Fitness straight forward

NOTHING HAPPENS WITHOUT A REASON

Cravings are the major drag forces on someone’s fitness journey. Cravings lead to mental weakness and spoil the efforts put into dieting and workouts. Cravings result into frequent snacking and increase the overall intake of calories. Calories are secondary when we consume high glycemic, nutritionless foods.

Let us summarise the type of cravings that we may have :

• Sweets
• Chocolate
• Spiced up fast foods
• Fried Rice
• Cold drinks
• Juice
• Ice cream
• Sweetened coffee or tea

Above are few examples which are enough to understand and analyse something common in them. They are densely packed with calories! Almost zero nutrition and processed carbs.

But how can our sophisticated biological sytem make the mistake of harming itself by craving for such things. If these are harmful for the body, why brain is signalling to eat them with great intensity. Our craving and hunger sytem works on the sub conscious memory and closely remembers the foods that we ate in the past. Brain keeps a record of the taste, calories, nutrition and most importantly the rewards of dopamine associated with the specific food.

INSTINCT The sub conscious memory forces us to take the decsions to do things mostly through instincts which are generated not only from our past but the stored info in our genes. Millions of years back while our primate ancestors were still evolving, there was a continuos stress to consume more and more calories and eat the food with highest density of calories. At that time this type of food was a fruit. Nothing more than that. Invariably these high calorie foods were rich in minerals, vitamins and nutrition and were low on the glycemic indices.

Glycemic Index Refers to the rate of sugar spike in the blood that a particular food will cause. For example a piece of chocolate worth 250 Kcal and a piece of chicken worth 250 Kcal are same in the amount of calories but the rate at which these calories are transferred to our blood is way different. Chocolate causes a sugar spike instantly, leading to fat storage (action of insulin, read previous blogs) while chicken is slowly digested and rate of transfer of these calories is slower. On eating a chocolate, you may instantly feel energetic but in the long run it doesnt give you any satiety.

Coming back to cravings and instinct – In our modern lives, the foods most dense in calories are not fruits but sweets, chocolates and all the things that we read in the list above. Our brain recognises them with the dopamine release that they cause and gives a feeling of pleasure.

So, there are three main reasons of Cravings, one is Lack of calories (Hunger), Nutritional Deficiency and Stress.

1.CAUSE : Lack of calories When we have been hungry for a long time, our sympathetic sytem takes it as a survival challenge and force us to eat the most easily available foods around us.

REMEDY :

• Improve food environment. Don’t keep high calories foods around you.
• Routine : Follow a set routine and meal timings daily. The hunger and cravings get adjusted as per your timings.
• Pre plan : One night prior, plan the next days timings of meals, composition of meals and write it in a notebook. This persuades your brain to wait for the time and crave for the meal that you have decided.

2.CAUSE : Nutritional deficiency Our brain is trained at fulfilling the deficiency of a nutrient by signalling us to eat the foods that contains that nutrient. But how will your brain know which food in your food environment is rich in Vitamin C when you have not had a citrus fruit (orange) for long. Brain takes it as if the orange is not available in your food environment and never makes you crave for one. Instead your brain knows that there is pulped juice and fast foods garnished with lemon juice available in your environment and signals you to eat the same.

REMEDY :

• Change food environment and eat whole foods, tell your brain that whole foods are available.
• Pre plan the meals as a balanced diet containing proteins, carbs, fats, vitamins and minerals. Give priority to green vegetables, fruits, salads, egg, meat, milk,etc.

3. CAUSE : STRESS While under stress, brain searches for sources of happines and triggers eating of foods that have caused dopamine release in the past. Lack of sleep also leads to stress and finally to the cravings of high glycemic and high calorie foods.

REMEDY :

• Remove foods associated with dopamine release like chocolates, ice cream, alcohol, processed foods, sweetened drinks, etc.
• Manage stress by regularly exercising, yoga, meditation, music, watching motivatinal movies etc.
• Set an alarm for sleeping. sleep early and wake up early so that next day your body and brain are tired enough before you hit the bed. Using mobile phones while in the bed is a major cause of sleep deficiency now-a-days.

Hence, cravings are natural but we can turn them to our benefit by undestanding the science behind them and tweaking the same.