Day 70 -- The Anatomy Of A Craving

Nothing kills a diet faster than cravings.  My new vegan eating plan has, for the most part, gone quite well.  I'e enjoyed most of what I've prepared for myself.  I feel healthier and I've lost over 30 pounds.  But yesterday was a bad day.  Not because I overate or ate something I shouldn't have.  It was because, all day long I was plagud by cravings.  I found myself dwelling on foods that didn't fit into a vegan diet.  Strangely eough it was sweets or fried food.  No junkfood.  I was stuck on seafood (shrimp and lobster), cheese and deviled eggs.

I suspect eating out the other night might have caused such a rush of pleasure that it caused a little imbalance in my brain.  But, I couldn't really back this up, so I decided to do a little research on what causes cravings.  This article on the Healthy Place  blog, explains common causes of food cravings.

Dieting. When you ban certain foods from your diet, you are going to crave the very foods you are trying to avoid, and may end up bingeing on those foods.

Eating out of habit. Some food cravings exist due to habit. For instance, your family may have eaten dessert every night after dinner while you were growing up. Now, if dessert doesn't appear every night after dinner, you crave something sweet.

Psychological association. Or maybe the food cravings are all in your head. The mind is a very powerful tool, and mental associations can often trigger a person to crave foods. Passing a bakery on your way home may elicit a craving for donuts, or a billboard ad for McDonald's may trigger a craving for french fries. Certain activities are also linked to food cravings. Watching movies, for example, is heavily associated with eating popcorn and candy, so just the mention of a movie can drum up a craving for junk food.

Comfort foods. Emotions can also lurk at the root of craving foods, especially if you consider certain foods "comfort" foods. If you continually reach for chocolate ice cream every time you're stressed out or upset, you may begin to associate the taste of chocolate ice cream with feeling better.

For me, I think the psychological effect of eating out and indulging in a meal that I normally wouldn't have eaten was enough to start me thinking about other foods that I'm "missing."  I'm not sure how to deal with this, so for now, I'm just going to try to ignore it and find some new recipes to cook.  Hopefully, I'll be able to work through this before going off the rails.  I'll keep you posted.