Billionaire's Daughter

The Chemistry of a Craving and How to Curb it

Most of us have fallen victim to an unyielding urge for a candy bar, a bag of chips, or a chocolate chip cookie. Cravings have the ability to make us lose control, abandon healthy habits, and give in to an immediate desire to satisfy what feels like a primal need. So what is a craving and what makes us willing to drive a few miles out of our way just to get our hands on a double chocolate milkshake or a greasy grilled cheese sandwich.

Cravings were once thought to be identifiers of nutritional deficiencies. Now researchers believe cravings are influenced by three factors: diet, memory, and emotion.

Diet

The Standard American Diet (SAD) has a negative impact on many individuals. The SAD is infiltrated with added sugar in multiple forms. Beyond the obvious culprits like cookies and cakes, sugar often hides in more unexpected places, such as peanut butter and salad dressing. Sugar is frequently masked by a plethora of alternative names, including fructose or evaporated cane juice. The prevalence of sugar in our diets is strongly connected to desire and cravings, which can be rooted at the neurological level. Continual intake of sugar over time can lead to the need for fulfillment and reward from sugary sources.

According to a recent study, sugar has the ability to produce the feeling of reward following consumption. This rewarding feeling creates habitual tendencies to crave and desire sweetened foods. Sugar intake can lead to changes on the neurological level, which explains why some people have difficulty controlling their sugar consumption. These cravings can be really powerful. An additional review found that in animal studies, sugar can be more appealing and rewarding than habit-forming drugs such as cocaine.

Memories

Memories create long-term associations. These associations can lead us to crave certain foods. For some people, the feeling of “the Sunday night blues” is ingrained since childhood, and assuaging the looming feeling of returning to school with a pint of ice cream seems to be the only way to cope. This memory may cause an individual to yearn for ice cream or another comfort food every Sunday evening. According to one study, sensory memory is strongly tied to cravings. Researchers found the same part of the brain triggered for drug and alcohol cravings is activated with cravings correlated with memory.

Rituals also serve as sensory triggers for cravings—for instance, entering your grandmother’s house and heading straight toward the candy dish, or feeling a deep desire for a big slice of pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving. Sensory triggers, memories, and developed habits stimulate cravings and desires for foods that provide comfort and positive feelings.

Emotion

Mood and emotions have a direct correlation to cravings. An abundance of triggers prompt the need for certain food items. A fight with a loved one, feeling stressed or overwhelmed, boredom at work, or being alone on a Saturday night may provoke the desire for a certain food. Comfort foods, such as pizza or chocolate, may be used to soothe stress, sadness, or conflict. Anxiety may be temporarily reduced by something crunchy such as salty chips or pretzels, while heartache may cause others to turn to smooth and creamy peanut butter or ice cream.

Curb Those Cravings

With the causes of cravings in mind, how can we prevent ourselves from giving in?

Ideally, every meal should be eaten mindfully, but sometimes life gets messy. If you miss out on an opportunity to eat with purpose, realize that any one of these strategies work well on it’s own. If time is short, practice one or two mindful habits when eating on the go.

Mindfulness isn’t about perfection. It’s about recharging your life and creating more awareness. Work each day to improve your relationship with food through mindfulness and realize that every meal won’t always go according to plan. Stick to the strategies that work best for your situation and you will develop better eating habits over time.

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Super Foods! We keep hearing this terms, but what items fall in this category....
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What to Do and Not to Do Before You Workout

Whether at the gym, on the pavement, or in the yoga studio, there are a few general rules that help ensure the best workout possible. Everyone has different pre-workout routines, but nutrition, sleep, stretching, mental attitude, and other factors all affect how you’ll feel during your sweat session.

Here, we break down the best habits to embrace before a workout, along with some unexpected speed bumps that can hinder any good workout.

Ready to Work Out? Your Pre Workout Questions Answered

How much should I eat?

Chowing down before a workout helps us feel energized while exercising. Food-fuel allows the body to gain muscle and burn fat, and also helps the bodyrecover faster (so you can rinse and repeat).

Which foods to eat and when to eat them really depends on a few conditions: hunger, the size of a meal, and your specific fitness goals. If you just need a quick snack, aim to eat 30 to 60 minutes before your workout. Choose something with digestible carbs and a bit of protein, like a banana and peanut butter. If you would like something heartier, have a bowl of oatmeal or scrambled eggs with fresh veggies. For people looking to gain some serious muscle, consider amping up protein intake with foods like egg whites, chicken, nut butter, or a smoothie with protein powder.
Make sure to avoid foods with too much fiber, which can cause unwanted bloating and gas. Stay away from junk food too, which can deplete the body of nutrients we need for workout fuel. Plus, it can be hard to digest. On the flip side, don’t skip out on eating altogether. Though some people who intermittent fast regularly work out during a fasting period, training hard on an empty stomach deprives most people’s muscles of glycogen, which makes them lose steam faster.

How much should I drink?

Hydration is key to any workout, from an intense HIIT session to a few laps in the pool. A good rule of thumb is to drink about two cups of fluids two hours before starting the clock. Water is the best option, but you can try other liquids, such certain sports drinks for electrolytes, which provide extra carbs, sodium, and potassium.

Unless you’re an intense endurance athlete, beware of sugary sports drinks. (Not so fun-fact: A 20 ounce bottle of Gatorade contains nine teaspoons of sugar.) While some sugar is definitely okay before a workout, excess amounts can cause vitamin deficiencies and increase the risk for heart complications. A good alternative is coconut water, which has 15 times more potassium than conventional sports drinks. Just look for one with no sugar added; naturally, it contains about four grams of sugar. Or get creative with your pre-workout routine and make your own sports drink with one of these homemade recipes.

Coffee connoisseur? A cup of joe during the day can actually help your workout. Various studies have found a positive connection between caffeine and improved circulation, reduced pain, and improved muscle preservation. In fact, one study found that athletes who sipped caffeine before they exercised burned 15 percent more calories than those who skipped out.

But don’t always reach for a big cup. Stick to 12 ounces of coffee, which is about 300 milligrams of caffeine for a little boost. Keep it light before a workout by adding skim milk and a dash of cinnamon and drink a glass of water as well to remain hydrated.

If you prefer evening exercise, coffee may be a no go. The caffeine could have you tossing and turning at night. A good rule of thumb is to avoid coffee roughly six hours before you plan on hitting the hay.

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How to Tone Around Your Tush

The fat that sits under the bum and on the outer thighs—affectionately named saddlebags—is one of Mother Nature’s subtle reminders of womanhood. These sex-specific fat deposits can begin to appear during adolescence when girls’ fat cell production nearly doubles that of boys. Though upper thigh fat is physiologically advantageous during pregnancy, some women are bothered by the way it looks and feels. Read on for a detailed explanation of saddlebags and how to strengthen your glutes and thigh muscles.

The Dish on Cellulite

Many women experience the top-down effect when it comes to fat loss—meaning fat stores decrease more easily from the upper body than from the thighs and buttocks. Women of a healthy weight tend to stop producing new fat cells once they reach adolescence. Women top out at the number of fat cells they carry pretty early on, but these fat cells can increase in volume. As the cells expand, they press against the outer fat tissue layer. Over time, the outer fat layer increases in size and the texture changes, which gives the skin a bumpy appearance—hello, cellulite.

Cellulite doesn’t discriminate. Fit women have it, bikini models have it, and nearly all women have it. There is no magic cream, oil, or pill to get rid of cellulite. The best way to smooth out your skin and reduce the appearance of saddlebags is through lifestyle changes.

The Skinny on Insulin

Insulin is the hormone released to regulate blood-glucose levels when we consume foods rich in carbohydrates. Ideally, for people who are regularly active, insulin helps to circulate glucose within the muscle tissue, which is made available for energy. But when people are inactive, insulin can push carbs into fat cells rather than muscle, where the energy is then stored as triglycerides, a type of fat.

When this happens, the lower fat layer increases in volume, pushing on the layers of fat cells closest to the skin’s surface. This will increase the appearance of cellulite even more. Getting your diet in check by cutting back on processed carbohydrates (such as packaged snack foods, pasta, and sugary treats) may help diminish the appearance of fat in the thighs. Adding in more veggies, lean proteins, and healthy starches is a great way to slim down saddlebags.

Get Off Your Tush

To put it simply, a healthy diet and regular exercise are key to combating saddlebags. Just like a positive change in food choices can lower insulin levels, so can daily activity. An exercise plan should always be in a routine, but other activities such as housework, gardening, shopping, and walking or biking to work can also help steer insulin into muscle cells. Look for opportunities to get active every day, even if it’s not a scheduled workout routine.

Putting on the Moves

Spot reduction (or the attempt to reduce fat in one specific part of the body) is a common myth. But you can increase muscle strength and size in your thighs and butt to reduce the appearance of fat. Here are two workouts with 10 challenging moves sure to tighten and tone the tush while smoothing out those saddlebags.