Cravings.

It's an enormous subject, and it's difficult to write about it in small chunks.

The problem is, it's all interlinked.

Here are the pieces of the puzzle (or, well, some of them at least):
1) craving magnesium
2) craving simple carbohydrates
3) syndrome x: simple carbs and how they affect insulin levels
4) syndrome x: the need for exercise
5) syndrome x: the need for magnesium

When you eat lots of simple carbs your blood sugar, and with that, your insulin levels go up. High levels of insulin in the blood means you absorb less magnesium in the gut, and magnesium is needed to get insulin out of the blood and into cells ... you do the math.
Of course, exercised muscle cells just gobble up the added blood sugar, so if you're well-trained the whole thing is a non-issue. Except that you can still crave simple carbs, in which case, help the liver.

When you don't exercise your insulin levels go up.

When you don't exercise, have a chronic deficiency of magnesium (and chromium, and other nutrients, among them B6), and eat lots of simple carbs, you're facing syndrome x.

After you've faced syndrome x for a while you might be in for adult-onset diabetes, with blindness and amputated toes, feet, and even legs, if things progress far enough.

That's the outline of the problem. And I've managed to get it all to fit blog post size now: it's one post a weekday until they're all done, on November 22.

Enjoy!

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The Hyperinsulinemia series: Cravings - Craving magnesium - Craving carbs - Doing without carbs - Syndrome X - Cell responses to insulin - Syndrome X supplements
Related entries: Hyperinsulinemia - Magnesium levels in foods - Lifestyle troubles.