We’ve all experienced changes in our appetite or food cravings, and sometimes they happen more than others.
How would you feel if instead of ignoring your cravings, depriving yourself or feeling guilty, you were able to tune into your body and eat intuitively?
The journey of tuning into your body can be varied for all of us but a good start is to understand what those cravings mean.
3pm sweet craving?
When we crave sugar, especially after large meals, this is a result of our blood sugar levels dropping, and our body trying to rebalance them. This is common when we’ve eaten a processed or high GI meal containing white or starchy carbohydrates which have sent our blood glucose levels sky high.
We want to avoid these blood sugar spikes and lows. Not only to avoid sugar cravings but to manage our energy levels and avoid metabolic disorders like Type 2 Diabetes.
Include low GI whole-grains like quinoa or brown rice + lean protein in your main meals to stabilise your blood sugar levels.
And next time you do get a sweet craving, try ditching the sugary treat which will only make it worse, and enjoy a protein rich snack like a boiled egg or vegetable sticks with a nut spread. Protein stabilizes our blood sugar levels and keeps as fuller for longer. The sugar craving will pass (half of that is just habit too) and you will feel satisfied and energized!
Read more about protein on my post: Why protein is key?
Does your appetite grow every winter?
Another important part of eating intuitively is to eat with the seasons. We often feel like we get hungrier in the colder months, but maybe it’s because we’re not feeding our body with the right foods. If you keep eating cold or raw foods in winter, your body will crave more food to warm it up! Listen to what your body is craving, maybe it’s not MORE food, but the RIGHT foods, i.e. warming and more nourishing food.
To put it simply, in the warmer months, eat refreshing and cooling foods. And in the cooler months, we want to be fuelling up on warming foods.
This is really important apart from the obvious of keeping us cool or warm, but for our overall health. Our metabolism is built around heat and energy, so if we are eating cold foods on cold winters days then you need twice the energy to warm your body up and twice the energy to burn energy (i.e. calories/fat).
Our thyroid health is affected by this as well, and people with hypothyroidism (underactive) have a lower body temperature than normal. This is reflected in their low metabolism. So if you have any thyroid problems, it is essential that you eat with the seasons. For hypothyroidism you want to include warming foods and spices like ginger and cinnamon for example, in your diet all year round.
Here is an example of seasonal meal choices…
Spring/Sumer
Breakfast: smoothies, raw un-toasted muesli, bircher muesli
Mains: Fresh salads, wraps and sandwiches, fresh seafood
Snacks: Vegetable sticks with Hummus, Raw nuts, fresh fruit
Beverages: freshly squeezed vegetable juices, coconut water
Autumn/Winter
Breakfast: oat or quinoa porridge, omelettes
Main meals: roasted vegetables, warm grains like rice and quinoa, casseroles, soups, stews, curries
Snacks: Miso soup, Bone broths
Beverages: Herbal teas, Dandelion Lattes, Golden Spiced Mylk
Intuition and health are so closely related, and we really need to listen to what our body needs when it comes to food and feed it with the proper nutrition. Those cravings might be telling you something vital about your state of health. So listen.
