Welcome to Dishing Up Nutrition's Ask a Nutritionist podcast, brought to you by Nutritional

weight and wellness. I'm Christy Kalinsky, a registered and licensed dietitian. We're thrilled to be

celebrating 20 years on air,

discussing the connection between what you eat and how you feel, while sharing practical, real-life

solutions for healthier living through balanced nutrition. Thank you for your support and listening

over the years. If you're enjoying the podcast you've been listening to, let us know by

leaving a rating or review on Apple Podcast or Spotify. Now, let's dive into today's question.

Today's question is from one of our Dishing Up Nutrition listeners, and it reads as follows,

why do we have different food cravings other than sugar and what can be done about it?

For example, craving fats such as nuts and grabbing a handful of them, even after eating a

healthy, well-balanced meal. This is a great question. Almost everybody I counsel has some kind

of cravings. Sometimes the cravings are for healthy foods,

and some cravings are for foods that aren't so good for us. Before I answer this question,

let me give some background on cravings in general. I know for the most part it's believed that

cravings are due to a lack of willpower and that we just cave to eating or drinking

something we shouldn't or even gravitate towards a healthy food such as nuts when we should

be satisfied after eating a meal. The lack of willpower actually isn't the case. There are various

reasons why we have cravings. So we're going to dive into those different reasons

why and how we go about fixing those underlying issues. So the first thing we want to look at

are our blood sugar levels throughout the day. Have you ever noticed that your cravings are

worse when you've gone a long period of time without eating, say three or four hours or more.

When your blood sugar levels dip low, your body's main job is to get it back up into that normal

...