Odd food addiction...confused???

i swear i dot know if its psycological or physiological....

I started changing the foods i eat about 2 months ago and started excercising shortly after...i basicly cut out 80% (so far) of all the junk food id normally eat, no fast food, and lower salt foods...i been doing fairly well and have lost 16 lbs so far.

Here is my problem....i have been having the wierdest cravings....my last go to food was peanut butter which i foud baffling since i could previously count how many times i ate peanut butter in my life on one hand. I actually didnt like it at all but hve grown to depend on it like a drug or somethin. Well i put down the spoon and havent touched it or craved it for about a month now.

Now here is the new flavor of the month (pun intended)..RE-FRIED BEANS....OF ALL THE FOOD IN THE WORLD I AM NOW ADDICTED TO REFRIED BEANS AND I HATE BEANS WITH A PASSION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Up until now i never ate beans at all, especially dry beans like that. I could stand peas and such when cooked in rice, but black beans, kidney, lima, black eye, red beans and all the like i hate!!!!!.

I found this addiction when going to my girl friends house where they had a taco night, i skipped the taco shells and went for a tostada which i added letuce, cheese tomatoes, sour cream and on top i put about 3 tbsp of meat. My girl cooks the ground beef then adds the beans in the meat instead of giving people a choice of wether they want beans or not she forces them to eat the beans just like her mom, and her mom before her. (forcing to eat veggies i guess)

The beens cooked with the beef was actually incredible...it had a nice flavor to it, and a pleasing texture that wasnt too dry. when i went shopping last week i bought a lil can of refried beans and began cooking with it and trying it out. I SUNK TO A NEW LOW AND ATE A SPOONFULL OF BEANS RIGHT OUT THE CAN JUST LIKE I DID WITH THE PEANUT BUTTER....AAARRRRRRRRRGGGGHHHH.

Can anyone explain my ungodly obsession with foods i never ate previously...im affraid to find out what my next obsession wil be...i have some humus i bought and im affraid im going to open pandoras box lol

I don't know that I would be worried about it as much as enjoying the ride. Most likely, your body is naturally craving the nutrients these foods contain, and if you're enjoying the taste of them too, hey! At least it isn't two boxes of twinkies.

Beans have fiber, peanut butter is a good source of protein, although these may not be the exact nutrients you may be craving, it would be a good place to start. Congrats and the weight loss thus far, heck of a feat!

Hummus is wonderful.  You will like it a lot.  I eat it practically every day with carrots or zucchini pieces.

You will find that as you change your eating habits, your tastes will change as well.  There will be a lot of foods that you previously couldn't stand that are suddenly the absolute best things in the world.  There will also be things that you used to love that just won't be appealing any more.

Just be careful with the refried beans.  Some brands of refried beans are very high in fat.  There are some, however that are mostly fat free.  I think Rosarita has a 99% fat free variety that's quite good.  Also, you can always make your own.

Best of luck,

Patricia

You are too funny!!  I think you cravings are driven from the removal of something else from your diet.  When I was on Atkins a few years back, with some short lived success, I found that once I cut out carbs, I started wanting something sweet.  I was never a big desserts eater, but once I cut out bread and pasta, I had to replace it somehow with something that was sweet like strawberries or some low carb sweet treat.  Ricotta with splenda was a favorite of mine.  It was baffling to me because I never used to give desserts a thought, but man oh man did I need that low carb sweetness at the end of my day.

Your Peanut Butter and refried bean cravings sound like protein cravings to me?  Are you eating meat?  What did you sub for the fast food?

Canned refried beans are not "very high" in fat.  110-130 calories and 2-3 grams of fat per half cup serving is not outrageous in the least.  If you don't want any saturated fat at all then you would want to look for a vegetarian style, but otherwise it's completely reasonable.

thanks for the replies guys..im not entirely worried about eating these foods for health reasons cause i could be doing alot worse. Im glad i cut the PB cause it did have alot of grams of fat, and i could eat 4 spoon fulls in one sitting...but thats gone.

The beans is what supprised me because i hate beans. When i called my mom and said "guess what im eating?.......BEANS!!!!!" She almost fainted cause she had a hard time trying to get me to eat them growing up. Now i havent ventured into all the other types of beans but for now refried beans are delicious.

the foods i cut out (and found substitutes for) were things like potato chips (now i eat a rice cake or 2)...Cheese (no i try sprinkling low fat shredded cheese instead of whole slices)...for substituting fast food i jus cut cold turkey and bring my lunch to work, or keep somethin in the car to eat when i crave something on the way home.

I cut out alot of red meat...i eat more chicken now or lean gound beef. No pork at all. and sparingly eat fish...i dont care for fish much and i swear if that becomes my next go to food i will seriously be shocked!!!!

I thought i was craving the pb and beans because i was lacking a certain vitamin or protein or somethin too...maybe it was my body tellin me i needed somethin...only thing is there are 100 different ways to get protein or fiber so why did my body crave these things lol. oh well the bean binge continues lol.

Maybe its the texture...? refried beans and pb have (and look) really similar qualities.

Remember not to feel like you "can't have anything"

I subsitute regular potato chips for Lay's Light brand and they are half the calories. Same taste no different.

By just switching to healthy versions of the same food and cutting out all Soda and 70% less caffeine I have lost 10 pounds in 2 weeks.

Keep it up!

haha I have weird cravings like that too! I have been craving bean burritos like mad lately (refried bean thing). Before that, I was craving hamburgers and I'm not even a fan of red meat, but I was wanting hamburgers all the time. And before that, I was craving butter, not margarine, but butter. Since I normally eat healthy foods, I figured if my body is asking for it, it must be something it needs....its not like you are craving twinkies, as one of the other commenters noted :)