If you eat clean, your cravings go away

30yearssincebikini
30yearssincebikini Posts: 261
edited November 10 in Food and Nutrition
I don't know if this is scientific or not, but it's just my experience. Before I started this diet, I ate so much junk. I had cravings constantly for sweets, salty food, processed crap. But since I started eating clean a month ago, my cravings have all but gone away. I have a theory for why this happened.

I am thinking that the reason we crave junk is because our body is not getting what it needs, so it craves that we put something in it. The body can't tell us what it needs, all it can do is give us cravings and hope that we will make the right choices of food. So we crave. We think that we crave sweets, and maybe we do sort of, but really, we are craving nutrition in our bodies. Once we give ourselves the nutrition we need, our bodies relax. They don't crave anymore because they are getting what they need.

Is this a dumb theory? Because I swear, my cravings are gone. Just gone.
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Replies

  • PercivalHackworth
    PercivalHackworth Posts: 1,437 Member
    TOPIC: If you eat clean, your cravings for junk food go away. :laugh:
    I'm still craving on healthy food once in a while :laugh:

    To simply put, I think you are right in a way - we are no longer interested in that. I can testify, I'm no longer drinking sodas, or kilotons of chips. But the craving itself still exists, and thank god it does. We just like enjoying eating more something we like :-)
  • PaleoPath4Lyfe
    PaleoPath4Lyfe Posts: 3,161 Member
    Yes, clean eating makes the cravings go away. Some people's cravings die off faster than others.

    It is a matter of retraining your taste buds to want the foods you are now feeding it, instead of the processed carbage.
  • rpantusa
    rpantusa Posts: 267 Member
    I believe this too, I don't even look twice at the junk food at the store anymore, sometimes I crave something sweet, and I will go for yogurt or something like that, but I dont crave cookies and chips anymore. any food that I crave, I will make a healthier recipe of it at home, and it usually tastes better to me. :wink:
  • Yeah, I find that the better I eat the less likely I am to crave junk food...but I still overeat "healthy" food sometimes. For example, I can eat a whole plate of sweet potato fries ...and I crave them all the time :)
  • Yeah, I find that the better I eat the less likely I am to crave junk food...but I still overeat "healthy" food sometimes. For example, I can eat a whole plate of sweet potato fries ...and I crave them all the time :)

    Mmmm those sound good!
  • sashalarue
    sashalarue Posts: 40 Member
    Ding Ding Ding...we have a winner!!! You hit the nail right on the head. I feel the same way when i eat clean i don't crave...as soon as i put a snicker in my mouth there goes the cravings again.
  • mousepaws22
    mousepaws22 Posts: 380 Member
    How long did it take for you to stop craving junk food?
  • rawardle
    rawardle Posts: 5 Member
    I could not agree more. I have been eating really clean the past 2 months and I don't crave junk food at all. I haven't eaten fast food in almost 2 years and have been completely off of sugar since the New Year. I feel better than ever. :)
  • ninakir88
    ninakir88 Posts: 292 Member
    You're right, eating better does make your cravings go away, to an extent though, I still crave "unhealthy" food from time to time, but just eat it in moderation so I don't go insane. But that being said, I hit my goal weight and am not trying to lose anymore.
  • hottottie11
    hottottie11 Posts: 907 Member
    Eating clean increased my cravings.

    Eating "dirty" settled my cravings.

    My Lesson learned: Deprivation sucks. Why force myself into a eating plan to lose weight when I lose just fine with the foods I enjoy, both clean AND dirty.
  • If you read Potatoes Not Prozac you will find that there is scientific evidence for what you've experienced.
  • ErinBeth7
    ErinBeth7 Posts: 1,625 Member
    This is true. They really do!
  • VeganPanda
    VeganPanda Posts: 582 Member
    I look at it sort of like a scale. One end is super salty, one is super sweet. We eat something salty, and the body craves something sweet to balance it out, but it never really does and we are constantly craving something to fix the extreme of our food choice. Eating clean evens out the playing field and our body is satisfied. :happy:
  • Just2Jean
    Just2Jean Posts: 12 Member
    I believe that it IS true for the most part. In case any of you have not heard of it..the Book "SKINNY *****" is great. (yes the title may either deter you or entice you)...It is in your face advice/information...It also talks about how bad foods effect your body, including cravings (the least of the damage).... It hits on everything that is both bad and good for your body and in '*****y' terms lets you know :-)
    We all know that certain foods and drinks are bad for us...this book tells you simply and 'in your face' WHY they are bad for you!
  • ErinBeth7
    ErinBeth7 Posts: 1,625 Member
    How long did it take for you to stop craving junk food?

    It took me about a week to stop craving junk food. Although, everyone once in a while I feel like eating something that would give me a heart attack or a little bit of dessert.
  • Articeluvsmemphis
    Articeluvsmemphis Posts: 1,987 Member
    clean eating, such a great concept, lol. If I had time to learn how to cook I could possibly pull this off, I think I like my junk and carbs in moderation too much though. glad it works for you
  • GraceIsHealthy
    GraceIsHealthy Posts: 1 Member
    I agree, I stopped eating anything with sugar three weeks ago and I don't crave them, I'm very AFRAID to try anything sweet or even white bread, it's so difficult for me to stop.
  • DannyMussels
    DannyMussels Posts: 1,842 Member
    I think so, I also think a big part of it is, by 'eating clean'...hopefully youre shopping clean, therefor don't have terrible foods in your house. So it all goes hand-in-hand.

    You can't eat it if you don't have it.

    After about a month of not eating crap, its pretty easy to not eat crap.
  • shastapina
    shastapina Posts: 4 Member
    AMEN, AMEN, AMEN............................this is so true. Please watch the movie Forks over Knives
  • SkinnyShadow
    SkinnyShadow Posts: 106 Member
    I've decided that I'm eating "dusty" lol - the "clean" was just too restricting for me... maybe I'll get there eventually, but for right now, this is working :) I completely agree though; now I'm craving broccoli and healthy foods. I still have a want for burgers when I see the ads on TV etc, but they're so mild now it's awesome. I KNOW though, that if I give in and say.. eat a slice of pizza, it's all over for me - sad but true. lol
  • Orangecupcake
    Orangecupcake Posts: 17 Member
    I was just talking about this. I eat a very "clean" vegetarian diet, with minimal processed foods. I can't remember the last time I craved chocolate or chips/cookies. If I need something sweet, I twill have soy yogurt. My kids made a cake from scratch last night and I didn't want any of it. That never happens. I have 25 boxes of girl scout cookies I need to sell in the house and I haven't opened one sleeve. I crave things like spinach and kale. It's the strangest thing ever. If you ever watch any of those food documentaries you will see that all the processed stuff/fast food had chemicals to actually make you become addicted, so it makes sense.
  • issyfit
    issyfit Posts: 1,077 Member
    If you avoid sugar and white flours and other simple carbs your cravings go away because your blood sugar doesn't spike like it did when you were eating the junk. Blood sugar spikes cause a burst of insulin which in turns causes low blood sugar which causes hunger and sweet/starch cravings. This is how Dr. Agaston explains it in the South Beach Books. After phase one on South Beach I lost my cravings--best thing about this plan in my opinion.
  • mes1119
    mes1119 Posts: 1,082 Member
    Its all psychology. Basically, humans eat out of habit (we never eat anything unfamiliar) so the more often you eat junk, that is what your body is going to want (eat ice cream and frozen tastes awful). But if you stick with it you CAN change this.

    This is why teaching your children how to eat properly is CRITICAL.

    Plus, I've noticed that fast food and bad foods don't taste good to me anymore, I CRAVE my healthy meals now and would MUCH have them over the crap :)
  • Zaffy01
    Zaffy01 Posts: 28 Member
    I have been "eating clean" for about the last three or four months, and after the first month I also found my cravings for junk food went away, however, I now refer to this as the honeymoon period, as my cravings definitely did return around the month two mark, and I have been battling them sense... I feel like for me it goes in cycles.

    Whenever I get a craving for something I know wont be good for my body (or that will trigger me to eat other unhealthy things) I try to make an alternative, and this 99% of the time satisfies my craving for junk (and most of the time, I end up liking what I made better than the food I have in my memory).

    I also find that most of my cravings from the junk food day came from the saltiness of the foods I was eating....cheese-its were my HUGE downfall, (I swear they should be classified as a drug for how addicting they are! haha)
  • 2hmom
    2hmom Posts: 241 Member
    I believe this, also.Before I get out of bed I'm thinking of drinking water before pop. Healthier food stays with me so much longer,too.
  • grinch031
    grinch031 Posts: 1,679
    I have never met a single person in my life who has become fat while eating clean.
  • LastSixtySix
    LastSixtySix Posts: 352 Member
    Biology or microscopics confirms your theory. If we overeat something - say sodium or sugar - each cell in our body has to work that much harder and expends much more energy to try and regulate the body to put it back in balance. After it does this only a surprising few times, if the sodium or sugar intake goes down, the cells cry out for more to do. That is the biology of the body that the industrialized for-profit food industry exploits to get us to keep eating more of their unhealthy stuff and less of the healthy nutrients that nature intended. Once we unhook from the death-support that industrialized food keeps us on, it doesn't take long for our bodies to adapt and love us and our brains to rewire.

    Conversely, we only have to throw caution to the wind food-wise for 6 or 7 days before the new wiring snaps and we are back on the path of salt and sugar addiction.

    Keep with the healthy foods! Also, I find that drinking for two days nettle tea (combined with a mint or something else too) absolutely drives away craving for junk food.

    -Debra
  • Also it might be that your body remembers how good and light you feel after eating clean versus the heaviness and low energy after eating junk food.

    Once in a while I do have a can of soda, burger or fries. It tastes great while I eat, but after-effect is bad: heavy stomach, fatigue etc ... Our body remembers that and doesn't crave for junk food often anymore.
  • That is probably true what you are saying about eating clean. The only problem is when it gets around my monthly time. That is when the cravings come most of all.
  • I notice this when I do low carb. Once all that sugar is out of my system, I'm never hungry.
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