JRK- I certainly think there is a big connection between cravings and needed nutrients (be they micro or macro). Like, a craving for chips could reflect a need for more sodium, as an example. But the issue I have, and always had, with the idea of “overeating” or “over” consuming food is….. why doesn’t the body just get rid of excess calories? It doesn’t have to store them as fat. It could waste them as heat, or eliminate them in urine/feces, or just make you bounce off the walls with energy, like the stereotype of a hyperactive child. Or even just correct it with hunger signals.
I don’t know if you ever saw Mike Fave’s breakdown on this 2003 paper by Wlodek, but I think it makes a lot of sense-
It posits that there is a “block” in energy production (during a part of the Krebs cycle), and this block is what drives fat storage in excess. It can happen at lower calorie intakes (like when people seem to starve themselves, have no energy, and still seem to gain weight), and can also drive so called “overeating” (as leptin signals that there is lots of energy available, but the cells can’t access it, sending out counter signals to drive hunger).
The “block” in energy can be caused by lots of things (like endotoxin, for example), and would go right back to the many of the problematic substances in the food supply that Peat always cautioned about (PUFA, excess iron, estrogenic substances, the inflammatory aminos, and so on). Brad Marshall also suggested that MUFA and high serum BCAAs could also be a part of this sort of “block.” To the degree that something like “The Sugar Fast,” and maybe also the Potato Hack can help to lower things like PUFA, FFAs, serum BCAAs and such, means they could be both good short term tools, that also pay dividends after the fast/hack. Even William Brown experienced this after his no fat diet experiment. He used to suffer from migranes, and they went away during the experiment, and apparently did not return after he resumed a normal diet.
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