How to Handle Food Cravings

In this episode, McKinney shares key takeaways around food cravings, including the following:

• Even though the cues of hunger and cravings may physiologically feel the same, they are different.
• Cravings are not simply a “mind over matter” issue, emphasizes McKinney. There are biological and physiological drivers of cravings. If your blood sugar is even slightly off balance, you’re going to experience cravings. Certain mineral deficiencies, including iron and magnesium, can also be causes. Anecdotally, McKinney has seen low levels of magnesium be the source behind chocolate cravings (in nature, real cocoa is rich in magnesium).
• When you’re under chronic stress, your cortisol levels eventually dip, which results in a drop in the hormone aldosterone. When this happens, sodium also dips, and then water follows; this usually results in salt cravings.
• People can sometimes misunderstand thirst cues as hunger cues if they’re dehydrated.
• For those who tend to crave foods when they’re bored, McKinney says it’s typically a sign that you’ve undereaten protein during the day.
• Most processed foods contain blends of refined carbohydrates, sugar, fat, and/or sodium, which are hyperpalatable ingredients that light up the areas of our brains that make us have physiological cravings. Going all-in on a real-foods diet for a couple weeks can help reset some of that wiring and those patterns.
• Meeting your individual protein needs — which for a general target, is about one gram of protein per pound of your goal weight — is essential for avoiding cravings. This single change can be transformative for people.
• An “everything in moderation” approach may not work for everyone; however, McKinney is a believer in what she calls “meaningful indulgences.” If there’s a food that may be a deviation nutritionally but that nourishes you emotionally — for example, a slice of your kid’s first birthday cake — enjoy it!