How To Stomp Out Carbohydrate Cravings

January 14, 2008

You know what? I’ve noticed something…

Late at night, I’m usually watching one of my favorite TV shows. (Last night that should have been the season premier of 24, but it’s on hold due to the writer’s strike. GRRRRRR… No wonder I’m in a bad mood!!)

Anyway, the thing I’ve noticed is the kind of commercials that run after 9 or 10:00. It’s all food! If it isn’t KFC tempting me with fried chicken and mashed potatoes, it’s Olive Garden and a mouth watering pasta dish. Or Hardees with their heart attack on-a-bun giant sandwiches that just look so stinking good….

Next thing I know my stomach is growling and the fish fillet I had for dinner seems long gone. Suddenly, a cheese stick and an apple just won’t cut it. I need something greasy and loaded with carbs and I need it now!!

Maybe late night isn’t your problem time. Maybe it’s mid afternoon. Hopefully, if you’ve been following Dr. Scott’s advice and eating every two hours, you’re at least not getting genuinely hungry during those times.

But still, the overwhelming desire for chocolate or mashed potatoes or chips or … you get the point… can derail your efforts faster than Britney Spears can kill a music career.

But never fear – Dr. Scott is here! And he has an answer to the gnawing, the growling… the merciless craving that threatens to hijack your diet.

You see, the cravings you have actually mean something.

Your body craves carbohydrates because carbohydrates actually will take the place of missing or low brain chemicals. Read that again. Carbohydrates stand in for many of the chemicals in your brain that tell us we are full.

Brain chemicals, also called neurotransmitters, play many roles. There are neurotransmitters that make you feel focused and alert (dopamine/norepinephrine), others that make you feel relaxed (serotonin), still others that help you sleep (melatonin), and others that reduce pain (endorphins).

Carbohydrates, chocolate, and other foods can temporarily fill the need if these chemicals are missing The only problem with using these foods instead of these brain chemicals is that it is only a temporary fix. The sweets we eat fill the bill for a while, but then there is the crash. After eating, you feel fine, but pretty soon you feel tired, worn out, depressed.

All the above brain chemicals: serotonin, melatonin, endorphins, dopamine, and norepinephrine need protein to be manufactured.

When we restrict calories, these neurotransmitters fail to be made, ensuring that the body will fall into craving mode. We don’t crave the neurotransmitters, though; instead we crave carbohydrates, because they are easy and abundant. What we use are the quick fixes to fill the need, the sweets, the donuts, the bagels, the French fries; all of these fill the need, but not for long.

So in order to stomp out cravings, we need to manufacture enough of these vital brain chemicals naturally. And we do that by eating more protein.

Today’s action plan, therefore, is to stomp out cravings by eating more protein.

How much protein is enough? Can you get too much? Good questions! We’ll be discussing the answers to them in our upcoming FREE webinar. If you haven’t signed up yet, you’re running out of time!

Jan 16, 2008, 7:17

Susan

Carb Craving

I'm so glad you broached the carb question. It seems like in the past 60 yrs I've gotten a lot of different ideas!
I do tend to crave a lot of carbs, I've tried eating things like fruit, usually apples, veggies, I even have some wonderful whole grain bread put out by Orowheat that is only 40 calories a slice, or 9 carbs per slice. I'm going to have re rearrange all of my old tapes. Last I heard Dr.Atkins was trying to wipe us out by selling a lot of books. Now my Primary Care Physican who takes care of my chronic pain, aka; fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, neuropathy in the left foot from the nerves being crushed..(be careful please doing YOGA. Although I've sat in the Lotus position for years, I have neven fallen asleep in that position, my back was resting against the foot of my bed, I was sitting on the floor, looking out over the beautiful oak trees. I like to sit there and relax for a few minutes before starting my meditation. The bad news was I had never read anything, anywhere about not staying in one position to long. I fell asleep and my husband didn't wake me up for 6 hrs or so. When he woke me up, he put his hand down to give me a lift up, the pain was something I've never felt before.To shorten this up, had my husband not woke me up, the surgeon said I would have been in a wheelchair for the rest of my life. (I'm sure that was supposed to make me feel grateful..it did..sort of) The surgeon said the nerves were damaged badly in the left foot, and not as bad in the right...that made sense to me. He said that he was 99% sure I'd come out of the surgery able to walk normally and without pain. WRONG! The surgeon was new to our area, looked about 14, but I had heard some good things about him. He said after the surgery that it was a particularly bad case but I reminded him he said he hadn't not been able to fix a neuropathic problem before. In his defense, the pain after within the first year was maybe 20%better...but I'm still in a lot of discomfort a good part of the time. The trick with fibromyalgia is to learn how to stay "mello," which I did with yoga, meditation, and exercise..when I do them like I'm supposed to.

My dilemna is that even exercising and trying to stay at 1700 calories, when I'm good, I lose about one pound a week, I'm told being 60, disabled, that it will take a bit longer to get off the 70 lbs I put on in the first few years of being disabled. At 5'8" I like weighing 145-150. I'm now 210, which is 25 lbs less than I was, and I'm keeping it off.

I'm sure you're tired by now of hearing about all my health and wellness issues, but, I'd love to be of help to anyone who is in chronic pain, EATS EMOTIONALLY..I did for a long time. Obviously, I still need a whole lot of help, but my point is there are a lot of women in pain from head to toe and everyone thinks they're crazy. Fibromyalgia is like having a bad case of the flu and it doesn't go away. Bad enough that Social Security put me on disabilty for the past 11 yrs, thank heavens. Again, the dilemna was being pretty well worked on until I crushed the nerves in my foot..now, without warning, it will trigger my fibromyalgia and I go into a flare. My foot is the one feeling like it's stressed out.

If I can point someone in the right direction for some help with FMS, I would be great with that. I do have a lot of information, and of course they need to be diagnosed by a Dr., unfortunately, many Dr.s poo poo it because there are no tests to prooooooooooove you've got it. There are a specific number of trigger points when touched, will send you to the moon, almost. Smiling When I go into a flare, my entire body aches, just like a bad case of the flu. My foot stops me from doing more exercise...but I try...I still obviously, really need some help to get this 65 pounds off, and I'll be back to normal. (sort of Smiling

Thanks ahead of time for all your support. If I can get the 65 pounds off it will be a lot less pressure on my foot which in turn will cause less FMS flares which equals EMOTIONAL EATING.

Susan
mamabearfms

Jan 16, 2008, 1:24

Christine

Susan

I'm so sorry to hear about your FMS.... I have a dear friend, 36 years old, who suffers greatly from the same condition. She also has epilepsy. She has described to me that when she has a flare-up, the only relief she can find is taking hot hot showers several times a day, and even that relief is just temporary and limited.

I've been trying to get her to take a supplement shake that my mother and I have been on for several years called "Reliv", but Kim doesn't seem interested (I think really she is too depressed to help herself at this point).

Reliv isn't a miracle, but it's complete nutrition for your body. Our bodies are miraculous vessels, but we all know that the foods we eat are so depleted and messed-with that we cannot even get the nutrition we need from them. A friend of mine, Jeannie, who has juvenile diabetes, an insulin pump, and had serious neuropathy in her feet and lower legs, who was looking at a possible amputation if the condition didn't get better at some point.....she began Reliv, and six months later her neuropathy was GONE. She still has her pump, but takes less than half the medication she used to.... Jeannie was the one who turned me on to Reliv. My Mom has serious stomach ulcers and arthritis, plus heart disease, diabetes....but she takes the regular Reliv plus one of their other supplements just for Arthritis and joints (I forget what it's called). She says it makes a HUGE difference for her. If she ever runs out, she can tell immediately- her stomach and her joints hurt so bad she cannot stand it......

Reliv is a shake, so you absorb almost 100% of what it contains. It's patented- there's nothing else like it. It's not like those "Noni" juices and such....this will replace whatever junk vitamins you might be taking (most vitamins ARE junk and just lay in your stomach, slowly slowly dissolving). If you needed to, you could live JUST on Reliv (I wouldn't recommend it, you'd be mighty hungry). But in other words, it contains ALL the nutrition your body needs to survive.

Well, anyway.....I'd really recommend Reliv. And one other thing that helped me tremendously- if you drink soda, STOP. Even diet soda. I seriously believe that carbonated sodas are the main reason for MANY health issues, including obesity. Soda does not even HYDRATE you- there is absolutely NO BENEFIT to drinking it, and I think it's detrimental to many people. And I think that diet soda actually helps make people fatter. If there was one thing I could eliminate out of our food supply, it would be soda. To me, it's the worst thing you can put in your body- and I was a Mountain Dew freak years ago. I have never felt so much better as when I stopped drinking soda.
I used to have serious migraines.....stopped soda, and yes, they got worse initially (withdrawal), but then stopped. Plus many other issues I had that I won't go into here....

Susan, I really hope you find what you need to accomplish your goal of losing the weight and getting better. I feel positive that Reliv could only help you....
Christine