I tend to have very specific and powerful food cravings. Like I will imagine a food I've eaten in the past and constantly think about obtaining and eating it, until either I get and eat it, or the craving passes a day or so later.
Some of my cravings are obviously just for sugar. These I work hard to ignore using meditative urge surfing or whatever technique.
But, some of my cravings seem valid. For example, one day I began intensely craving oily pasta, but mac and cheese didn't sound good. After careful investigation and consideration, I decided I was craving unsaturated fats -- not saturated fats. I had some almonds and almost immediately the craving vanished.
So, I think it can be useful to limit my total calorie intake by identifying the biological need underlying my cravings, and target that need specifically (unless it's sugar, of course). Here's my method to do that. What do you think?
- Imagine specifically what foods I'm craving, and pick whatever one I'm craving the most.
- Look up the nutritional information and ingredients of that food.
- For each nutrient the food is rich in, search for other foods that are also high in that nutrient.
- Imagine whether or not those other foods would satiate my craving or not. If they would, then that's the nutrient I need. If they won't, then I move on to the next nutrient.
For example, right now I'm deeply craving Nutter Butter cookies. So I looked up the nutrition info, and of course they're high in sugar and fat, but they also have 2% iron per cookie -- 2% is not a lot, but I could easily eat 50 of them, which would give me 100%.
I searched google images for iron-rich foods and they all look SO good right now. So, I will substitute nutter butters with spinach and almonds, for a much healthier, lower-calorie snack that more effectively targets what I'm needing right now.
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