Eating For Your Body

If you're craving pizza, it's probably the tomato sauce your body is asking for. In this case, you could try having some healthy tomato soup, some tomato juice, or a nice, fresh tomato salad. If you are craving something healthy like watermelon or broccoli, by all means indulge! But of course most people tend to crave things that they really love to eat. Maybe watermelon is your favorite food, and if so, that's great. But most people have less healthy favorites like pizza and French fries as their favorites.
Remember, MSG can cause you to crave foods that your body doesn't need. You have to break away from the addictive cycle, so you should at least cut down on MSG if you don't eliminate it entirely.
I find I crave cheesecake a lot. For a long time I thought maybe I was craving the calcium, but then I realized I don't just crave cheesecake, I crave strawberry cheesecake!
Once I started eating fresh strawberries once a cheesecake craving hit, I rarely craved it anymore. Sometimes I would still want cheesecake after I ate strawberries, which signaled that I just wanted the flavor of cheesecake. I knew that wasn't a real craving, so I had to make the decision to either ignore the craving, or give in and indulge.
The thing is, you CAN give in and indulge from time to time. You just can’t go overboard if you want to lose weight. I would have a very small slice of cheesecake, eating slowly and savoring each bite for the longest time possible.
If I was still craving it after that slice, I would wait at least two hours before giving in again, for another very small slice. And each time I had to decide whether to indulge or not. The strength of the craving was the major deciding factor in whether I would indulge.
Life is short. It’s too short to deny yourself entirely. Once I realized that, it was easier for me to lose weight. You see, sticking with a diet is really tough when you never get to eat anything you enjoy!
But when you allow yourself treats and indulgences from time to time, it’s a lot easier to keep going. You have more of a reason to keep it up.
You remember the four food groups, right? Unless you’re relatively young, you were probably taught about the four food groups in school. Supposedly those were the foods we needed to make up a healthy diet.
These days, it’s all about the “food pyramid”. The USDA has devised a new way of teaching people about the right foods to eat, dividing foods up even further. It contains 6 groups of foods instead of four.
Well, this food pyramid is actually a lot smarter than the original four food groups, because it actually distinguishes fats, oils, and sweets from healthier foods. Additionally, fruits and vegetables are in two different groups.
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