Curb Those Nagging Night Time Cravings

Do you find that despite your best efforts all day long to eat right and control your weight, you end up confronted with those hard-to-resist night time cravings? Do you find yourself sitting in front of the television and next thing you know you’re reaching for cookies, chocolate, ice cream, cake or similar treats? And once you start, is it often hard to stop? If this sounds like you, then know that you’re not alone. Let’s look at some of the underlying factors triggering your food cravings and what to do about them.

Underlying Factors

Insulin-resistance

If you’ve spent years going on and off low-fat, high-carbohydrate and fad diets that are often too rigid, unbalanced and too difficult to maintain long-term, then you may actually be complicating things for yourself by steadily increasing your resistance to insulin.

Insulin helps stabilize blood sugar levels by getting your cells to fetch glucose from your bloodstream. When poor eating habits prevent your cells from getting the glucose they need from the bloodstream the way they should, they instead take all your calories and store them as fat. Then, even with eating less, you continue your struggle to shed those unwanted pounds because the calories you’re consuming are quickly being deposited as fat. Since your cells aren’t getting the glucose they need, your brain is actually telling you that you need more sugars and carbohydrates in pursuit of the glucose. This brain signal is partly causing those hard-to-resist sugar and carbohydrate cravings. When you continue to give in to the cravings, you will quickly see the numbers rise on the scale.

Insulin-resistancy can lead to weight gain and obesity and associated health problems such as diabetes and heart disease. Yo-yo dieting can also wreak havoc on your metabolism. If you’re looking to lose weight and keep it off long term, you may need some time just to get your metabolism in check first before seeing consistent weight loss results. This is probably one of the most difficult challenges in losing weight in a healthy way because it’s difficult to be patient and forgiving of yourself.

Stress and anxiety

When you’re experiencing stress and anxiety on a regular basis or not sleeping well, you may be feeling exhausted and overwhelmed much of the time. This can lead to adrenal exhaustion which causes your body to give your brain the same signals that it needs an energy boost much like the low blood sugar associated with low insulin and also low seratonin levels. As a result you may turn to those sugary or starchy treats and extra jolts of caffeine during the day or more sugars, carbohydrates or even alcohol at night. Again, when you give in to these cravings you are only feeding the problem and making matters worse.

If you’re suffering from insulin-resistancy, you may be beating yourself up for your excess weight which is causing the increased levels of what I call “self-inflicted” stress and anxiety which is just keeping you stuck in the endless cycle.

How to gain control over the cravings

Stop feeling guilty and getting down on yourself. The physiological and behavioural relationship you have with food go hand in hand. As you start to work on one, the other will follow. If you continue feeling guilty and beating yourself up, you will only increase your need for sugary, high-carbohydrate treats to calm you down. When you give in to this response, you will only increase your susceptibility to eating for emotional reasons.

By eating better and getting more active, your cravings will start to disappear. The less sugar and less unhealthy carbohydrates you eat, the less of them you will crave. The only way you can believe this is by experiencing it. The only way to experience it is by making smarter choices.

Roslyn Franken helps people learn to make smarter food and lifestyle choices. Roslyn has overcome her own food and weight issues and has helped many others through her personalized counseling program and professional speaking services. She counsels clients worldwide by telephone and email who are ready to build a healthy and positive lifestyle maintainable for a lifetime.

Roslyn Franken is the author of The A List: 9 Guiding Principles for Healthy Eating and Positive Living, and host of the How to Thrive after 35 internet radio show.

To purchase The A List book and for more information on Roslyn Franken’s personalized counseling and professional speaking services, please visit www.roslynfranken.com. For more Healthy Hints, sign up for Roslyn’s FREE Healthy Hints newsletter at www.roslynfranken.com.