Deconstruct Your Cravings
What are you really craving?
Ever had a long day and couldn’t wait to grab that tub of ice cream to cure it all away?
Are your cravings holding you back from your 2018 goals?
Are they fckn with your fitness goals?
Do you find yourself eating what you want more than what your body needs?
What are you really craving?
Anytime we crave a certain food it is because something else is missing in our lives. When we think about the foods that we are craving, we need to also ask ourselves, what do we desire, what would make us feel most passionate? Most alive? The answers are usually right in our cravings. We all just want to feel fulfilled, valued, joyful. We want to feel radiant, alive, and golden.
Then eat more radiant, fresh, light, fulfilling, enjoyable food. Before we discuss diet though, I recommend making some changes in your life. Apply for that job you’ve always wanted or imagined yourself to be in. Finish the book you’re reading, it might bring in more inspiration, adventure or knowledge to your life. Try out that new workout class you’ve been putting on the back burner.
Now, back to diets. Don’t just try a new diet to get rid of your cravings but instead listen to your cravings.. Address them. A lot of diets fail because they don’t teach you how to listen to your body. They tell you what to do and what not to eat like a bossy bitch instead of trusting you to make the best judgement for what your body truly needs. They don’t teach you which foods make you feel good or which foods make you tired or grumpy. And they damn sure don’t help you identify which foods make you feel bad.
Solution: Mindful eating. Being more intuitive with what you’re eating means building a mind-body relationship with food. Become more in-tuned with your body’s natural hunger signs. Take a moment to listen to your body. Listening to your body helps you build a connection with your body’s real version of hunger and fullness cues. Start to write down how certain foods make you feel. Begin to notice which foods are giving you energy and which foods are leaving you drained. It’s all about learning to trust yourself to make your own decisions around what to eat or how much to eat. We all have healing, loving, powerful energies already in us and this is the time to take your power back from food. This is your body, your food, your world.
Are you willing to sit in your loneliness or do you prefer to eat it away? Are you willing to do the inside work? Are you willing to make the commitment to transforming not only your diet, but your lifestyle? Cz it’s mad easy to eat your feelings.
Comfort foods give you a boost of dopamine and serotonin, two feel-good neurotransmitters that serve as antidepressants making it so easy to eat into our feelings then to confront them.
Solution: Stock your pantry with healthy feel-good foods. Add more fruits, more whole-grain foods, nuts, soups, and more greens. Spinach, celery, yogurt, oatmeal, almonds, sesame seeds, kefir, tofu and beans are some great foods to start with.
I suggest you add in more self care remedies too. Run a warm bath, get familiar with your vibrator, go to bed earlier, make more time to go to food shopping.
I just finished an amazing book that I highly recommend anybody who eats to read titled, Women, Food, and Desire by Alexandra Jamieson and I quote, “Cravings for crunchy foods is often related to unexpressed frustration and anger. The hard crunching and grinding provides a satisfying physical release of tension.”
Think about it. Why do you think you’re craving fried, crunchy foods? Some nights we really just crave companionship or a nurturing conversation not the crunchy chips and fried foods.
Solution: Transform your habit and instead of reaching for the junk food, take a walk, enjoy the outdoors, or maybe call an old friend. Also, adding more water and more sleep to your diet (about 7-8 hours a night) will help with dehydration and feeling more energized throughout the day.
Remember: Cravings is not hunger and they are controlled by your brain. Cravings is your body’s way of communicating with you. See it as your body’s love language. What you eat on the regular is going to be what your body craves the most at first. It’s hard to crave vegetables when you barely eat them. Adding more vegetables into your diet will be satisfying what your body really needs and it will transform it into a want.
Solution: Wait it out. Most cravings pass after 15-30 minutes.
But never go a long time without eating. You’ll go hangry (hungry + angry) and start reaching for anything available. After 5-6 hours your blood sugar would drop and you’d crave sugary and carby food. Instead, add some fiber. Fiber helps to control your blood sugar so eating more rich fruits and vegetables like spirulina, apples, apricots, bananas, kale, avocado, chard, celery, carrot, and beetroot will help you transform this craving.
Transform your diet and you transform your cravings by adding more:
Fruits. You can make some awesome smoothies with the right combo of fruits. This is great for your sugar cravings. I love stocking up on berries (goji, straw, blue, black, rasp, etc).
Adding a plant-based protein powder to your fruit smoothies will not only calm your cravings but it will have you feeling full for longer. My favorite plant-based protein is Orgain (vanilla bean) because it tastes really good with all types of fruit and vegetables like spinach and kale.Sautéed veggies. Start training your body to crave the goods things in life. Adding more veggies to each plate will help your mind and taste buds desire vegetables.
Protein. Adding salmon, lean turkey or chicken helps burn fat as fuel. For all my vegetarians and vegans, you can eat tempeh, beans, lentils, chickpeas, peanuts, almonds for your protein leaving you both satisfied and full.
Fiber. Whole grain breads (Ezekiel bread, flaxseed bread, rye bread, oat beat, whole-wheat bread), brussel sprouts, broccoli, chia seeds, pears, chickpeas, artichoke.
In order to stay productive, strong, high-functioning, and powerful we need to feed our bodies the right foods. So I say that to say this: Start mindfully choosing foods that will make you feel good about yourself. Trust yourself around food. You know exactly what your body needs. Listen to the body’s desire for the right kind of food. Believe that you are in control with your relationship with food. Our bodies are designed to efficiently, smooth and from a state of aligned wellness. And I get it, learning to trust yourself doesn’t happen overnight. You must build a habit from it. Take note every single day and ask yourself does this food agree with me? Does it serve me? Does it serve my body? Does it make me feel good? Without it, how would I feel? Or am I eating because I’m stressed? Or overwhelmed? Or tired? Or unfulfilled? Now, how do I want this food to make me feel? Do I want to feel centered? Grounded? Loved? What is it that I want?
Discover who you are and confront how you feel. You gotta get to know your body in order to feel confident in your skin, your temple, and your life. Making a practice out of mindful eating will set you free and align you with your greatest desires. Once you get clear on how you want to feel, how you want food to make you feel, then you can step into a place where eating becomes infused with satisfaction, pleasure, and purpose. Now that is fulfilling.
