There are certain habits, attitudes and behaviors that can make your food cravings worse. Knowing about them can help you avoid food cravings. I can show you how to let go of a food craving using Acupressure, that’s easy. But for lasting results, you also need to look at your daily meal structure to avoid cravings that come from not giving your body what it needs in terms of food and nutrition.

Here are 5 of the purely food related problems that can trigger cravings and suggestions for making improvements. These are based on physiology but by following them, you’re not only respecting your body but all parts of yourself benefitting you mentally and emotionally.

These are ideas you can implement today:

Problem #1: Skipping Meals, Especially Breakfast

When you skip meals, your blood sugar can drop which can trigger hunger and cravings.

Fix: Eat 3 meals per day, and make sure you include breakfast. Once you no longer have cravings, you may get away with skipping a meal every so often, but in the beginning, you need to be consistent in your meal times so your metabolism can heal and your body can begin to trust that it’s not being starved.

Don’t have an appetite for breakfast? That’s simply a sign of a broken metabolism, and by adding a healthy breakfast you can help shift your metabolism over time. You may experience symptoms as you do this, even nausea, but it will pass.

Breakfast Examples:  2 pastured eggs with vegetables and fruit, or whole fat plain yogurt with fruit, or oatmeal with whole milk and fruit, healthy organic pork or turkey sausage with vegetables, pumpkin and sunflower seeds with vegetables or fruit (this is my favorite breakfast, especially for travel. I use half an avocado, yum!)

Problem #2: Eating Carbohydrate Rich Foods or Sweets First or Alone

Eating fruits or sweets triggers an insulin response and insulin is your fat storing hormone. Eating fruits, bread, pasta or sugary foods as your first bite of food causes a release of insulin, which can lead to low blood sugar and cravings later on as well as weight gain.

Fix: Have your first few bites be a protein and then follow with the carbohydrates or sugar. This will keep you from triggering cravings, hunger and weight gain. See below for ideas for protein foods.

Problem #3: Not Including One Protein with Each Meal

Fix: If you eat a meal without protein, you’re setting yourself up for sugar cravings as protein naturally stabilizes your blood sugar. Always include some form of protein with every meal. Often times, getting sufficient protein will help with sugar cravings as your body is deficient in healthy protein, you can crave sugar when what you really need is protein.

Examples: Protein rich foods are foods like eggs, beans, fish, beef, pork, poultry, nuts, seeds, shiitake or oyster mushrooms, full fat yogurt and cheese, etc.

Problem #4: Having Carbohydrates or Sugar Later in the Day

When you have carbohydrates or sweets later in the day, it’s harder for your body to metabolize them, and this can trigger cravings for sugar later on. If you have fruit or starchy foods like rice, potato, bread or pasta, have them earlier in the day and skip them at dinner or cut the portion in half.

Problem #5: Skimping on Fat

When you skimp on fat, you can trigger cravings and hunger, as ingesting fat with each meal can even out your blood sugar and create satiety.

Fix: Have 1 Tbsp of healthy fat per meal in addition to the fat that’s naturally in your meal. Oils like coconut oil, olive oil, flaxseed oil, walnut oil, etc. are all good choices to get your oil needs met.

Afraid fat will make you fat or cause heart disease? Check out this blog post so you can enjoy and benefit from eating healthy fats.

Try these out if you haven’t already been doing them. There are other things that trigger cravings and in my next post, we’ll talk about the mental and emotional aspects that can increase cravings and what to do about them.

Until then, enjoy! If you’d like more tips for making peace with food and enjoying your experience of eating, sign up to the right, and I’ll send them straight to your inbox twice a month. It’s free!

All the best,