How To End Cravings
The Weekly Fill | Holiday Edition: Let's talk about cravings and the real way to overcome them (not just eliminate them).
Halloween is the perfect time to talk about cravings.
I promise it's not to guilt or shame you out of eating your favorite candy today. It's just to help ensure you don't overeat them to the point you feel guilty and shameful.
I'm helping to reduce the guilt and shame, not add to it.
But first, I have to be honest. I'm not a Halloween fan. I'm a "let's start decorating for Christmas on Halloween" person. If you know, you know.
In my perfect world, we'd be home watching a Christmas movie while putting up some twinkling lights. Unfortunately, my family has established and overruled a rule that I can't decorate for Christmas until November 1st.
Instead, tonight, we'll do our fair share of trick-or-treating, including collecting ALL OF THE CANDY.
Even if you don't have kids collecting mounds of candy to bring home, candy is everywhere. If you let it, candy can begin to completely control you.
But, I promise, that bowl of M&M's doesn't hold the power you think it does, even if it feels like it. You hold the power. But how you use that power determines if you grab the handful of candy or pass without noticing its presence.
Let me fill you in and explain the anatomy of a craving, teaching you how to end cravings.
Cravings are a biological response.
It's part of being human. All of us crave from time to time.
Generally, we do so for two reasons:
TO ENCOURAGE YOU TO ENGAGE WITH SOMETHING THAT WILL GIVE YOU ENERGY (Ahem food).
TO CREATE A SENSE OF SAFETY WHEN YOU'RE FEELING UNSAFE (or overwhelmed).
You could also add nostalgia to that mix. Nostalgia goes back to safety and comfort - it brings the warm fuzzies.
Everything in health goes back to your drive for safety and energy. The two work closely together, where one feeds into the other.
Take the cycle of a craving for instance:
It shows that a craving arises almost always out of:
A lack of energy
Stress (or nostalgia)
A craving is a biological desire to fulfill an internal need. This explains why willpower rarely works to get you out of it - a craving is rarely about desire, but it starts from a physiological need.
A craving is rarely about desire. It starts from a physiological need.
That's why attempting to think yourself out of a craving generally leads you to binging. Thinking of what you crave fuels the craving, allowing it to grow.
The best place to get is where you don't even realize you're not having the cravings you used to. You're so removed from the need that it no longer occupies your mind.
But getting there takes work.
You have to do something because the doing provides energy, which supports safety and removes the need.
A few weeks ago, I posted a quote:
"You don't have the energy to work out because you don't work out."
That could be requoted to understand cravings:
"You can't overcome cravings because you don't have energy. You don't have energy because you don't do anything to create it."
That's why I say you do have control over your cravings just in the traditional way you've believed.
You have to fulfill your biological needs!
It's not about willing yourself out of them or attempting to silence or suppress your cravings. It's understanding why you're craving and what you need, fulfilling your body's biological needs so you no longer crave.
All that means is doing something to support energy generation and safety—the lasting keys to health.
I recorded a mini-podcast (roughly 13 minutes) that details how to do this!
Here's a quick clip:
Stop giving in to cravings!
It's not about not giving in to your cravings. It's okay to eat a piece of candy, have a treat, or indulge every now and then. Just don't let it become a pattern.
You know it's a pattern if you've convinced yourself you'll start again on Monday.
If you're here, you have to break the cycle. Breaking the cycle starts long before the cravings arise. As the graphic shows, it happens before your energy drops.
Breaking the cycle happens at the height of the cycle, not at the low. There are many ways to do this.
How to break the cycle of cravings (and the five rules I've established around candy):
Subscribe to the mini-podcast on How to Stop Cravings and the five things I teach my kids below. Think how much money you could make back if you didn't need to buy candy, pop, or as many desserts.
How To Break The Cycle of a Craving:
Pop some headphones in and take a listen to this episode. It will explain a lot.