5 Ways to Satisfy Your Pregnancy Junk Food Cravings

Food cravings during pregnancy is common. Although it is okay to feed this craving, healthy food is super important for you and your baby. Here are a few healthy alternatives to junk food that will keep from excessive weight gain, but still satisfy your taste buds.

Potato chips

You like potato chips because you want something salty and crunchy. Potato chips are usually loaded with unnecessary fried fat, sodium and calories. Here are some options:

Lays making reduced calorie potato chips with 1/3 of fat and calories. Lays potato chips, too, was a product on the market that has been around for a while called Baked Lays! chips. These baked potato provide the same salty treat, but do not have the fat and fat that come with fries.

PopChips are a new brand of potato chips that not fry or bake their chips. By adding a bit of warmth sliced ​​potatoes, thin slices eventually pop, forming Popchips. These chips have several different flavors to satisfy the craving salty and super healthy for you!

Donuts

Doughnuts are sweet, sweet, and full of simple carbohydrates that are not broken down in the body for energy. Fortunately, there is a wonderful alternative to donuts:

Low-fat strawberry cream cheese on whole grain cinnamon raisin bagel. Although the cream cheese is not the healthiest food in the world, choosing low-fat varieties are much healthier than a plate of sprinkles and frosting! Bagels can also provide one or more servings of whole grains, so that you can get your digestive system up and running. For just a taste of the oiler and warm, pop your bagels in the toaster and spread a layer of cream cheese on the top. Many companies, such as game Oregon Trail, as well as make a variety of sweet breads as an alternative to bagels.

Cookies

Craving for cookies as donuts, it's your body asking for something sweet. Here are some amazing alternatives that can help you manage and control portion of the calories:

Nabisco and other companies 100 calorie snack packs. These small packages of sweetness provide a lower calorie alternative to the company's cookies! So you know you're not going to miss the taste of what you crave, and you have some control. Allowing yourself to a minimum, controlled part of something sweet, you're less likely to spend the night eating packages Oreos.

Soda

Soda is not healthy for you or your unborn Chile, especially with all the empty calories and caffeine. Alternatives:

Drink fruit juices. Be careful with fruit juices, though - make sure that you are buying or unsweetened or lightly sweetened juice.

Carbonated Flavored Water is also a great way to go. There are many wonderful flavors and carbonation there just might do the trick!

Ice cream

Most often, the typical image of a pregnant woman sitting on the couch eating ice cream tubs. If you want something soft and sweet that can melt in your mouth, try these alternatives instead:
Frozen yogurt yogurt still! He has a dairy and calcium your body needs in order to give your unborn baby healthy bones and that it satisfies the craving ice cream with great pleasure.
Sorbet is also an alternative to ice cream, but be careful consumption. Most sorbets are high fructose juices that are just frozen. Best of all, frozen yogurt, but if you absolutely need to have an extra hint of sweetness, sorbet is a better alternative.
Just Remember
Healthy eating does not have to be difficult during pregnancy, and you do not have to avoid the foods you crave. With a healthy alternative, you can provide the nutrition you and your child need to satisfy cravings.

What Your Food Cravings Say About Your Health

Do you consider yourself a successful diet for three weeks at a time, only to succumb to an uncontrollable urge to scarf down a few calories laden hot fudge ice cream, as well as the month rolls around? You are not alone.

As many as 85% of women experience at least one of the symptoms of PMS, the devastating physical and emotional changes that can strike at any time in the last 2 weeks of the menstrual cycle, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. And as much as 70% of women suffer from PMS-related appetite, bloating, fatigue, sleep disturbances, mood swings and irritability - any of which have the potential to sabotage your diet, says Judith Wurtman, Ph.D., director of the Women's Care at MIT Institute in Cambridge.

Fortunately, a better understanding of PMS in general and in particular food cravings can keep the women were not included in the diet of the destructive cycle.

Diet Double Impact

PMS packs a double whammy against a diet, Wurtman says. "First, you have food cravings, usually on the sweet, flour from the wafer fat like chocolate ice cream. Besides, your bad mood makes you say," To hell with it! You lose your will power to exercise control over any of what you eat. "

Bloating that often goes with PMS also sabotages diets, says Steven Goldstein, MD, an obstetrician-gynecologist at New York University. "A woman steps on the scale and frills. And the reaction of some people to be bloated and having to loosen their belts drown in ice cream."

And what do we break down and eat when those cravings hit? Chocolate is the number 1 on the charts, and then in general, other sweets, says Goldstein. Salty foods, especially potato chips, are in third place.

"You will never find anything on nutrient-sheet," agrees Wurtman, noting that women rarely complain about the craving for fish, fruit and vegetables. "When it comes to dieting, no, no, you can bet PMS mind says," Yes, yes, "she says.

Hormones are to blame

Hormonal hot flashes and spikes that occur throughout the cycle of women are the main culprits of PMS. As estrogen levels go up and down, so that the levels of the stress hormone cortisol, says Pamela Peak, MD, MPH, author of fight fat after 40, and assistant professor of medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore. "This is a very powerful little partnership.'s Body wants to keep their edge."

If the cortisol level is high enough, the body rotates around its fight or flight, the woman becomes more metabolic charged, and her appetite is stimulated. This, in turn, causes a woman to seek carbs and fat, "the actual consumption of struggle and flight," says Peak.

Can a woman will crave sweets or croissants, however, depends on another player: the chemical serotonin in the brain, she says. Most women with PMS feel fall in the level of serotonin, causing cravings for carbohydrates because the body uses carbohydrates to make serotonin.

"If cortisol is high or low serotonin, you will look for carbohydrates and fats, but really heavy duty on the simple carbohydrates - sugar-based sweets such as chocolate," Rush said. Reason: Simple sugars metabolized more quickly than complex carbohydrates, so they offer a quick solution serotonin.

If cortisol is a way, but relatively normal serotonin, a woman is likely to crave carbohydrates fat combo without a huge sweet components, such as a bagel with cream cheese Laden, says Peak.

Blood Sugar Connection

Other studies have linked PMS into a low blood sugar, or hypoglycemia, in the second half of the menstrual cycle, says Susan M. Lark, MD, a physician in Los Altos, California, and author of Premenstrual Syndrome Self Help Book: A Woman's Guide to good mood all month. "The women in these studies showed a significant reduction in blood sugar after a meal, accompanied by nervousness and irritability," Lark says. "Then, for an hour or two, they're hungry again and craving more food."

Whether it's blood sugar, cortisol, serotonin, or levels that are out of whack, according to experts, there are huge portions of ice cream, chocolate, chips, and are not the only way to ensure a level to check in the back - in fact, they are the worst way. Proper diet and lifestyle will achieve the same, from the long-term results.