Why You Get Cravings And What They Mean

Do you struggle with cravings all the time? This is one of the most common issues that we deal with inside The Burnout Fix and it’s a source of huge frustration for so many women in their 40s and 50s and often younger.

We’re bombarded with so many messages about eating healthily and they make it seem so simple. Balance calories in and out and eat your veggies and everything is hunky dory. But you barely go a couple of hours before the cravings kick in and you feel like a failure. You’ve been eating healthily and doing everything “right” so why isn’t it working?

But your cravings are sticking around because these messages don’t work. If they did, you wouldn’t be looking for ways to beat your cravings, get back your energy, and lose weight. There’s a lot more to health than just eating “healthy”, as you’ll see!

Cravings and the weight gain and fatigue that so often accompanies them are not inevitable and there’s a lot we can do to avoid cravings.

Types of Cravings

If you want to know how to avoid cravings, the first step is to understand why they happen. The types of cravings you tend to experience tell us a lot about what’s driving them.

The most common cravings are cravings for salt and cravings for sugar. Those insatiable urges to eat a whole bar of chocolate or two bags of crips don’t happen by accident. Your body craves sweet or salty foods as a way to resolve imbalances and this is a good thing. It means we can fix them and get cravings under control.

Cravings For Sugar

If you’re getting cravings for sweet things, your blood sugar is the likely culprit. Skipping meals (especially breakfast) and going a long time between meals can send your blood sugar plummeting. Next thing you know, the cravings for sugar and carbs hit hard.

This is absolutely nothing to do with willpower. When your blood sugar drops, so does your control over what you eat.

Our bodies are truly wonderful at trying to regulate and blood sugar is no exception. When it dips, the body immediately tries to get back into balance by craving sugar for energy so it feels safe again. These cravings are hard to satisfy so you’re likely to overeat and feel guilty afterward.

When you eat the sugary (and often high-carb) foods your body is craving, your blood sugar spikes and crashes, leading you to crave sugary foods even more.

When your blood sugar is constantly fluctuating like this, you’re much more likely to experience hormone imbalances, which are another culprit for sugar cravings. It’s a vicious cycle but one that we can start to break by getting blood sugar balanced.

Cravings For Salt

If you’re getting cravings for salt, it’s time to look at your adrenal health. The adrenals control lots of hormones, especially cortisol.

The women I work with in The Burnout Fix almost always have a heightened stress response that is the result of having had busy, stressful lives, often for decades, and it takes its toll on the adrenals.

Adrenal fatigue is a big culprit for exhaustion and burnout but it’s a driver of cravings, especially for salt.

Craving crisps can be linked to wanting carbs too so there can be an element of low blood sugar involved too. And sometimes it can be due to a lack of salt. We always think of too much salt as being bad for us but it’s also very possible to have too little salt, especially if you’re peeing most of it out. If your adrenals are stressed, you’re likely to pee more and lose more sodium as a result.

We need a certain amount of sodium for key processes in the body, including metabolism. If it’s not forthcoming, the body will crave this to try to rebalance sodium levels.

How To Avoid Cravings

So, now you have a better understanding of why you get cravings and what they mean, how do you start to fix the situation?

Balancing Blood Sugar

Because there’s such a strong link between blood sugar and cravings, avoiding blood sugar fluctuations is crucial.

From a nutrition perspective, this means looking at the timing of your meals and snacks, balancing your macros, and never skipping breakfast. Your body can get all of the fuel and energy it needs and no blood sugar spikes.

Eating a balanced breakfast is one of the best things you can do to balance your blood sugar and curb cravings. Don’t be tempted to skip breakfast in favour of a quick coffee, and always look to include fats, protein, and complex carbs in every breakfast.

Keeping these macros balanced throughout the day is the secret to stable blood sugar.

So many of the women who join The Burnout Fix think they’ll never be able to eat sweet treats again and this is just not true. We’re aiming for balance and making sure that 80% of your nutrition is supporting stable blood sugar - but that still leaves plenty of flexibility for treats.

The nutrition side of this is only part of the story though. Blood sugar also responds to things like stress, sleep, and movement so we need to look at these too.

Supporting The Adrenals

If the adrenals are overloaded, we need to support them. Self-care is definitely the way to go here. Prioritising sleep and relaxation, and doing things that are just for you are some of the things I recommend here.

When the adrenals are stressed, it’s usually because you have at least one big source of stress in your life. We want to manage stress as best we can. Not all stressors can be resolved right away or even at all so it’s a case of changing what you can to reduce the burden on the adrenals.

Get To The Root Cause Of Your Cravings To Ditch Them Forever

Cravings are a sign that your body is crying out for something, whether that’s to combat low blood sugar or to support the adrenals. Knowing what your body is trying to tell you is the first step to finally kicking your cravings.

From there, a personalised action plan can give your body the support it needs so you can feel fantastic again. This is what we do inside The Burnout Fix, where I help women just like you to feel healthier and happier.

Catherine Steel Nutrition