Most of us exhibit small gestures of self-control all day long. By the time dinner rolls around, our will power is heading towards a down slope and we experience “decision fatigue,” leading to impulsive food choices. After 9 p.m. comes the major cravings. Also the stress hormones peak at the end of the workday, making us think that the junk food tastes great, hence our 3 p.m. race to the vending machine.
Good eating habits erode as the day gets long, the health quotient of our meals dropping 1.7 per cent with every passing hour, these are the findings reported by a self-tracking app called the Eatery, which helps dieters and gluttons alike record and hopefully understand their eating habits.
Ice- Cream: Cravings for ice cream can be so strong they are similar to those experienced by drug addicts, a study has found. The research, published online by the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, found that those who regularly ate ice cream needed more and more to replicate the ‘high’ they first experienced.
Chocolates: Chemicals present in chocolate are related to the THC found in marijuana, trigger anandamide, known as the “bliss molecule.” This triggers a high of happiness and well-being that a lot of people feel after eating chocolate. Chocolate also contains theobromine, a compound similar to the caffeine that gets people addicted to coffee. Chocolate, as it turns out, is a bubbling brew of 380 chemicals, a bunch of which are known to have an effect on mood. It’s a darling little meth lab of feel-good chemicals in a heart-shaped box.
Cookies: If you are craving for cookies, your blood sugar and/or serotonin levels are low. Stress can be another factor responsible for cravings that can occur up to 24 hours post stress response!! So even if you feel calm and collected when the cookies call stress could still be the culprit in your craving.
Burger: A craving for red meat is often a sign that you’re lacking iron and/or conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), a fatty acid that helps your body burn stored fat.
Pasta: A pasta craving bizarrely usually indicates a lack of sugar. When your sugar levels are far too low, your body enters a state called hypoglycaemia, which causes you to crave carbohydrates. So craving pasta and bread usually means you need to find something sugary, such as fruit, fast!
Pop corn: Stress hormone fluctuations are responsible for salty, buttery popcorn craving.
Cheese: Craving for cheese is sign of Essential Fatty Acids and Calcium-phosporus deficiency.
Solution
Plan YOUR afternoon snacks and dinners in the mornings when your willpower is strong, or on Sunday night, after you’ve finished treating yourself. Also, Write new algorithms for your brain, such as, ‘After 8:30, if I eat anything, the only thing that I can eat is carrots.’ And have a bowl full of carrots sitting in the refrigerator. Trust me, you will thank yourself in the morning. If you find this really tough, take a pint or quart of ice cream and divide it into small one-scoop portions and store them in the individual containers. Stack the one-scoop containers in the freezer. Now when you have an urge, go ahead and have the ice cream, but allow yourself only one container at a time, which means one scoop. Whether it’s putting chips in to a smaller Ziploc bag or slicing up that candy bar and refrigerating it in sections, you can plan ahead to satisfy those cravings without overindulging.
If your cravings are attached to visual stimuli, figure out a way to avoid seeing that stimulus. It’s always a great strategy to replace unhealthy routines with healthy ones.
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