Thanksgiving is coming, and I'm thinking about you. If you've got an eating disorder it's time to prepare for a day of food obsession, food love, food cooking, food leftovers and food conversation. I rarely discuss specific foods on this site but the blog, "Does Every Woman Have an Eating Disorder?" caught my eye tonight, especially the article, "Come back to carbs."
This article got me thinking, so it's the best kind of article for me. Are you caught in an absurd situation where you restrict good carbs (like grains) only to crave and or actually binge on bad carbs (like sugar or fast sugar producing edibles)?
The author, drstaceyny, says she is a clinical psychologist, does not pretend to be a nutritionist and, as far as I could determine, doesn't give her name. She talks in this particular post about a drastic avoidance of carbs in this country, or at least an attempt at a drastic of carbs.
She says:
I wish that I had a dollar for every person I meet who complains of an inability to ward off mid-afternoon candy runs, or who shamefully confesses to late-night binges on chips, cookies, or cake, who, by the way, is also restricting her carbs. When she begins to reintroduce this necessary nutrient, she finds that her carbohydrate cravings remit. It's her body's way of saying, "Thanks for giving me what I need."
If you have cravings for sweets, if you can't resist ice cream or cakes at night, if you must have sweet rolls or bread and butter during or outside of meals, are you restricting grains and vegetables?
If what drstaveyny says is valid then you restrict grains because you don't want the calories. But if you restrict grains you don't get the nourishment you need. Your body then develops a powerful craving that blasts away any intellectual plan you have for calorie restriction based on eating a low carb diet. You head straight for the sugar - the carbs that supply little or no nourishment at all - just calories.
She says, if you do restrict carbs and resist sugar cravings you will lose weight. But you are not getting the nutrients your body needs and the weight loss will be temporary.
I wonder if this applies to a long term period of restricting carbs or if the sugar craving can occur with just one day of restriction?
Thanksgiving certainly brings up emotional stress, but we can also look at the physicality of the day. If you have sugar cravings, do you have them every day or only on the days when you don't consume enough nutrients from nutrititious carbohydrates? If this is the case then one way to prepare for Thanksgiving is, starting now, to give yourself a daily food plan that balances nourishing carbohydrates and protein. Then, when the Thanksgiving festivities begin you will at least have your body chemistry working for you.
What do you think?
