Potato Chips For Breakfast?

Potato Chips for Breakfast?

The key to weight management is not another diet with someone telling you what, when, and how to eat. The key to weight management is understanding the "why" to cravings, both physical and emotional. Let me give you an example of a "why" to a craving and what could have become a downward spiral into the black hole of guilt and eating.

I began a new form of movement this past week. It is an indoor cycling camp, which lasts 5 months, and is a pretty rigorous training to prepare for next spring’s outdoor road cycling. Because it is new to my body and the sessions are longer than I have been currently experiencing, they have been fairly difficult for me. Well, when I returned from class this morning, there was a bag of potato chips left on the counter from the night before. I don't really like potato chips, nor are they a food that sets off addictive eating or obsessive thoughts for me. However, I took a few chips to eat while I was preparing my breakfast. Oh wow! They tasted so good, and soon I was grabbing more and more. I stopped, asked myself, "what is going on? Why am I eating these chips like crazy? What is it that they are giving me that is creating this craving?" I soon realized that it was the salt. My body had actually been depleted from my new exercise of important salt, and my body was letting me know.

Now I wouldn't recommend getting your salt intake from potato chips, but that is actually what I did. They tasted so good, and I needed the salt. So instead of beating myself up, I just ate potato chips for breakfast. What did I learn from it? I need to watch my salt intake when I am exercising and exerting a lot of effort and sweat. Then, I need to make sure I get enough salt from a healthy source to compensate, or I risk having those very strong cravings for anything with salt.

Listen to your body! Find the real reason of cravings. Emotional and physical changes cause physiological cravings. Visit Totellwellness.com for help with your emotional and physical cravings.