Food is NOT the enemy especially when you can make delicious low-fat favorites!
Without food, there is no life. Too often, when learning to live a healthy lifestyle, fear rears its ugly head and we worry, “What if I can never have chocolate, french fries, wedding cake, BBQ, donuts, hamburgers, or . . . ”
You get the drift. You can fill in the blank with your own favorite foods. This article is about food cravings, and it is important to start off by saying we often crave what we fear we can’t have.
Have You Been Ruled By Fear?
That’s the psychological craving we experience. Heres the good news; with a little creativity, you can healthfully enjoy most of the types of foods you’ve always loved.
- Want chocolate? OK. We can have healthy, low-fat chocolate desserts.
- How about french fries? Not a problem. You can make scrump-dil-eee-is-cious, low-fat oven-baked french fries!
- What about a slice of wedding cake? A wedding cake has to be really special, right? Well, you may be surprised to know you can even make low-fat wedding cakes that are awesome.
- What about many people’s all-time favorite foods gooey, sticky, finger-licken good, BBQ? Can we have that? Yes, of course! That’s an easy one! In fact, you can find some tasty treats so delish that you’ll want to have your friends over just to have a BBQ and no one will guess theyre low fat and healthy!
- Donuts? Yep! There are even some GREAT oven-baked donut recipes that will knock your socks off. Your life will never be the same!
- Hamburgers? Yes, yes, and yes! Well, of course, they’ll probably be turkey burgers or veggie burgers, but youre gonna love them! They have all the trimmings and fixings to become your new favorites!
You see, friends, there are many foods that we psychologically crave and the good news is, if you stick around this blog long enough, youll find oodles and oodles of delicious recipes that will fulfill each and every one of your mouth desires.
Physiological Cravings
But there’s a completely other kind of craving that needs to be addressed and thats the physiological craving.
The truth is, for an obese person, it is possible to be completely unaware that SOME or MANY of your cravings are probably being caused because of the lack of balanced nutrition in your body.
When the body lacks certain vital elements, it craves quick fixes in an attempt to bring it into balance. Of course, the quick fixes don’t work for long and so the cravings go on and on.
You May Think You Are Out of Control!
The fact is, many people are living life out of balance. See how hard we can be on ourselves.
Here’s what you need to know:
The reason behind food cravings can be as simple as not eating the right balance of protein, fats, and carbohydrates which your body needs in order to function optimally.
Cravings can also be a sign of vitamin or mineral deficiency.
What Your Body Really Wants
Here is a list of a few common cravings and what nutrients the body may need.
| Craving… | What your body may really need… | Healthy food options that have it… |
| Chocolate | Magnesium | Raw nuts and seeds, fruits, legumes |
| Bread, toast | Nitrogen | High protein foods, nuts, beans |
| Sweets | Chromium Carbon Phosphorus Sulfur Tryptophan |
Broccoli, grapes, dried beans, fruits and nuts, Cranberries, horseradish, cruciferous vegetables, kale, cabbage, raisins, sweet potato, spinach |
| Fatty/oily foods | Calcium | Broccoli, kale, sesame seeds. turnip greens, |
| Alcohol | Protein Avenin Calcium Glutamine Potassium |
Nuts,
Oatmeal |
| Coffee / tea | Phosphorus Sodium Chloride (salt) Iron |
Whole grains, legumes, fruit, nuts Sea salt, apple cider vinegar Seaweed, greens, black cherries |
| Carbonated drinks (i.e., Coke) | Calcium | Broccoli, kale, sesame seeds. turnip greens |
| Salty foods | Chloride | sea salt |
| General overeating | Zinc Silicon TryptophanTyrosine |
Leafy vegetables Nuts and seeds Raisins, sweet potato, spinach Oranges, green vegetables, red fruits |
