Understanding Sugar and Junk Food Cravings in Order to Shed Excess Body Fat
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Understanding Sugar and Junk Food Cravings in Order to Shed Excess Body Fat
Dr. Colleen Trombley(“Dr Mom Online”) is a leading expert in Natural Health & Wellness. Her unique perspective and scientific understanding of Wellness provides simple solutions and transformational results for those struggling with stubborn weight loss & health issues. http://www.LoseToxicFat.com
Do you often crave sugar, sweets, chocolate, or even fatty foods?
Don’t beat yourself up too much about this. It might not be all your fault!
The first thing to consider is that your body might be trapped in the physiological stress response. The stress response results from chronic stress due to toxicity and/or deficiency in our innate genetic requirements for health: that means toxicity &/or deficiency in nutrition, movement or mindset (emotions).
One of the resulting effects of chronic toxicity and deficiency is that stress hormones are produced in excess – stress hormones like cortisol, insulin and others. While these hormones are essential for health and normal function, like so many other things in the body, they should remain in a state of balance and proper ratio so as not to cause harm.
That’s not the case if the stress, toxicity or deficiency is chronic.
If the cause of the stress response isn’t addressed, the body will continue to pump out more and more stress hormones… thus creating more and more negative health consequences.
If you haven’t already guessed it, one of those negative health consequences is that we gain more fat, especially around our mid-sections, and we have a very tough time losing it.
Guess what? Two of the substrates (ingredients) of stress hormones are SUGAR and FAT. Well, since your body is guided by innate intelligence and doesn’t make stupid mistakes, it drives you into CRAVINGS in order to meet the demand for more sugar and fat to make those hormones!
Smart, isn’t it?
Eating toxic or deficient foods makes us crave more sugar and fat.
Deficiencies of movement or toxic movement patterns (e.g. poor posture) can lead us to crave more sugar and fat.
Toxic emotions or deficiencies of core human emotional needs can lead us to crave more sugar and fat.
Obviously, it would behoove us to address our health across the board – to begin adding “good” things to our nutrition, movement and mindset. That’s the first step to nipping the stress response cycle.
The other step is to reduce or eliminate the toxicity and avoid deficiencies. (Adding “good” is easier for most people, in my experience.)
As you’re re-building your health overall, a few simple things you can do offset some of those cravings for sweets are:
1) Choose apples or carrots when your sweet tooth is on the prowl. As your body ‘cleans out’, you’ll find that these particular foods hit the spot.
2) Drink ample pure water throughout the day. Add lemon or lime slices for flavor, variety, and to help alkalize your body.
3) Eat more greens.
Of course, if you are adamant about have those sweets, you can upgrade your ‘tasty toxin’ choices. Make your own or purchase less toxic versions.
Another obvious thing you can do is to give yourself permission to go ahead and have that food you’re craving. If this is the path you choose, I’d recommend two things:
1) Be sure you’re consistently FUELING up with health-promoting foods each day so you know that your body is getting the building blocks it requires for health.
2) Don’t make this a daily habit! There ARE limitations of matter, you know! Particularly if you’re striving to shed excess body fat, you must realistically consider the source of your caloric intake. Toxic calories will result in excess fat.
The bigger nutritional picture involves creating an overall balanced diet, similar to the type of diets our paleolithic ancestors ate – one that meets our innate genetic requirements.
We need a balance of:
1) protein 2) natural fats 3)veggies 4) fruit and 5) water. Simple.
I place these 5 basic types of food in something I’ve called The Circle of Health.
Those 5 basic food choices should come from:
1) real food sources 2) whole foods and foods closest to their naturally occurring state 3) pure foods/the least toxic 4) fresh, local, seasonal and often raw foods. These are my 4 Golden Rules of Nutrition.
The more we stick to these simple guidelines for building better health through common-sense nutrition, the less we’ll encounter cravings for toxic foods… the less we’ll trigger the stress response… and the MORE we’ll experience better health, better function, and a better body.
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