Why You’re Craving Food on a Gluten Free Diet (And What to Do About It) Ep. 203

Cravings can derail your health goals before you know it—but they don’t have to. In this episode, I’m breaking down the most common causes of cravings and how to take back control. From dehydration and emotional eating to nutrient deficiencies and hormonal fluctuations, we’re covering it all.

You’ll learn how seasonal changes, poor sleep, and even your childhood favourites can sneak into your diet and throw you off track—and what you can do instead to nourish your body while still enjoying your food.

 Previous episodes mentioned in this episode:

https://thehealthyceliacpodcast.buzzsprout.com/1720208/episodes/14665868-understanding-the-impact-of-a-modern-diet-on-chronic-disease-and-celiac-disease-ep-150

https://thehealthyceliacpodcast.buzzsprout.com/1720208/episodes/14785541-navigating-celiac-disease-with-the-help-of-beneficial-bacteria-ep-153

Find out how Ultimate Celiac System can support your Celiac journey here  https://belindawhelantraining.com/ultimate-celiac-system

Complete an elimination diet here
https://belindawhelan.teachable.com/p/eliminate

Wish you could get gluten free meals on the table fast that the whole family will love? Check out Meal Plans Made Easy
https://belindawhelantraining.com/gluten-free-meal-plans-made-easy

Join my free community and grab your copy of 11 Mistakes People Make Living Gluten Free here https://www.belindawhelan.myflodesk.com/11mistakes

Check out my Daily Health Tracker here
https://www.belindawhelan.com/dailyhealthtracker

And I would love to connect with you on Instagram thehealthyceliac
 
If you have a spare moment, please pop over to Apple Podcasts and leave me a review. Thank you!
 
 
Music Credit bensound.com 

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Cravings
• 1:16 Dehydration and Emotional Triggers
• 3:35 Energetic Imbalance and Childhood Foods
• 5:51 Seasonal Changes and Nutrient Deficiencies
• 8:13 Hormones and Poor Sleep
• 9:59 Blood Sugar and Gut Bacteria
• 11:45 Food Restriction and Social Influence
• 15:24 Addictive Food Industry Tactics

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:24

Cravings are something that can completely change your health and lifestyle goals when you can't get them in check, and cravings are something that I have been working on with my clients for many, many years, and I find that they are one of the most detrimental things to achieving your goals when it comes to weight loss and just improving your health. So I'm going to cover off some of the most common causes of cravings on today's episode. Now, the first one is super simple and it's dehydration. So when we are dehydrated, we can often mistake that dehydration for hunger. So if you are reaching for food when you haven't been drinking water and you're thinking I'm not, I'm not really hungry, but why am I craving these types of foods? Why am I wanting this? Have a drink of water first, because often it can just simply be that your body is screaming out for water, but your body is not giving you the correct signal and you're thinking that you are hungry instead. So try that next time. You are wanting something, but deep down, you don't really want that food. It's just your body is saying eat this, and really it could just be dehydration. So that's certainly something worth trialing first.

Speaker 1: 1:43

The next one is to do with our emotions and it's basically emotional dissatisfaction, and that can come from a place of your home life, your relationships, your work life, just feeling, you know, lost in the world, where you don't have a purpose. So you eat your cravings instead. I have seen this one the most play out. This is such a huge topic and this causes so many people to eat their feelings, and many people do crave certain foods because they feel like it gives them that emotional, you know, hit of dopamine instead of what they should be getting from their lifestyle. So, whether that is from a loving partner or friendships or, you know, a fulfilling job all of these different factors that normally would play a huge role in people's lives and make them feel fulfilled, instead it's food that's doing that. So if there's an area of your life where you're not completely happy or you feel discontent in a relationship, have a look at that, because that could be causing you to reach for certain foods that you know may not be doing the best for your body and you don't even realize that that is why you're doing it. That is a huge one to think about and really, you know, assess what's going on in your lifestyle. The next one is energetic imbalance, so the yin yang balance. So often what happens is when we eat something that's really salty, we then want something that's really sweet, so it plays hand in hand. So you know, think of the situation of you have a pizza and you might crave Coke to go with it. You think of those two going hand in hand. You don't go oh, I'm gonna have some pizza and a glass of water. Your body naturally is going let's balance this out with something sweet to go with the salty food. So that is an easy one to look at and go ah right, this is why I wouldn't normally drink this, but my body is trying to balance out this craving. So that's an interesting one to look at as well.

Speaker 1: 3:55

The next one is foods from your childhood. Now, this is an interesting one as well, because what happens is we associate memories with food from our past, don't we? We associate those beautiful memories with food from our past, don't we? We associate those beautiful memories with celebration and you know, family gatherings, parties, different things that we did as kids.

Speaker 1: 4:18

For me, when I could no longer have simple things like vegemite or wheat bix, which are very common childhood you know parts of our lives here in Australia. It was really hard to go without them and, I must admit, for a very long time I did crave Vegemite. I wanted Vegemite. I missed it so much because it was something that I grew up with. Now I can have Vegemite because we have a gluten-free version, of course, but back when I couldn't have it, I did crave it a lot. It was something that I felt I just missed out on it. You know, when you feel a little bit run down and you just want to have some toast, that's an easy thing to, you know, have for breakfast. I would miss having Vegemite on toast. So, as an Aussie, that was something I grew up with.

Speaker 1: 5:06

So there's an example of how that can work. You might've grown up with your parents, you know, cooking you an amazing meal that was perhaps I don't know like a pasta dish or something that you can no longer have because it's not gluten-free. So you might crave that because you're craving the memories of of what that meal meant to you as a child. And then seasonal changes cause cravings as well, and people don't think about this enough. And I love seeing this when I work with my clients, because they go through this stage of working with me and they'll be like, really like, fixated on eating all these beautiful healthy salads and eating really well, and then next thing they come to me and they're like I just don't feel like salad anymore. It's like that makes sense.

Speaker 1: 5:52

We are no longer in the weather for eating salad. We are in the weather for eating warm vegetables. Our body naturally craves what works for in the season. So if you're eating cold food during winter, our body doesn't react well to that, whereas if you eat hot food in summer, again your body doesn't react well to that either. My husband hates it when we have a lot of hot food during summer. He would cringe if I tried to make a curry or something like that. It's all about really easy. You know salads and barbecues and things that don't heat up the body, because who wants to feel hotter than they already do in summer and who wants to feel colder in winter? So yeah, that's a really interesting one to look at your habits as the seasons change and know that when you are craving certain foods, it's usually your body telling you you need this. So eat a certain way to warm your body up. Don't ever feel guilty because you've stopped eating salads in winter. It's not really something I reach for. In winter I eat a lot more cooked vegetables and roasted vegetables and stir fries and things like that, rather than just a plain cold salads, because my body is craving that for the warmth.

Speaker 1: 7:07

The next one is nutrient deficiency. So when you're deficient in nutrients, your body will naturally crave certain things. So if you are low in iron, you will crave foods to replace that lack of iron. If you are low in magnesium, you perhaps will crave chocolate. So you know, the body is very smart and it will tell you what it needs. But sometimes we don't hear the cues correctly and we reach for the wrong types of food. So it's about really tuning in and learning what works for your body and which foods you know nourish you and help you thrive, rather than the ones that you know are depleting and not doing us the greatest world of good.

Speaker 1: 7:48

The next one is hormones. Now, if you're a woman, you would know this. It's, you know, every single month our hormones are all over the place. Things change and often, as women, when it's that time of the month, we crave certain foods and it's literally because our hormones are going up and down. There's a change in what we need and at certain times of the month we need more calories than other times of the month, and your body will naturally tell you to eat more. So if you can't kind of wrap your head around, one week you know you're eating a certain way and you're doing all the right things, and then the next week you feel like maybe your goals have gone out the window and you can't stop yourself from eating certain foods. Have a look at your cycle. It could be to do with what time of the month it is, and this is why I love recommending my clients track what they're eating for a good couple of months so that they can see oh it's okay, I did do that, you know, around the time of my period and that's completely. And you can see that things are different when it's that time of the month. So that's really good way to look at how your hormones affect you as well when it comes to cravings.

Speaker 1: 8:57

The next one is poor sleep. So when you have poor sleep or a lack of sleep, you are affected by this, and your body will naturally crave more carbohydrates and more sugary food. So if you are not getting good night's sleep, that can be a simple one to look at as well, that could be causing those problems with reaching for foods that you, you know, you might not necessarily go for if you'd had a good night's sleep. So if you think about a night where you've stayed up really late and the next day you were like carb loading. Because you were like carb loading, because you feel like rubbish and you're just craving those certain foods, you know, perhaps you've had a big night on the town and the next day you are craving, you know, like potato chips and things like that. So last week I spoke about this one and it was blood sugar imbalances.

Speaker 1: 9:45

So if you are having sugary food and it spikes your blood sugar, you will come crashing down and then you will crave more sugary foods to try and get yourself back up there again. And this can be a vicious cycle, because you can do it all day long, every day, and you know it's hard to get out of. So look at what you're eating, because that is not ideal and that is where that craving comes in, because you need to get that high again. Whereas when you have foods that are, you know, they release the blood glucose slowly through your body, then you don't have these massive peaks and troughs. You have like this balance out of energy, so that is the best way to eat because you're not having these you know crashes all day long. So definitely something to look at if you're eating a lot of sugary foods and you know not getting that good balance throughout the day. Now if you've got an imbalance in your gut bacteria again this is another issue with sugar your gut bacteria will crave those sugary foods and you will be out of control, wanting to eat more of them to feed the bacteria. So definitely get on top of that. I've done a whole episode on the gut microbiome, so perhaps go back and listen to that if you think maybe that's something you need to look at. I will pop a link to that below this episode so you can check it out. But yeah, that's definitely something that can be very hard to control if you don't sort out your gut and deal with those cravings there.

Speaker 1: 11:21

Now food restrictions and dieting and we might even pull the gluten-free diet into this, because I think that's important to talk about as well but when we restrict ourselves and we diet as such, we tend to go a little bit nuts about food. So we eat really, really well and we focus on not having this and not having that, and then we crash and we just be silly and eat all the food, and that is not good is because it's too restrictive, and this is no way to live. This is not how I get my clients to work on their food. I get my clients to focus on adding in more good stuff so that we crowd out the not so good stuff. So I never give my clients a diet. It's never about you are no longer eating this and now you're eating this. It's about simply adding more goodness in. So when you are feeling restricted, it can be quite challenging. So I want to focus on the gluten-free aspect of this.

Speaker 1: 12:26

So what I think is most important here is, when you do go on a gluten-free diet, you probably for a little while, will feel restricted. You will feel like you're missing out on your certain foods that you used to eat, so you need to now have some replacements. So I don't expect people to be only whole foods. That's not sustainable for the good majority of people. I still eat packaged and processed food. I don't eat a lot of it, but I eat some of it. So it's about having that balance. So you know, at certain times of the month. Yes, have the chocolate, have the crisps, do all those little treat things, but don't be doing it on a regular basis every day, day in, day out. So it's having that balance and not ever feeling restricted, because I'm completely against restriction and calorie counting. I think we've got enough to do with living a gluten-free diet. That it's about you know having that balance. And I'm all about the 80 20 rule where 80 of the time you eat really well, you focus on your diet as far as gluten-free and eating really well. The other 20% of the time still eating gluten-free. Just to reiterate, it's always 100% gluten-free, but the other 20% of the time it's okay to have, you know, these treats and different things that make us feel normal and it's not feeling restricted. So I hope that makes sense.

Speaker 1: 13:52

And the next one is social influence. When we see others eating certain things and we want what they're eating and this isn't just when we're out in public or when we see what our friends are eating. We want to have what they're having. It can be what we see online, what we see on television ads, what we see on our phones when we're scrolling through, and it makes us want to eat. If you sit down and watch tv at night time, you will see so many junk food ads because they strategically put it on at the time when most people are thinking about having food. So you know, think about what you're watching. Can you avoid watching ads? Are you able to just switch off to that type of thing? What is it that's going to stop that for you? I personally don't get affected by those ads. You may not as well, because a lot of those ads are generally food that we can't eat, but it's worth mentioning in case it is triggering a response for you that you're craving something maybe not so desirable.

Speaker 1: 14:57

And then the last one is addictive food. So the food industry is actually a joke. They are literally out there to make us addicted to food. And when I say the food industry, I don't mean the food industry as a whole, I mean the processed food. So processed food is designed to be addictive. There is science that goes into it. They are creating food that is barely needing to be chewed, because what happens when you chew food is your body realizes you'll fall quicker right. But if you don't have to chew your food and you can swallow it quickly, guess what happens? You can eat more of it. So these companies design their food to be able to be swallowed very quickly with barely any chewing involved, so that you eat more of it. It is a whole science. They have made all of these ingredients and all of the science that goes around it to make their foods so highly addictive and it's becoming an epidemic and there'll be more and more information coming out about this in the coming years, because it is a disgrace and there is a documentary that's just been made recently I think it was by the bbc, and they were saying on there that a lot of people, especially in the usa, are highly addicted to food and it's out of their control because they don't even know what's going on with their processed food. So please learn more about processed food and awareness around this.

Speaker 1: 16:35

Again, I've done another episode on this, so I'll link that one as well. But yeah, another reason that causes cravings because it's so easy to eat, it's so easy to consume. They put ingredients that are addictive. Sugar is highly addictive. Sugar is in so many foods. If you start reading labels beyond looking for gluten, you will see sugar in so many things and foods that will surprise you that you wouldn't even think sugar is in. So I do urge people to read their labels more than just the gluten-free label and see what's in there in your food. So I hope this has helped you understand what could be causing some cravings for you in your life and help you to move forward and make some changes. So thank you so much for tuning in and I look forward to talking with you again on next week's show. Have a great week, take care. Bye.