Lunch-N-Learn about healthy foods and she reminded me of a couple of tricks she uses to satisfy cravings in a healthier way. I thought I’d share her tips and a few others.
- When wanting a late night snack, drink a glass of water because we often mistake thirst for hunger.
- When craving something sweet, brew some flavored coffee. Often, the warmth and the sweet smell satisfies your craving.
- If craving chocolate, make a mug of hot cocoa using skim milk, cocoa, a little sugar, vanilla and a dash of cinnamon.
- Only stock your house with healthy sweets and snack options.
- Take a multi-vitamin and multi-mineral to make sure your body gets what it needs.
Here are a few other resources that bring an interesting perspective to the cravings discussion. The folks at Family Education have an article titled Healthy Eating: Hunger vs. Cravings to help us better understand our body signals. Nutritional Counselor, Stacey Morgenstern, has an article titled Deconstructing Cravings that even has four things for you to do to answer your craving.
Did you ever consider that your body might be craving a particular nutrient? The folks at Naturopathyworks have. They developed a chart with things like “If you crave bread, what your body needs is more nitrogen, and it will be satisfied if you eat more high protein foods like fish, meat, nuts, and beans.
Cravings aren’t good or bad. They are just your body’s way of telling you what it wants right now. How you answer it will determine what it becomes tomorrow.
