Ever since I started eating a healthier diet, I’ve been able to pay more attention to my cravings. Most of us just go through life thinking nothing of when the urge to eat a certain food strikes us – but it’s also a way of your body telling you something.

I’ve written a lot about how sugar is addictive – and as you know eating a lot of starchy/sugary foods can often cause those cravings to intensify. This is because eating sugar and starchy foods (ie: white bread) can cause your blood glucose levels to change, and is often responsible for sways in how we feel during the day, going from being tired to wired. Your body craves sugar because it wants it for your blood glucose levels to get back on the right track – though we often eat too much sugar which causes it to go back out of synch.

Sugar’s just one example though. Some people crave things like bread not for the sugar, but possibly because wheat is a decent source of magnesium, which can help with everything from absorption of calcium to how your body deals with the toxins we’re exposed to day in and day out. I have some new feelings about wheat (it may not actually be good for you at all!) but some research may suggest that a craving could also signal an intolerance.

There are other things as well – take pica, for example, a condition which causes people to want to eat non-food items such as dirt, pencils or paint chips. This is usually attributed to an iron deficiency, most common amongst pregnant women as well as children.

So many diets are all about controlling and overcoming cravings – but the solution is not to suppress these cravings – it’s to research and see what, if any, possible dietary issues could be causing them.

Here’s some tips on trying to pinpoint the cause of your craving:

Identify Your Craving: If you’re craving a single food, then it’s easy to say “Oh, I’m craving an apple”. But if you’re craving something that includes multiple ingredients, such as a cheeseburger, then you’ll want to think about what it is of that you are wanting the most. Is it the bun and the meat? The ketchup flavor? The cheese? Maybe it is a little bit of everything – or maybe there’s something specific about it.

List the Ingredients and Nutrients in the Foods You Crave: If you’re asking the question of why we crave certain things, the best place to start is to know what the nutritional properties of the food you are craving are. Every food we eat has different nutritional value or a potential clue into what your body needs. This doesn’t always mean you should eat the thing you want – for example, some believe that those who constantly crave milk may actually have an intolerance to it to some degree. But when you make a list of these things, you can help identify which things are found in the foods your body wants, which can then make you decide what is going to help you.

Research the Food & It’s Nutrients: Thankfully the internet has tons of information on any food you can think of. Type in any food and its health benefits or its nutritional value and you should be able to find some information on it. Obviously, you are going to want to make sure that your research is accurate – so don’t just stop at the first few pages you find in your search results. Dig a little deeper. You may even want to add the word “deficiency” to the food you are searching and see if anything comes up.

Discuss Your Findings With Your Doctor: The occasional craving for a food shouldn’t be too much cause of concern. However, if you’re constantly craving sweets or starches or anything else for that matter, there’s likely a good reason why. Maybe your blood sugar needs to be more regulated, maybe you are deficient in another mineral or vitamin. While it’d be nice if we knew what all this meant in a big picture, most of us haven’t spent years researching food and how it affects our health. Doctors can’t help you determine what is wrong unless they see proof, pattern, and understand the role of diet in health (and what they know about that may even be outdated) – but at the very least they can help you identify any major potential problems such as thyroid disorders, diabetes, food intolerance, and more which could be causing some problems for you and do need professional medical treatment.

Consider Emotional Factors: For some, foods can also mean an emotional attachment – perhaps ice cream is your “comfort food”. But have you ever considered why? If you as a kid and all the way through adulthood were given ice cream anytime something went wrong, then it could possibly be due to habit and environment. But, again, some foods may be a result in a deficiency (or in some cases too much) of a certain nutrient.

Obviously, this is something that a lot more research needs to be conducted on – I’m not a doctor nor a professional nutrition expert by any means. But the next time you have a craving for something – be it sugar or a cheeseburger, rather than fight that craving, take it as a cue from your body that your diet might be missing something. You shouldn’t try to stop food cravings – instead take a look at why they’re there in the first place.

To overcome these cravings for carbs, the first thing to do is to understand a little bit about what carbohydrates are and how the body uses them.

Carbohydrates are found in just about every food we eat, even vegetables. While I’m sure by now you’ve heard of low carb diets and maybe even have tried a few of them, the bottom line is that carbohydrates alone are not your enemy when it comes to losing weight and dieting. A carrot has carbohydrates – is eating carrots going to make you fat? Of course not.

The problem is there are different kinds of carbs and that is where it starts getting confusing and where a lot of diets have problems.

Here are a few examples of different types of carbohydrates:

Complex Carbohydrates: These carbs are the best type for weight loss because they do not get released immediately into your blood stream. Your body takes longer to digest and process them, so when eating them you don’t release glucose as quickly which keeps your blood sugar levels in balance. Foods that fall into this category include whole grains, potatoes, and other starchy vegetables.

Simple Carbohydrates: These are the worst for your diet, as these foods get absorbed pretty much immediately and can cause your glucose levels to quickly rise which can great influence cravings and the other symptoms of sugar addiction.

Glycemic Index: Carbohydrates are also classified by whether they have a high glycemic or low glycemic index. Again, this is much like simple vs. complex – the higher rated foods will be absorbed faster and cause your insulin levels to rise, the lower rated ones do not cause that dramatic spike in your blood sugar levels.

Now that we have a basic understanding of carbs, the next step if you want to overcome those cravings for good and start losing weight is to learn about which carbs are okay to eat, how to eat them, and what to avoid.

Here are a few pointers:

1. Balance Carbs With Protein: You should always try and balance carbs with proteins when possible, as this will help reduce how quickly it goes into your blood stream and help keep glucose levels from shooting up that could cause you to crave them.

2. Skip the Sugar: Eating sugar will obviously have an impact on your blood sugar levels. For some the effect might not be dramatic, but many people can have huge mood swings or feel extreme changes in energy levels such as feeling very tired when they eat too much sugar.

3. Eat Unrefined Carbohydrates: When foods such as grains are refined it can turn them from complex carbohydrates into simple ones. This is why when dieting it is very important to eat whole grains primarily – whole grain pasta, whole grain bread, whole grain rice. These ones do not impact your glycemic index as quickly as refined grains found in food such as white bread and regular pasta.

4. Learn the Best Ones to Eat: Learning the best carbs to eat when balancing with protein during meals will greatly help you in losing weight. Here’s a short list of which ones will help you fight cravings and lose weight: All Whole Vegetables, Whole grain bread, whole grain cereal, whole grain rice, whole fruits, seeds, beans, nuts, and legumes.

Once you start eating right, you’ll notice that your cravings lessen within just a few days to a week for some. It’s not the easiest thing to do, but getting a head start on eating right can greatly help with overcoming carbohydrate cravings.

Another thing that is interesting to consider is that your cravings for carbohydrates could be a signal that you are actually intolerant of gluten, a protein found in wheat, barely, and rye. While speaking to your doctor and testing is the only way to know for sure if you are sensitive to gluten, it is something to look into and research further. Many people are shocked once they stop eating wheat in their diets how quickly pounds melt off – as well as other health benefits they may see.

Have any thoughts or questions? Share them in the comments below!