After finishing your dinner, you may get a mean craving for ice cream or wake up wanting a greasy egg sandwich. After starting a new diet, you may get frustrated with these cravings and keep putting them off. But what do food cravings mean?
Healthy can get tricky when defining the lines between “good” and “bad” foods. Removing “bad” foods from your diet and replacing them with healthier options can only work for so long. Here is why occasionally indulging in food cravings can be good for your health.
What Do Food Cravings Mean?
Studies have shown that when cortisol is released while feeling stress, there are changes in the brain. Dieting cuts out certain foods and increases pressure, which can lead to a lower dopamine level and increased cravings. Ghrelin is a hunger hormone that can also be affected when you’re stressed and increases hunger cravings.
Whether you’re on a diet or not, there will be days you crave certain foods. Diets can be too restrictive, making them more challenging to follow and creating nutrient deficiencies. When you completely cut something from your diet you’ve been eating your entire life, sustaining healthy eating will feel more like a punishment than a rewarding addition to your life.
Food cravings are bound to happen and annoy you here and there. Is it OK to indulge in food cravings? Sometimes there are real reasons for these cravings, such as your body telling you you need more sleep or your workout took more energy than you think.
How to Respond to Cravings
If you want to find a happy middle ground between eating healthy and eating what you love, indulge in your craving. Some foods are more nutritious than others, but avoiding foods labeled as “bad” won’t necessarily mean you are healthier overall. The more you put off the craving, the more likely you will think about it. It’s similar to putting candy in front of a kid and telling them not to eat a piece, then one day, you find them eating a whole jar.
After you avoid the craving for a while, you will likely overeat or binge eat it since it’s a restricted food in your mind. You may think this is the only time you will allow yourself to eat it, so you should eat as much as possible. Afterward, you may feel shame and guilt, then go back into restriction until the next time it happens, turning it into an unhealthy cycle.
Permit yourself to eat what you crave since your body likes having a wide variety of food. A healthy relationship with food while creating a balanced diet is vital to sustaining the lifestyle.
Cravings Can Change
Many claim that extreme diets with exercise are the best way to lose weight. Although it might work for the time being, there are better options for long-term results. You want to enjoy food and have fun enjoy food and have fun while making memories with loved ones and a restrictive diet may make you feel like you must skip out to stay on track.
Once you start including more nutritious foods in your life, you may notice your body returns to craving healthy foods after indulging. Say you go a whole day indulging in your cravings. When you finally allow yourself to eat them when you want, you can tune into your body and find you’ve reached the point where you don’t have an intense craving since you’re exposed to them more.
Is it OK to indulge in food cravings? It’s similar to when a new song you like gets overplayed. The more you hear it, the less likely you want to listen to it as the days go on.
Craving Dupes Don’t Work
If you are craving healthy snacks, then go ahead and indulge in them. You may get more cravings for things like pizza, ice cream and chocolate. Online resources try to offer dupes of the actual food, like cauliflower pizza or zucchini noodles. This may seem like a great concept, but the reality is it won’t taste the same.
When you try to mislead the body, you will get a different mental satisfaction than if you ate standard pizza instead of cauliflower pizza. Often, these swaps won’t fill you up and result in eating more later. Some substitutes have their place — like frozen yogurt instead of ice cream can satisfy a craving — but at the end of the day, it should be a food you enjoy.
It Is OK to Indulge in Food Cravings
Giving in to food cravings is essential to create a healthy relationship with food while having a balanced diet. This doesn’t mean indulging in pizza and ice cream daily but allows you to enjoy the foods you love while sticking to a healthy meal plan. Reassure yourself that honoring your cravings will feed your body and your soul.