3 Possible Reasons Why You Are Cravings Snacks Constantly | How To Manage Snacking & Calories

Do you find yourself wanting to snack constantly?
Are your food cravings becoming more out of control?

Then you may want to address this so you can take control over your nutrition game and regain your focus on strategy and balance.

There are specific reasons snacking cravings occur and I want to share some common ones with you that are possibly causing your current craving conundrum.

In this blog, I share 3 possible reasons why you are finding yourself wanting to snack all the time and finding it hard to control your caloric intake for fat loss (or other reasons I guess too). 

3 Reasons For Uncontrollable SnackinG

When it comes to snacking it really is a contextual thing for many people (i.e. some people should be snacking and the flipside of the coin, some people probably shouldn't be snacking). 

Whether or not you should be snacking is multifactorial and it'll depend on a variety of different factors - from your goals to what you're trying to achieve to your current diet as a whole).

While it's not necessarily bad to be snacking nor to even be snacking regularly, there is potentially issues when you find that snacking becomes a bit of an uncontrollable factor in your life. 

When you find that you're constantly thinking about snacks, constantly craving snacks, and where the snacking is perhaps leading you off the path your “nutrition train” is on as part of your nutrition plan. 

In order words, if the snacking behaviour is becoming a setback when it comes to achieving your goals…that is when we need to look into it and address the problemo. 

I’m going to now share with you the potential reasons why you might be constantly craving and wanting snacks despite the fact that it might not really be needed or not fitting the plan you're trying to follow.

Let class commence now!

Reason #1: Not Eating Enough Total Calories (i.e. overly large caloric deficit)

One of the biggest reasons you will find yourself wanting to snack on extra food is an overall large caloric restriction that pushes dietary adaptations to the surface quicker and more strongly. This can be seen in things like crash dieting or other methods of creating large deficits in caloric intake.

We all know the feeling we get when we diet for fat loss and eat less food…we get hungrier. Now imagine if you cut calories too much or too quickly, creating a bigger caloric deficit from maintenance…

This is when the body says “hold up, wise guy”. Dietary adaptations are known as physiological changes the body creates in response to a stimulus relating to feeding manipulations. One of these is increasing hunger levels to return consumption of calories to the baseline (or your own individual comfort zone as I like to call it).

The reason for this is that your body is primal and doesn’t understand you are intentionally restricting food for fat loss so it reverts back to survival mechanisms like increasing hunger.

Increased hunger = increased snacktime peckishness.

Reason #2:  Erratic Eating Patterns / Regimens

This can look like: skipping meals, having long periods of time in between feedings, significantly irregular intake of calories from day to day, or large fluctuations in meal/snack sizes across the day. 

Some of these can impact some people while others won’t be impacted. It’s all unique to the individual so your situation will vary and what impacts you can be 1 or more of these examples of errating eating behaviours.

However, the fact of the matter remains that erratic eating can impact snacking behaviour and tendencies - manifesting itself into cravings and increased perceived hunger. When you don’t create some level of consistency and structure with dieting for your body, then it can react in the language of “adaptations” and “opportunistic behaviour”.

Food for thought. 

Reason #3: Diet Is Too Restrictive and “Boring”

Now you may be thinking, “Aleksa you already said in point #1 that caloric restriction is one of the reasons…”. Yes, I did but this one is not related to caloric restriction per se.

What I am referring to here is that the dietary choices are super restrictive - regardless of caloric intake and adequacy. 

For example, let’s use the popular term “clean eating”. With clean eating dieting, typically the dieter will only eat certain foods and eliminate all “fun foods” that are deemed unacceptable and unhealthy.

This type of dieting is therefore creating food choice restrictions which can lead to increased cravings for either the eliminated foods or just for food and snacks in general. That is why I am not a fan of cutting out foods for no reason or creating a good vs bad idology when it comes to dieting and food choices. 

The simple math is this:
When you make yourself avoid all the foods that you love = You will crave these foods even more (or crave any food to a larger degree as a result). 

Now you can see why I am a fan of using flexible dieting principles with my clients and myself. Using a structured flexibility framework I developed to get results while not compromising enjoyment and health. 

If you are interested in having me program your nutrition using flexible nutrition strategy, send me an email at: [email protected]

Recap

There you go! Now you know of 3 common potential explanations for that snack tooth you’ve developed and have been contending with in recent times.

Your job is now to reflect on these 3 reasons and see which one is potentially the cause of your extra peckishness. Or perhaps none of them seem fitting and in that case you know to keep on looking.

This is not an exhaustive list afterall. Maybe you are constantly wanting to snack because your diet is unbalanced and you aren’t eating enough fibre to fill you up. Maybe you simply need a snack to be strategically inserted into your plan with intent vs. mindlessness. 

Either way, I have found that 1 of these 3 is the reason for many dieters uncontrollable snacking behaviour or their regularly cravings. I hope it helps bring you awareness to assist in your nutrition game. 

Also, I do always like to ask…

Do you feel you need expert guidance when it comes to your fuelling, recovery, and nourishment?
Not seeing the body you feel happier, healthier, and more confident in?
Performance lagging like an early 2000’s dial up internet setup?

I may be able to be of assistance. 

If you are ready to take your nutrition and body to the next level and elevate your performance in a way that doesn’t make you want to punch your Sports Dietitian, then let’s chat.

I have developed a bespoke nutrition coaching solution that allows you to work with me personally 1:1 to help start bridging the gap between where you are now and where you want to be with your physique & performance. 

In this program, I'll personally coach you using my flexible nutrition system to help you harness the power of calories and macro strategy to regain your competitive edge - think of it as a bespoke nutrition solution that empowers you to eat better to achieve better. 

Interested in learning more? 

Simply email me at: [email protected] to have a chat about this and see if we are a good fit to work together and get you your best results yet. 

Or to apply now to see if you are a good fit, simply CLICK HERE and start the process for reaching your peak potential. 

Coach Aleksa (Your Sports Dietitian)

Brisbane Sports Dietitian & Nutritionist