What’s up?!
Today’s blog is all about those relentless sugar cravings! I know so many of us struggle with these brutal monsters and I’m here to tell you not all of it has to do with our willpower.
Who’s with me here, I’m sitting on the couch after dinner, trying so hard to ignore those sugar plum fairies dancing in my head and all I want are those left over donuts on the counter. “Kim! Eat me please.” I try desperately to avoid the chocolate begging for me and distract with TV, gum or a book and yet, I still want it! Ugh. I know you get the feeling. It’s like this yes, no, yes no back and forth and before we know it we cave.
Screw it, I tell myself and go to the kitchen, grab the donut box and tell myself I’m only going to have a bite. Before I know it, I look down and most of them are either half eaten or GONE. 🙁 Then the mental mind F games start to roll like a movie reel and all the self criticism voices follow soon thereafter with the typical mental beatdown:
“Why can’t I get it together?”
“Why did I just do that?”
“Omg, I’m such a fatass.”
“How am I ever going to manage this?”
All to familiar isn’t it? Well, let me tell you this….this type of behavior rarely has to do with willpower. Isn’t it common for us to think, “Oh, well those fit people don’t struggle with willpower. They can always say no to bad foods and they have a stronger mindset that I do.”
Not necessarily! I consider myself pretty fit and I have those cravings along with the rest of us and while I can occasionally control them, if my stress levels are elevated forget about it!
Here’s the deal-elo.
1. The food FOMO keeps us trapped. Let’s face it, when we think we can’t have something, we want more of it don’t we? Like I’ve mentioned before, let’s say we tell our kids NO to cookies, they cry and beg wanting them even more don’t they? I can speak from experience that the times my mom only kept rice cakes and fruit in the house, all I wanted to do was go to my friends house to binge on cheese and chips. Enter the abundance mindset. Telling ourselves we can always come back to the food is incredibly important to help take the edge off. Why? Think of those times when we’re trying to diet and we have a list of forbidden foods, we idolize those foods and before we know it, we binge and can’t get enough of them. (Like the box of donuts) Sure, it tastes good at the moment but we feel like crap afterwards don’t we? Instead of telling ourselves this is the LAST time we can have it, how about throwing in a little self compassion and come at it with saying, “Okay, I know I want more right now but I can always come back to it later if I want to.” This takes practice and time but it can be done, I promise!
2. Quit the “all or nothing” approach. How can we ever become successful with food when all we tell ourselves is “oh, come Monday things will be back to plan.” Who’s plan are we even following anyway? We all know diets never work and we’d be lying if we said they did. Think about all those detox approaches that claim to detox our bodies of toxins and cleanse our liver. It’s B.S. Our body has a natural way of detoxifying our organs, we don’t need some juice to do that for us. This is a prime example of the “all or nothing” we do the juice, we go back to eating normal, gain weight, binge because we crave the foods we wouldn’t allow ourselves to have and the cycle repeats itself. Rather than viewing the food as “all or nothing” we have to incorporate the “gray” approach. How do we do this? By taking baby steps, setting aside our fears that we’re going to fail and creating small wins for ourselves. These small wins help our confidence over time and before we know it, we feel like we’ve got this!
3. If our hormones or sleep pattern is off we’re gonna eat the sugar. Think about it, you slept like crap the night before and all you’re thinking about is how you’re going to hit that vending machine come 2pm. We live off the coffee to keep us functioning during work and we want sugar baddddd. Stress is just as bad. Case in point, kids are running around screaming and our brain instantly thinks about that salty crunch in the pantry right? OMG, give me the chips NOW! We have to control our hormones and stress, otherwise we’re bound to get into this stuff. That’s why I’m OBSESSED with this cocoa powder. Metabolic Effect’s powder is the jam and I use it all the time, especially around that time of the month. 🙂 You can purchase the cocao –>here. I swear by it.
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