It’s Not How Much. It’s How
Banish Cravings and Eat Abundantly
by Sussanna Czeranko, ND, BBE

When the New Year rolls around, resolutions old and new roll around too. Getting rid of sneaky pounds that somehow accumulated over the past year, for example, gets our attention again. Dieting, though, has a way of starting off well and ending badly. For some it is a merry go round from one diet to the next. Consider, though, what if you could eat whatever you want, and banish forever those relentless cravings, and look and feel fantastic? Too good to be true? Well, I’m here to tell you that there’s a new approach to this perennial challenge, which means you can not only eat lots of healthy food, but also banish cravings and calorie counting at the same time.

Before we embark on this journey of enjoying food without dieting, let us review some basic background ideas. Food is made up of protein, fats, and carbohydrates. There is also a fourth food group that gets overlooked: fibre. When we eat a “whole food” diet, we are consuming all these four food groups. When we choose overly “processed food,” on the other hand, we are deviating from the healthy diet that Mother Nature intended for us. Processed foods may be convenient, tasty, and seemingly inexpensive, but they are invariably devoid of nutrients, vitamins, minerals, and fibre, all essential for life. What’s more, the processing removes natural nutrients and replaces these with artificial ones.

Eating a diet high in processed foods frequently means that we crave eating more of these same foods. There is no easy exit from the cycle of craving artificial foods. We find ourselves hungry often and we crave more snacks and sweets.

Our bodies run on energy and the best source of energy comes from carbohydrates. Carbs consist of starch, fibre, glucose, fructose, and sucrose. Glucose is a desired food for the mitochondria. The mitochondria’s mission is to produce energy. There are trillions of these mitochondria adding up to ten pounds in every human body. When mitochondria are inundated with excess glucose, though, they self-destruct, making them incapable of providing energy. When our cells are lacking energy, we face fatigue and experience poor sleep and difficulty waking.

In her book, Glucose Revolution, Jesse Inchauspé explores many questions and assumptions about controlling blood glucose. For so many, the answers to these questions illuminate solutions for the veritable roller coaster of cravings and fatigue, weight gain, and much more. She presents us with some interesting conclusions that, at first, may seem to run counter to what popular diets and nutrition counselling have long proffered. Among other insights, she explains that we can eat almost anything, but we have to eat our food in a certain way. Inchauspé explains that how we eat our food has more impact on health than the kinds of food we eat. Weight maintenance is not about the calories or foods that we eat; rather it is about how we eat those foods.

Carb consumption registers as glucose in the blood. Luckily, insulin is secreted to ensure that glucose levels are not elevated. Insulin’s task is to pack excess glucose into fat cells for safekeeping and storage. Elevated glucose, or glucose spikes, indicate that too much glucose is present in the body. Each time insulin comes to the rescue, glucose is removed from the blood and bigger fat cells are made. The solution is not to eat less; it is to decrease insulin levels by flattening glucose curves.

Here are some basic guidelines to eat more food than what you probably normally eat on any given diet, and at the same time reach your goal of feeling and looking fabulous! Let us review some ways that you can flatten glucose curves and be surprised by the results.

1. Eat a savory breakfast. Our first meal of the day determines the pace for glucose spikes. When we wake, our sensitivity to glucose is high and eating a breakfast with lots of carbs will cause a roller coaster of glucose spikes throughout the day. Eat a breakfast with protein, fibre, and fat to stabilize satiety and energy.
2. Eat food in the right order: first fibre; second protein and fat; third starches; and last, sugar [dessert]. Begin each meal with a vegetable dish, such as a salad or steamed vegetables, which are high in fibre. Fibre creates a mesh that slows down glucose absorption. Only 5% of North Americans eat sufficient fibre.
3. Delay afternoon snacks. If you are craving an afternoon sweet snack, delay it and eat it at the next meal for dessert. Drink a cup of herbal tea instead of caving in to a craving. When the glucose spikes are flattened, cravings vanish.
4. After eating a meal, move your body. Take a ten-minute walk and glucose will be used by muscles instead of padding fat cells.

Having changed the order of ingesting your food will create important changes in your life. The first is that you will lose inches, and that your clothing will fit more comfortably. Not only can you eat more food than usual, but you can treat yourself to dessert every night. In my own experience, this unexpected weight loss happened despite the pie and whipping cream that I often eat at the end of my evening meal. The second change is that this diet will leave you with more energy. You will wake up easily, even when the sky is still dark. The third benefit is that you will find yourself no longer giving in to cravings.

Come and experience a weekend of healthy eating at Manitou Waters Naturopathic Clinic. You will learn how to incorporate flattening glucose levels into your day-to-day living.

Sussanna Czeranko, ND, practices at Manitou Waters Naturopathic Clinic and offers classes and private consultations. 306-946-4266. For more information, see the display ad on page 15 of the 29.5 January/February issue of the WHOLifE Journal.