In her excellent book, Health At Every Size, Linda Bacon says we can’t trust cravings. I would say that, like feelings, we can’t trust cravings to tell us what is going on, but we can trust cravings to tell us something is going on.
There is a saying in the program: “feelings are not facts.” I did not understand this for the longest time. Finally, I realized that it meant just because I feel it, doesn’t mean it is real. Just because I feel like a situation in the end of the world, doesn’t mean it is. Just because I feel like I’ll never forgive that person, doesn’t mean I won’t with time. Just because I want to give up forever, doesn’t mean I will feel that way tomorrow.
Yet, feelings do tell me something is going on. If I’m angry at someone, that may tell me they did something wrong or that I did something wrong (sometimes, we get mad at others when we are the ones in the wrong) or that I am scared. If I don’t trust someone, it may be my insides warning me, or they just might remind me of someone I learned not to trust.
I think cravings work the same way. They tell me something is going on, but not always what. A great example: I kept craving Sweet Tarts. I could eat as many as I wanted and the craving was still there. If I ate a kiwi or an orange, however, the craving went away. I finally figured out that I was craving Vitamin C since I used to take a Vit C pill that tasted like Sweet Tarts. So, my body wasn’t craving what I thought it was, but it did need something.
Another example, If I don’t get enough sleep, I crave powdered-sugar donuts because I need energy. I have actually found that sleep, or at least rest, is the best way to get rid of that craving. Barring that, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich meets that craving better than the donuts do.
Sometimes, I’m craving a particular comfort food. I started explaining all about that, but I think it deserves its own blog post on another day.
I need to honor my body. If I am craving, that tells me SOMETHING is going on. Figuring out what exactly can be a mystery-solving process.
I like this thought, it takes what Ms. Bacon said a bit further and helps us to understand it better. The only part I don't care for is when we cannot trust our cravings. But if we take it one step further, as you did, we understand that it is opening the door on understanding what is really going on.
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