When I was in fifth grade someone very close to me said “Looks like you’ve been eating one too many PB&J sandwiches!” I know now he was just teasing, but that comment haunted me for many years and subsequently caused me to “quit” peanut butter until my mid-twenties.

I started getting into running right after college around the same time I hit the “low/no-fat” diet HARD. I drank skim milk, ate fat-free yogurt and cottage cheese, chicken breast and salad (sans the dressing). A couple of months into my drastic lifestyle change, I started craving crunchy peanut butter. I wasn’t focused on calories, sugar or food additives at this point, so I tried to find the lowest fat option (which is sort of an oxymoron with nut butters!).

I settled on low-fat Jif crunchy peanut butter. I started just putting it on my low-cal white bread for lunch, but quickly found myself craving it more and more. As soon as I got home from work, I set my purse down and grabbed the PB and a spoon. I remember it so vividly as it was the year the Casey Anthony investigation was all over the media and I spent many evenings on the couch, watching Nancy Grace and mindlessly eating spoonful after spoonful of low-fat crunchy PB. I would eat it until my stomach hurt and then “sweat it out” over a run.

This happened for a couple of years until I shifted my focus off of fats and onto calories.   It took me only a few seconds to compute the amount of calories I consumed from PB and decided I didn’t want to eat calorie-dense foods anymore. I benched PB and salad and Cheerios were up to bat.

It was about a year ago, when I really started trying to listen to my hunger cues, that I realized I wanted PB again. Around this time I noticed an influx of various nut butters competing for my attention on the grocery shelves. I decided to try almond butter and my life was forever changed. My body wanted it so badly that I was craving it all the time. I ate it on my toast in the mornings, on a banana for a snack, in oatmeal and straight up out of the jar for old times’ sake. Eventually, we bought a food processor and started roasting and grinding our own nut butters. This took them to a whole new level, and if you’re a nut butter freak like me and haven’t tried it, I HIGHLY recommend it!

I was listening to a podcast a few weeks ago about honoring ourselves, particularly when it  comes to hunger and cravings. The host mentioned a client she had who was trying to lose weight, but was having a hard time because she often found herself “bingeing” on peanut butter. She wasn’t sure how to handle the situation, so she posed the question to the show’s guest. What that guest said blew my mind and suddenly everything clicked.

She said chances are the woman’s body was trying to tell her it needed more FAT. The woman (like many women) was on a low-fat diet and the PB cravings were her body’s way of trying to meet that critical nutrient need.

Many industry leaders say “everything in moderation”. They go on to explain that if you deprive yourself of something (i.e. sugar), your body (and brain) will eventually tell you that it needs it, but most people ignore those cues until their cravings get out of control and then they binge (like me and my Jif).

I say all of this to explain that your body KNOWS what it needs to function optimally. I was depriving my body of so many GOOD fats (nuts, avocado, olive oil), that when I finally let myself have some, I wanted them ALL the time. Now that I have plenty of fats in my diet, I find myself craving nut butter a lot less (but I love it just as much!).

I urge you to REALLY start listening to your cravings. If you’ve been craving a hamburger, your body may be telling you it needs more protein. Alternatively, if you’re craving a milkshake, your body could just need some fat (and calcium)!

Bottom line, our body is not our enemy. It is constantly trying to communicate with us, and we just need to be willing to trust and listen!

XoXo

Katie