the idiot's guide to cravings

I've distinguished two types of cravings. One type you should listen to, because your body is infinitely wiser than your mind. Your mind can trick you, but your body will always tell you the truth about how you're feeling or about how healthy you are. So listen to it. That said, I experience two types of craving: basically, cravings for junk food and cravings for real food.

My junk food cravings are mostly for sugar, I've had a terrible sweet tooth all my life that I basically kicked after reading Energía sin limites de Deepak Chopra. I still crave sugar a lot, but much less than before. As a sidenote, I was at a healthy weight before I read this book, but lost 5-10 pounds after reading it, because I cut back on my sugar and flour intake and instead began eating more whole grains (brown rice, quinoa, mote, oats) and white rice. I still indulge in sugar from time to time, but not on a daily basis.

My other cravings are for coconut milk, mote, vegetables, whole grains, chocolate (with very little sugar), etc. I can tell they are real cravings because 1) these are healthy foods and 2) I feel better after eating them. Whereas when I indulge in eating excess sugar, I later feel heavy and lazy, leaving me with low energy. So there you have it. Trust your body's healthy cravings. If your body feels better after eating what you crave, it means you needed the food. You can train your body to crave healthy foods. Just start adding more vegetables and wholegrains to your diet and your body will get used to them and crave them. This way you use cravings to your advantage.

I do sometimes crave sweet things that my body really wants and I eat just a bit, and feel better afterwards, but this happens maybe a couple times a week and I only eat a little, because my body is just craving a bit. I always have something a bit sweet after eating a meal with garlic. I don't know what it is about garlic, but I always follow this with something sweet.

saturated fat-packed coconut milk: the new diet food

I've had a hunch since I was 18 that eating fat actually helped me maintain a healthy weight. I basically stopped trusting what the media said at that age when I realized that eating fats was actually really satisfying and my body thanked me after eating them.

So I indulge on fat-filled coconut milk quite often. Since I crave it so much, I thought I'd look up its nutritional value on the internet. Since modern science hasn't been studying coconut milk like it has been studying tumeric, the media still hasn't informed us of all the healthy qualities of coconut milk. But I'm not waiting for the newspapers to begin pumping this food before I start eating it. I found a bit of less "official" info on internet. So, according to this article while coconut milk has as much fat as cow's whole milk, unlike whole milk, coconut milk helps you lose weight! Ha! I chug coconut milk all the time. More reasons to drink coconut milk:

• Promotes loss of excess weight by increasing metabolic rate.

• Is utilized by the body to produce energy in preference to being stored as body fat like other dietary fats.

• Helps prevent obesity and overweight problems.

You see you shouldn't trust the media with their myths and stupid repetitious ideas that fat is soo unhealthy? Now that I've said that if you eat lots of flour, sugar and other processed foods, or eat too much in general, coconut milk might not be the solution. Because there is no panacea for weight loss beyond exercising and a healthy diet. You can't just take a pill and become healthy and thin.

I would drink coconut milk daily, but I feel ethically it's maybe not the best to drink sooo much of it, since it has to be shipped to Chile from Thailand.

I have thought of making my own since they often sell Panamanian coconuts in the street here.