Laura Schoenfeld: As far as the nutrients that might be an issue if she’s craving cacao, the first one that to me would come to mind would be copper. Cocoa or cacao, chocolate in general, is very high in copper, and it’s possible that she could have some level of copper deficiency if she’s craving that much cacao. Magnesium, again, could be an option for some people, but it looks like she is getting plenty of magnesium. I mean, 800 milligrams is even possibly excessive. I don’t know if that was a dose that you had recommended or this is just what she’s taking. I usually don’t like to supplement magnesium over 400 to 600 milligrams for a long-term dosage, and that’s just because magnesium in excess can potentially put other minerals out of balance. You just want to be careful about overdoing magnesium.
She’s on low-carb Paleo and she’s physically active. She’s not sleeping well, and she has chronic constipation. This doesn’t necessarily have to do with the cacao, but I would say—and it sounds like you’re already kind of at this point anyway—but it sounds like increasing her carb intake could definitely help with the chronic constipation. I see a lot of clients that are constipated on low carb. It’s very common.
As far as sleeping properly, you have two issues here: One, a lot of people have sleep issues on low carb, especially if she’s undereating. If she’s really active and she’s not eating enough, she’s going to have high levels of stress hormones in order to keep her blood sugar steady, and that’s possibly going to affect her sleep. So make sure she’s eating enough. Make sure she’s eating an appropriate amount of carbs for whatever kind of physical activity she’s doing. If she’s just walking, she probably doesn’t need a ton, but if she’s doing any sort of weight training or running or anything like that, then she should be eating more. And especially for the constipation, she’s definitely going to benefit from some extra carbs there. Then with the cacao, it is possible that the cacao is overstimulating as well. Chocolate and cacao have both caffeine and a compound called theobromine in them, and theobromine is not exactly like caffeine, but it can be stimulating like caffeine is. If she’s eating a lot of cacao every single day, then it’s possible that she’s getting an excessive amount of stimulation of things like adrenal or cortisol, and that could be affecting her sleep.
It sounds like you’re, like I said, on the right track, trying to increase her carbs. With the cacao, I honestly would look into copper, and if she is possibly copper deficient, then eating some liver would be helpful. Liver is another high-copper food that’s a lot more nutritionally balanced then cacao is. I’d also question what it means when she craves cacao. Is it like she can’t physically resist having it? Is it her one treat that she has? I’d talk to her a little bit about what other kinds of foods she’s enjoying. This could be something that is almost more of, again, a disordered eating thing, where she’s restricting so much of her pleasure foods, and she feels like cacao is a healthy replacement for chocolate or whatever other kinds of treats that she might be actually wanting. The cacao craving could actually be more of a response to an overly restrictive diet, and she’s having cravings for junk food or cravings for sugar and she’s using the cacao as a way to put a little bit of a damper on those cravings. Again, just do a little bit of counseling, and see if you can come up with what this cacao craving feels like for her. Is it that she just wants something that is a treat? Or does she feel like the cacao itself is something that’s specifically necessary? There are a lot of different things you can dig into there.