Dietary
Technician/Author, Beth Castle from Calgary has set out to help people all over
Alberta with the mental part of food in her book/audios and seminars. As North
American’s we have tripled the statistics to 67% of the population are
overweight or obese since 2006.
Comments
from a recent talk –“It was a very interesting, very informative, fun and inspiring
evening for me. I learned a great deal. I really appreciate your approach – you
are kind in sharing your information, knowledge, experiences and I appreciate
and admire that you truly “care” about people – it really shows in your
presentation and words.”
Combating
Food Cravings
Having a craving and being hungry are very
different. A craving is that nagging feeling of wanting a certain food item or
a particular taste in your mouth. Sometimes our imagination will work overtime
to focus on that food and then we can end up desiring that food all day!
Cravings for food can emerge at anytime.
Cravings are not always negative—they can signal our bodies’ deficiencies in
certain minerals, vitamins, or enzymes; they may be related to our nutritional
needs, or they may alert us to certain hormonal imbalances, adrenal fatigue, or
even insulin resistance.
All food cravings, however, can become a
negative in our overall health when we respond inappropriately to them. The
result is that we damage our metabolism, increase weight gain, and endanger our
health. You should consult a qualified nutritionist and/or your doctor if you
have concerns about cravings and the effect they have on your metabolism.
Here are some strategies for coping with
and eliminating common cravings. There are two important ideas about cravings.
First, they have nothing to do with will power. Secondly, we need to pay
attention to what foods we crave and how we respond to them. Here are some
strategies to help you recognize and deal with food cravings:
Foods that have a strong flavor may cause
you to crave another food. For example, tomato sauce, cream sauce, or spicy
foods containing garlic may cause you to crave a sweet food. This is because
your palate and tongue are full of taste receptors; the strong flavored food
may have a lingering taste and you need to cleanse your palate to get over it.
Eating grapes, apples, watermelon, pineapple and cucumber can help to do this.
Other non-food alternatives are to try a tongue scraper to get rid of the
taste, or brush your teeth or chew some gum. You will be quite surprised by the
results. Beth can help when it comes to that potato chip craving as well!
Beth’s
goal is to lessen the pain associated with food. More information on this and other topics are at www.bethcastle.com in “Stop Emotional Eating, Fix Food
Cravings, Find your Metabolism and More” Audio Guide.
