Do you find yourself constantly craving and binging on foods that make you feel absolutely horrible?! If this is the case, it might be due to an undiagnosed food intolerance.
In this article, I’m going to discuss why a food intolerance might cause you to crave the exact foods that cause you so much pain (no, you’re not a masochist..) and how craving, and regularly consuming the foods that you’re intolerant to may also be causing the other health concerns you’re experiencing, such as: your inability to lose weight (no matter WHAT diet you try…), your consistently low energy, constant bloating and GI distress, frequent migraines, and other “mysterious” symptoms. I’m also going to discuss why, if you have a food intolerance, it is absolutely crucial to work with someone who can help you uncover what foods it might be, and develop a lifestyle that helps you to avoid the food that is standing in the way of transforming your health.
We’ve all been there. When the ice cream in the freezer seems to have a magnetic pull drawing us into its forcefield with no choice but to grab a spoon and dive in. Or when you’re feeling full from dinner, but you just need to finish off with a little something sweet. Or when you drive by a McDonald’s and the smell of the french fries seems to take over the steering wheel, steering you straight into the drive thru line. Although these foods satisfy your cravings at first, their after effects are…less than desirable.
The foods that you crave are the EXACT ones that make you feel absolutely horrible. A few hours after a binge on those fries, ice cream, or cookies, you experience extremely uncomfortable bloating, a bad headache, full body pain, and sometimes even some nausea. But it seems that, as soon as these symptoms go away, you’re back to craving the exact same food that just caused you so much discomfort! What even is your deal?! You feel as though your lack of willpower to say no to these foods is what’s holding you back from being able to make a transformation for good. You know that if you were just able to say no to your cravings, you’d be able to lose weight and no longer experience these symptoms that seem to be dominating your life.
Let me first tell you a story about a client in my MINDPEAK program who was just like you. She was always craving cheeseburgers. She’d have them a few times every week, because she just couldn’t stop wanting them. Although she loved her cheeseburgers, she was suffering from random symptoms that she felt were completely mysterious. She had constant bloating and GI distress, having to run to the bathroom randomly throughout her day no matter what she ate. This caused embarrassment, frustration, and not to mention physical pain! She was constantly exhausted. When she’d get home from work, the only thing she’d have enough energy to do was crash on the couch for the entire evening. And, no matter what diet she tried she could just not lose any weight. She was the heaviest she had ever weighed, and felt discouraged because no diet program she tried seemed to work. She would fast daily and eat “clean” in moderation, but she just couldn’t seem to say no to a cheeseburger whenever she went out to eat, or someone suggested ordering in, no matter what anguish it was causing her! She felt like it was her that had poor willpower, and that this “lack of willpower” was holding her back from feeling good and making the health transformation she wanted. What she, and many of you, don’t realize is that your body and brain are the culprits behind these cravings, it has nothing to do with willpower.
All of her symptoms seemed to signal to me that she might have a food intolerance, so together we worked her through an elimination diet to discover what foods were causing her such trouble. We found a few different food groups that her body seemed to not enjoy, and worked to create a sustainable approach for her to eliminate these foods as a regular part of her diet. Within 3 months she had lost 20 pounds, had no GI issues, was no longer in pain, and….had absolutely no food cravings. Not even to cheeseburgers!
Now, I had expected the weight loss and GI changes to occur, but was just as surprised as she was that her cravings disappeared. This caused me to dive into research to see what the relationship was between food intolerances and cravings, and boy..is there a relationship!
If you resonate with the above scenario, it might be that an undiagnosed food sensitivity is at the root of your cravings, causing you to crave and consume foods that…make you feel horrible. Not only can these food intolerances result in irresistible cravings, but as you continue to crave and consume these foods, your body will start to have other symptoms like: weight gain, migraines, joint pain, inflammation, bloating, diarrhea or constipation, skin conditions like acne and eczema, consistently low energy and fatigue, and more. And, if these intolerances go untreated and you continue to consume foods that your body can’t handle, it can result in chronic conditions like: arthritis, high blood pressure, diabetes, mood disorders like anxiety and depression, and even neurodegenerative diseases.
All of this being said, it’s obviously important to uncover your food intolerances, and work to heal your body from the damage they’ve been causing to support your overall health and wellbeing. But let’s first discuss what food intolerances are, and how they can cause such uncontrollable cravings.
What are Food Intolerances?
I wrote an entire blog post about food intolerances, and how they might be at the root of your mysterious symptoms. But to give a brief overview, food intolerances occur when your body has a tough time breaking down certain foods or food groups. This can be due to lacking a specific enzyme needed to break down that food (for example, those with Lactose Intolerance lack the “Lactase” enzyme that is needed to breakdown the lactose found in dairy products), they can be developed during other conditions such as IBS, and can even be a result of GI disturbances (Zopf et al., 2009). They differ from food allergies in many ways, but one of the biggest differences is that symptoms from a food intolerance are often delayed, showing up hours and even days after one eats the offending food. This is what makes them so hard to pinpoint and diagnose, causing them to often go overlooked by many doctors and healthcare professionals. But, what do they have to do with cravings?!
Food Intolerances and Cravings
It’s true that your body oftentimes craves the very foods that it’s intolerant to. But why?! Aren’t bodies supposed to be smart?! A few different theories may explain why this is the case.
First, when you consume a food that your body is intolerant to, it causes a stress response to take place. This stress response releases the hormone cortisol, which can increase the production of endorphins, or “feel good” chemicals in our body (Cleveland Clinic, 2022). This can cause you to associate this good feeling with the very foods that set off this cascade in the first place, craving you to feel that way again (especially if you, say, aren’t feeling well due to the body’s sensitivity response). Also, this increase in cortisol can cause an increase in appetite and greater cravings. The term “stress-eating” is actually a real thing!
Second, food intolerances have a huge impact on our gut and gut microbiome, causing dysbiosis and potentially an overgrowth of pathogenic bacteria. Just like us, the bacteria living in our intestines have food preferences, too. Certain bacteria prefer certain types of foods over others, and can influence our behavior to get us to consume the very foods that keep them alive (creepy, isn’t it?!). When there is less diversity in our gut microbiome, as is often the case in dysbiosis, the bacteria are able to exert even more of an effect on our behavior, causing us to crave and consume the foods they like best (which, in many cases, can be the ones we are intolerant to!) (Kresser, 2019). Yikes!
Third and finally, two of the most common food intolerances, gluten and dairy, may contain compounds that have opioid-like effects in the brain. Gluten exorphins and casomorphins found in dairy may be able to “mask its own toxicity” and make us crave more and more of it (Pruimboom & de Punder, 2015; Tyagi et al., 2020). These exorphins can bind to the brain in humans who have a “leaky gut” (as is often the case with food intolerances!), making us “feel good” and resulting in cravings for the foods that contain these opioid-like substances, and in some cases even addiction to these foods! (Bressan & Kramer, 2016).
So, despite your well-intentioned attempts at withstanding your cravings, your brain and body are stronger than your willpower (which…is normal…and healthy)! If you want to take control over your cravings (and your physiology), it is necessary to determine your intolerances and work to eliminate these food groups from your diet. Plus, eliminating these food groups will help you to transform your health beyond its impact on your cravings…
Beyond Cravings…Why Food Intolerances Matter
If your unavoidable cravings for the very foods that make you feel horrible isn’t enough to convince you to make a change, food intolerances may also be destroying your health in other ways and causing the unexplained and extremely uncomfortable symptoms you’re having. As I’ve mentioned before, food intolerances can cause GI distress, mood disturbances, migraines, skin conditions, inflammation, joint pain, and negate any attempts you make to lose weight (and not just because they’re causing you to crave-and binge these foods!).
And, if you’re reading this, it’s likely that you’re trying to eliminate your cravings so that you can transform your health. Therefore you probably want to avoid diseases like arthritis, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, and neurodegenerative diseases. As I’ve mentioned, undiagnosed food intolerances may put you at higher risk for developing these very diseases.
As I’ve mentioned before, food intolerances can be difficult to pinpoint and treat because the symptoms are vast and can appear much later after a food is consumed. They also cannot be tested for, as most doctors will only test for a food allergy, which won’t show results for intolerance. This is why it is extremely important, if you feel like a food intolerance may be causing your cravings and other symptoms, to work with someone who can help you uncover your intolerances and create a lifestyle that limits your exposure to them so that you can finally kick your cravings and transform your health for good.
If you’re like the client in my MINDPEAK program, and you can’t stop craving cheeseburgers (or ice cream…chocolate…candy..) despite how awful they make you feel, you might have a food intolerance. I help my clients to uncover what foods are causing them issues through my 3R approach to gut healing in my MINDPEAK program. If you want support in figuring out what foods might be causing your cravings and symptoms, and developing a lifestyle that allows you to kick your cravings, feel better, and lose weight for good, I would love to work with you. To see if you would be a good fit for this program, sign up for a FREE 30 minute coaching session here.
If your cravings are getting the best of you, but you’re not convinced it’s a food intolerance, worry not! I’m hosting a FREE workshop on this very topic on September 15th, 2022 at 7pm EST. In this workshop, we will discuss what your cravings might be telling you about your body, and how you can ELIMINATE them so you can lose weight and transform your health FOR GOOD. To sign up for this FREE workshop, click here.
Whether it’s inescapable cravings, constant GI disturbances, migraines, or just the inability to lose weight no matter what you try, a food intolerance might be at the root of it. I can’t stress how important it is for your overall health and longevity to work with someone to uncover your intolerance and help you design a life that allows you to transform your health for good. If you want to learn more about how I can help you to do that, sign up for your free 30 minute coaching session here.
References
Bressan, P., & Kramer, P. (2016). Bread and Other Edible Agents of Mental Disease. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 10. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2016.00130
Endorphins: What They Are and How to Boost Them. (2022). Cleveland Clinic. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/body/23040-endorphins#:%7E:text=Endorphins%20are%20hormones%20that%20are,reduce%20stress%20and%20improve%20mood.
Kresser, M. C. S. (2019a, May 29). Do Gut Microbes Control Your Food Cravings? Chris Kresser. https://chriskresser.com/do-gut-microbes-control-your-food-cravings/#:%7E:text=Cravings%20are%20thought%20to%20be,significant%20role%20in%20influencing%20cravings
Pruimboom, L., & de Punder, K. (2015). The opioid effects of gluten exorphins: asymptomatic celiac disease. Journal of Health, Population and Nutrition, 33(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s41043-015-0032-y
Tyagi, A., Daliri, E. B. M., Kwami Ofosu, F., Yeon, S. J., & Oh, D. H. (2020). Food-Derived Opioid Peptides in Human Health: A Review. International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 21(22), 8825. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms21228825
Zopf, Y., Baenkler, H. W., Silbermann, A., Hahn, E. G., & Raithel, M. (2009). The Differential Diagnosis of Food Intolerance. Deutsches Ärzteblatt International. https://doi.org/10.3238/arztebl.2009.0359