What are the Cravings. Give in or Fight them?
| Here is a resume’ of an interview between Ari Whitten and Dr Elena Zinkov on Cravings. What Science says about Cravings. There exist a notion that cravings equals an intelligence hunch. Many want to believe that our bodies have been designed with some sort of intelligent craving mechanism making sure that we crave the nutrients we need. |
| People say, Oh, if your body craves this, it’s because you need it. If your body craves chocolate, it’s because your body needs sugar. If your body craves fat is because you need fat. If your body craves bread, …and so forth. So some people satisfy their cravings and others who go on extreme diets. Those people might be doing ‘meat diet’and after few days they have cravings for any sort of plant food. They remain firmly not breaking it. There is a pretty extreme spectrum of views. So what is your take on the intelligence or non- intelligence of cravings? (Ari Whitten) Dr Elena Zinkov says that food craving is looked at as an intuition. But we might have been born intuitive, then for years we learn how to follow rules and stop trusting intuition. So when we talk about ‘a piece of chocolate cake” and I say “I am going to eat that cake’ it’s more of an impulse. There seems to be a battle between our inner voice telling us ” you can eat a piece of cake when you feel you need it, no problem’. Then what do we do? We eat too much. After we eat 5 chunks we start feeling guilty. But there is more to food cravings, than intuition or a bare impulse. If you crave sugar, you should look at your sleep pattern. Science can tell us something about our cravings. Why do you need sugar or salt? Let’s check into what the possible reasons of why you’re craving sweet or salty or whatever that it is. Rather than being impulsive about it and saying,” oh, I’m tired, I need sugar” |
What Scientists and Experts Share
| How to overcome cravings Modern supply overrides kind of our ability to sense I’m properly, what our body is actually truly craving. Like we will have cravings for donuts and cookies and cakes and, and, and chocolate and ice cream and pizza and all these kinds of things. And if those, especially if those foods are in our immediate presence, we will feel a craving and an intense urge to go consume those foods rise up in us.” I think that in the modern world, though, just the modern food supply has, has kind of overwritten most people’s ability to actually be in touch with intelligent cravings. ?ur bodies and their brains have been wired into all sorts of unintelligent cravings that their body is being led down bad pathways. Things like the pizza, the cookies, the chocolate, the drugs, the alcohol, they all feel the same pathways in our brain. It serotonin and dopamine and we have come to associate those things as pleasurable activities and so every time we participate in the intake of the food or the activity, whatever that is, it creates a surge of Serotonin and Dopamine. |
What Scientists and Experts Share
| Serotonin is the pleasure neurotransmitter, and then you have Dopamine coming from the other side and it’s what solidifies that behavior because from a primal standpoint. The body wants to avoid pain and searches for pleasure, and that is the point of Serotonin and Dopamine in is that the body wants to continue to do things that are pleasurable and anything like not eating the cookie or not eating the pizza is kind of painful. And I think that the reason why people are a little bit, not a little bit about, but really not in tune with what their body really needs is because of our broken food system, |
| We’re exposed to so many different foods, we already have those neural pathways developed. Right. How do you break those wrong habits and wrong neural pathways? it’s going to take like 30, 60, 90 days to really start forming this new neural pathway so you can actually break yourself free and start developing a new way of healthy eating. Yet, when we crave chocolate it could be magnesium or iron deficiency. Of course we have lost touch with what our body really tells us, so we could stuff ourselves with pizza and junk food instead. What causes the cravings? Is it the neurotransmitters? Can you crave for some food, then after eating too much of it, feel nausea at the thought of it? And why? You satisfied the need for, for example – iodine for your thyroid and you over did it. So serotonin and dopamine affect cravings. Neurotransmitters as hormones, thyroid, adrenal dysfunction and digestion also. Dr Elena Zinkov spoke about gut bacteria connected with our cravings for cheese, for example. to be continued >>> |
What Scientists and Experts Share
