Sometimes despite our best efforts to live a healthy life, our food cravings get the better of us and lead to bad long-term habits and poor health. Today, we are going to be talking about these food cravings. Tuning in you’ll hear about some of the different types of food cravings such as carbs and sugars, salty foods, coffee and tea, and even pica cravings like ice chips  and dirt. We’re going to talk about some of the vitamin and mineral deficiencies as well as lifestyle choices, medical conditions, and hormone imbalances such as pregnancy that can cause food cravings. We’ll also give you some practical tips on what you can do to curb them and eat a more balanced diet. Tune in to find out about the relationship between food cravings and food intolerances, the impact of our emotions and stress on our cravings, and hear a breakdown of what deficiencies you may have based on what you are craving. While it’s okay to give in to your cravings on occasion, this episode will help you curb them to improve your overall health long term.  

Key Points From This Episode:

• An introduction to some of the different types of food cravings people have.
• How Kelly became aware of her blood sugar levels and the effects of giving in to her baked goods and sweet cravings.
• How hormonal imbalances like those that occur during pregnancy can give you strange food cravings.
• How pregnancy and the baby’s need for calcium can affect your teeth. 
• What pica is, who it affects, and why.
• How Kelly reduced her cravings through monitoring her blood sugar.
• The relation between food cravings and food intolerances. 
• The impact of our emotions or stress on our cravings.
• The importance of regularly having a full checkup to see if your diet needs tweaking.
• Why drinking plenty of water is so important.
• How satisfying one’s cravings with unhealthy things is often a band-aid, not a cure.  
• If you are a person who craves salty foods, you could be dehydrated.  
• If you crave carbs and sugar, it could be related to a magnesium deficiency.
• Coffee and tea cravings can mean that you are deficient in sulfur or iron.
• How sleep deprivation can cause cravings and lead to bad long-term habits. 
• The value of keeping a health journal.
• How a meal service helped Kelly eat better and curb her cravings.
• Why Kelly believes it’s okay to have a bad day occasionally as long as it doesn’t become a pattern. 
• Thoughts on listening to your body and identifying intolerances. 

Tweetables:

“By monitoring my blood sugar, I learned that if I eat a balanced diet with healthy carbs and healthy fats, my blood sugar wouldn’t fluctuate so much. Then the cravings, I wouldn’t have them as badly.” — Kelly Castillo [0:16:32]

“Are your cravings really destroying your body? Not just what you look like, not just your body fat percentage, but also your kidneys, your heart, your liver?” — Megan Block [0:21:20]

“We all need to listen to our bodies and we need to take as good care of ourselves as we take care of the people that we love.” — Kelly Castillo [0:40:05]

“But if you are having cravings that are affecting the quality of your life, and that you think may be affecting your long-term health, we definitely encourage you again, get some blood work done, make sure what’s going on, start drinking more water.” — Kelly Castillo [0:51:46]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Everlywell 

Model Meals 

Cronometer 

The Elimination Diet