<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>>
 
Note:  I am not a physician.   Just a celiac who, by using optimized
nutrition and supplements regained 32 lbs (all of it healthy) in under 6
weeks after going GF.   I firmly believe that merely going GF is not enough
- celiacs need to pay special attention to nutrition.
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It is no secret that humans have feedback mechanisms that lead us to crave
certain foods that are high in nutritional elements we are short in. *
The strong and specific carvings often experienced in pregnancy (a time of
very high nutritional demands) are well known examples of this.
 
My theory on why we crave WHAT we crave to satifsfy a nutritional
deficiency is this:   Obviously you can't crave what you don't know.  So
when you experience a deficiency you crave a food  which you have eaten
often enough in the past to have "trained" your appetite to "know" that it
contains the nutrient in which you are deficient.     Perhaps this
"training" requires that the food has been eaten at a time when the body is
low in the nutrient (and so can have "appreciated" the ability of the food
to supply the nutrient).  So you would be expected to crave a food you have
either eaten a number of times OR perhaps one you ate on only one or a few
occassions but that (those) occassion(s) were when you were low on the
nutrient.
 
This idea has important implications:
If your diet in general is low in the nutrient in question (resonably
likely if you have a deficiency),  then the food that you crave may be
REALTIVELY (to your diet) high in it, but, in absolute terms, not all that
high.   Thus you might need fairly large amounts of food to satisfy the
craving (and a LOT of extra calories = more weight).  IF this is true, then
you would expect that a different food, one much higher in the nutrient,
could satisy the deficiency (and cravings) in much lower amounts and
without the weight gain.  Supplements might even remove the craving without
any extra calories at all.
 
I have found that this seems to be so in my case.   If I start to crave
something, I look it up to find out what nutrient(s) it is relatively high
in.   (I double check this by looking up1 deficiency symptoms of those
nutrients to see if I have had any of them.   Very often I have.)   I then
eat something (healthy) that is VERY high in that (those) nutrients.
Voila!   The craving goes away (Often by eating a food MUCH healthier than
the one craved.)    Thus you can use your intellectual knowledge to
"retrain" your appetite toward healthier foods.
 
Your food cravings (when prompted by deficiencies and not psychological
needs) are an important tool for identifying nutritional deficiences.
 
In my personal experience, cravings for fatty foods (when not
psychologiaclly based as cravings for sweet fatty foods often are in our
society**) often arise from a need for essential fatty acids.   Try foods
high in EFA's2 and cut out the saturated fats (and sugars).
 
WHAT you eat is probably more important than (and even determines!) how
MUCH you eat.
 
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* It should be noted that nutritional difficiencies are not the ONLY reason
we get cravings.
**  If you suspect that is the case, try joining groups and relating to
people that have a positive effect on your feelings of self-worth.
1.  Try "Nutrition Almanac"   by McGraw-Hill
2.  Read "Fats & Oils"  or "Fats that Heal, Fats that Kill"  by Udo Erasmus
,   Alive Books,  7436 Fraser Park Drive, Burnaby, BC, Canada V5J5B9