Okay, I know I said that I wasn’t really having strong cravings in my first week of Whole30, and I really didn’t. But boy, on Day 10, the Whole30 cravings hit me HARD. All I could think about was rice, and rice noodles, and how much I wanted Pad Kee Mao. Rice is a weird thing for me to crave, because usually, I will crave bread. On Days 10 and 11, though, I mainly wanted rice and rice products. All I could think about was the texture of biting into those wide rice noodles.
While rice was my biggest craving, I was also craving literally every other food item I saw. When I passed a cafe, I was craving their croissants. I saw a tomato bisque at a restaurant I passed by and wanted to stick my face in it. When I walked into my boyfriend’s kitchen and saw a container of cookies, I couldn’t think of anything else for 30 minutes. I got the letdown of my life when a friend invited me to a party where there would be sliders and crab cakes and I realized I couldn’t have any of it. Every food that was mentioned was difficult to get off of my mind.
The cravings made me do some weird (and irrational) things. At work on Day 10, I took a piece of floss and was just sucking on it for the flavor. This wasn’t my proudest moment, and not something I’ve ever done before, but it was compulsive. I caught myself doing it after a couple minutes and stopped, and was a bit freaked out that I had been doing that. I also was very close to grabbing a handful of rice from my boyfriend’s plate and shoving it in my mouth. Feeling the urge to shove a handful of rice greedily into your mouth might not be something that most people experience, but it’s something that probably would have crossed my mind, even if I wasn’t doing Whole30.
How did I get through my Whole30 cravings?
Some willpower, some substitution, and some help. Recognizing what I was craving was important to figuring out how I could squash the cravings. The texture of a ripe pear and some apricots got me through the strong craving for the texture of rice noodles. Roasted onions and garlic also helped me get that texture I couldn’t stop thinking about. I made some chicken with a Thai red curry sauce, and used roasted some brussel sprouts to soak up the sauce. Getting my boyfriend to not eat foods that were going to cause me an intense craving was helpful. Buying a lot of frozen fruit (blueberries, cherries, black raspberries, and red raspberries) gave me something sweet and sour to snack on.
It’s all trial and error. I have no magical solutions, but this is what has been working for me to help curb those cravings while I’m on Whole30. What are your strategies?
[…] The cravings hit my hard today! All I could think about was rice. I’ve never craved rice this strongly in my life. I wrote more about my cravings in a separate post about my Whole30 cravings. […]