Fit Me Forever Podcast
Fit Me Forever Podcast
#32 - Learn to Navigate Your Cravings
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In today's episode we are talking all about cravings!!
This is the number one struggle when it comes to sticking to any healthy nutrition protocol long term. What if you could avoid having them all together ?!
Here's a few points that we cover today:
- What causes cravings?
- How do you get rid of them?
- Moving from deprivation to a lifestyle
Check your:
- Sleep
- Stress
- Being well fed
Reference Podcast #9 - Cravings vs Emotional Eating
Next Steps:
Receive updates and learn more at: AgingStrongLife.com
Send any questions or comments to: jodie@agingstronglife.com
Hi, welcome to the fitbit forever podcast, hosted by the Omni fit. We're about all things fitness. We help women get off the Diet roller coaster, define sustainable health, embracing life right where you are on the way to where you're going. Welcome to the podcast. I'm coach Jodie v, a certified nutrition coach who specializes in helping women become physically and mentally strong to regain energy for a life they love. I would like to welcome my cohosts Kayla Duncan, owner of the Omni fit and fellow colleague and nutrition coach Taylor blocks and together we are the Omni fit. Hey ladies,
Speaker 2welcome back to the company forever. Podcasts. This is coached ODB and I'm here with Kayla and tailored. Today. We're talking about how to navigate your cravings. Cravings come up almost every single conversation we have with the ladies that we coach in our facebook group, emails, all kinds of conversations that we have and so we thought it would be an excellent opportunity to really talk about that. I know one thing for me is that as the seasons start to change, no matter what it is, whether it's spring to summer or summer to fall or fall, the winter, my appetite changes and my cravings changed. What about you guys?
Speaker 3Oh, definitely. Based on different experiences or what's going on in my environment. Um, yeah, cravings are, you know, it's so interesting. We've talked before about cravings versus being hungry, being able to identify if those are emotional eating or, or if we're actually hungry and craving food or what it is. So it's interesting because when people seem to try to navigate what this is, what comes to mind is that impulse, like a craving is like an impulse. It's like, do I want that right now? And we have to make that decision in that moment to just succumb to it. Go get the donut or driving by or driving by the donut place on the way to the dirt after the gym or, or whatever it is. Eat the chocolate or. Yeah. Oh yeah. I'm talking about you. If you guys don't know Jodie story, that's um, I don't know what podcast that is, but the last one, either one or two podcasts ago, we talked a lot about our habits and our patterns of behavior and, and so when I think about learning to navigate cravings, I can almost replace cravings with impulses, learning to navigate those impulses that we have and when they arise, what triggers that? I also think of just our recent podcast about habits. A lot of that can be habitual really. It could be so habitual with, you know, the seasons changing, fall's coming up, so everything. Pumpkin is going to come back, you know, like, or that piece of chocolate or recipe that you always make during your cycle, that kind of thing. So a lot of those are habitual and it's just tuning into that and why that's actually happening.
Speaker 2The interesting thing too is I think about, you know, sometimes I really just am hungry, but in that hungry I want something specific and that is very different than not being hungry and I'm eating something that is triggering for another emotion or a stressor or that sort of thing because I think that it's going to bring me really, right. So there's that whole element of cravings. It's like almost peel back the curtain and start at what number one, what are you craving and why are you craving it? Like there's a lot of different reasons for that. Um, and then is craving bad? That's a question I think we have to kind of answer for our listeners and podcast today. It's like, is it bad or like how do we navigate it?
Speaker 3So when you guys think good or bad, I, I think that's good. I think we, we often have the tendency as people to identify whether it's the food that we're craving or what it is that's causing that impulse to have food on our mind at all is that it is good and bad. That is craving chocolate, bad and craving chicken would be good. No, it doesn't matter. I mean, there's plenty of times. I'm sure you guys can relate. I'm craving Italian or I'm craving a Mexican dish and what it is. I mean, I could, I could make two choices within that craving that's arisen by going to the Mexican restaurant and getting know full fat re fried beans and tomatoes or whatever, or maybe while I'm grocery shopping, I can prepare and satisfy that craving with those flavors that I'm desiring and to be completely honest, when I learned how to um, navigate those cravings with not even substituting, but what's filling that with a, with a choice that's going to serve me rather than a choice that's going to make my belly hurt later or make me feel guilty or whatever. Um, it's not only more satisfying, satisfying to my palate, but it's more satisfying in general because I'm not left thinking about that decision. It's just a decision that I made and then I just move on. I just have tacos for dinner versus having breakfast for dinner or whatever.
Speaker 2So what does it, Taylor? I was thinking about this a couple of podcasts ago, we were talking about this too. It's like what do we like, what steps do we use to help clients or people step away from the judgment behind
Speaker 3a craving,
Speaker 2like, you know, just kind of getting unemotional about it and being able to identify it for what it really is. Like how, how do we move away from the judgment?
Speaker 3Yeah. And I think the biggest thing is just being, it's, it's so hard, especially as women, we have to be objective with choices and not have them be so emotionally driven. Um, and so that's, that's the biggest thing. And like you're Kayla, it's all about those choices that are not going to the privates but are going to serve our lifestyle by that conscious navigation in each decision. And there's nothing wrong with enjoying something because you are looking forward to it. And if you make that decision, it is a healthy decision that you're consciously making that's objective versus totally putting a bandaid on it saying, nope, I don't want it. And that's not solving anything. But if you make that choice and enjoy it, don't overdo it, and it's a healthy, healthy decision and just cutting emotional ties with that. Um, and just really tuning into why you're trying to make those decisions. Why are you trying to avoid. It kind of leads us to the whole idea of conscious navigation when you're conscious you don't have to be judging it or, or the thing about, um, you know, I'm just kind of cutting yourself up because you desire something as pointless to go, why am I, why am I craving that again? Or why do I want that again? We just want what we want. So moving from that, moving to making it a lifestyle, you know, conscious navigation and strategic choices we talk about. So how do we help people do that? Well, I think it's moving from that deprivation mindset of going, I can't have this because that's quote unquote bad, or what's common is saying it's not clean. We've all heard the statement, I've even said it myself, I'm eating cleaner. It makes me feel better. And then I laugh because I've seen memes about like cleaning food with clorox or something like that. Is that apple cleaner than that know whatever plate of Nachos because I cleaned it with clorox, but. And we laugh about that and I hopefully, hopefully you guys listening, is that humor. You Go, Oh yeah, I've totally done that because I've been before catching myself, making those statements that just aren't true. And so I think we have to step back and recognize that, well, that's not true. So we have to set aside the wrong belief and replace it with what is true and saying that there is not good or bad food because what Broccoli. Let's say that for example, it's a common known quote unquote healthy food, but it also is a culprit of a lot of digestive distress for a lot of people, including myself. So Broccoli might not be a good choice for me and in fact chocolate makes me feel better than Broccoli and it serves me better because I'm not going to have digestive distress. But how I make those choices, how I navigate those is where you move from that deprivation mindset of going, I can't have. I can't have two. What happens if I do have? And I think that's where we help people with this is where you listeners can adopt these strategies and principles and go, what happens if you do stop by that restaurant or that place? I'll use myself as an example. Last night I'm at summertime here in New England and there's ice cream shops on every corner and I'll be totally honest, when jody and Taylor came and visited, it was like, oh, let's go grab some ice cream. It's a really hot night. And we were having record breaking heat times and by the way it was close to 10 because we raced over to the ice cream shop to make sure that they close and it was so great. But similarly, Jodie, how you've told the story about like stopping to get the donut and every time I would pass out ice cream stop, I felt the need to stop and grab ice cream. And so then I found myself when I was in the grocery store, I'm like, why don't want to spend money on, you know, the $5 one serving ice cream, let me buy a pint and I'll pace myself. And then nothing really tastes good. Like store bought ice cream, just sit taste good. And so finally last night I was like, I'm trying to replace this, what I really want, which is just honestly I'm satisfied with a couple spoonfuls, about an hour after dinner, I just want a little something. It's hot here. Why am I trying to replace that with something that I am calling healthier or cheaper or whatever. So it. But my favorite ice cream place, I got a little cohort of my favorite ice cream that I would have purchased. And then I stuck it in the freezer and I had a couple of spoonfuls. And what I was able to learn from that, and I was thinking about how we were going to be recording this podcast today, articulating that that strategy is going, what did I learn about myself during that time? Even if it's not deprivation from calories, it's deprivation from not wanting to spend money. So what happens when you go window shopping? You want to buy everything because you now you're on a budget. Like, no, we do the same thing with our food. If we're budgeting our calories or like, no, I have to eat everything or I can't have this, or I think it's just having that abundance mindset opposite of deprivation that allows us to move into that lifestyle and go, no, if I want it, I will have it. And then staying conscious in that process. I'm not swiping my credit card, buying endless amounts of shoes and workout gear and everything and not being conscious. I'm thinking about what I'm buying and I'm liking it and I'm enjoying it and I'm satisfied and I move on and I don't spend my life thinking about it. You know, it's just the whole idea too is moving from that good and bad judgement thing too. Food is fuel. Um, sometimes it's like that you just want a bite of something good, like a good quality ice cream, let site and it is only three or four bites and you're so satisfied, but you give me a court or pine or whatever it is of Halo. I could probably eat three of those because it just doesn't satisfy me. And so there's different things like that, um, you know, a hundred calorie bag of whatever and maybe I just only need one or two real oreos. I don't know what
Speaker 2it is. But ultimately, you know, food is fuel and when you look at it, a molecule of glucose, carbohydrates and carbohydrates, proteins or protein, does your body really distinguish, you know, I mean obviously if you're not a whole lot of sugar and insulin response and all that kind of stuff isn't super good, but managing that and making choices that are appropriate for where you're at, it's totally okay. And it's about learning yourself and then practicing those habits. And this is where we just know, like dieting, you know, trying to overcome diet, which is, we're going to talk about, I know in the next podcast where we record why dieting doesn't work, is that you've got to give yourself these spaces to enjoy a real life without going overboard and there is a balance to be able to do that. Um, and part of that too is just the, um, you know, just going from what, how do you see yourself right at the moment and change behaviors that are congruent to the goals that you want to, to have. I mean, at the time going by the Dunkin donuts from the previous story, like every single time after workout really probably wasn't congruent to my goals, you know, in the long run. So it's like how do you begin to align those behaviors? And there's only one way I, you do that. And that's through practice. So let's, let's talk about the whole idea of practicing and learning. I'm learning those mindsets.
Speaker 3Yeah. I think one of the most freeing things somebody can, can live in is when you still have structure with, with you know, your lifestyle, making sure you have enough protein, make sure you have solid mealtimes, but also not looking forward to that one time where you can enjoy something or that one time where you can go gung Ho and instead making sure that, you know, if some of that is coming up, you can, you can go enjoy that and you can still eat according to your goals all day long. Um, and you know, make room so to speak or, or what have you. There's a lot of different strategies for that. But the biggest thing is you can still enjoy all of those events and instill, have structure. And I think that a lot of people either think it's one way or the other and that's where for I know a lot of our clients, macro counting is a big, is a big strategy that they practice and that we help them with. But also kind of laying that down and practicing more of an intuitive approach. It's going to be hard and it's going to require a lot of sacrifice and a lot of discomfort because you're trying to learn this new lifestyle will kind of ignoring all those hunger cues in your body's biofeedback for a long time while laying back and honestly kind of scaling back to what we first learned our body's natural ability to do those things and so when we go back and start to learn that over again, that's where it can be so freeing and we can start to practice that again. And so that is where, you know, if you want to go enjoy a Mimosa with some with some ladies or some ice cream or something like that, you can still do that, but just be in tune with your body during the whole thing. And I think it's just scaling back and remembering what that all feels like. Again, I think it's super
Speaker 2important to know that, you know, I think when we start, you know, all of this started on this journey when we were counting macronutrients and behind it there's value in both. We're counting macronutrients as well as being intuitive and learning how to practice and navigate between the two of them, what, what macronutrient counting brings to us as an awareness of what's in food and that's super important to the foundation, but the goal isn't that you have to live there and I know we're going to be talking more and more about that as we move on, but it's learning to practice, to navigate so we can enjoy fitness being fit forever as a lifestyle and not being in bondage to any particular system or way.
Speaker 3Yeah. Whenever I think, you know, Taylor, you were talking about structure and being able to still um, experienced life. The word flexibility comes to my mind and moving from its, you have structure, you have a plan in place and outline a skeleton so to speak, but then you have the ability to be flexible within that. Um, I think of like going on vacation and how have the majority of us go on vacation to relax. But I know a lot of people that get bored. Like if you're just sitting there like, okay, the travel day, I want to come in, I don't want to have, but you know, you're going to eat dinner if you're taking your kids on vacation, you know, you're going to have to have some sort of structure, but not many people want to have every single day of vacation planned out to a t, but you have structure and then you get to call the shots. How am I feeling? Do I want to sleep in? Do I want to go to that appointment? You know, whatever it is. Um, and I think about that and compare. One of the things that we try to get you guys to do is take these techniques so to speak, that you do in everyday life. You probably do this at work when you're thinking about your day at work, you got, you got a whole agenda of stuff to accomplish. You know you're not going to get it all done. So you start to prioritize. Take that skill that you use in the workplace and do that with your nutrition. If you're a mom, you're definitely managing things. You're managing kids' schedules, you're managing your own schedule, you're making sure things coincide. You're not double booking, you're taxing people around, but there's going to be flexibility
Speaker 2within the structure that you create for your family or that you uphold for your family. So take those same skills and apply those to your own life. You can go grocery shopping, but you might not have to plan out every single dinner, just have some food on hand so that you're capable of making that decision ahead of time and I think that that is where we're able to move from an practice and get into those bumping up against those boundaries that you set for yourself and jody when you talking about judgment, judging our cravings, and then judging how your body responds to this flexibility because if you're comparing your ability to be flexible with my ability to be flexible, so to speak or Taylorsville, it'd be to be flexible. Your sister, whatever. I'm constantly getting feedback back. Like, I mean, I hear you coach, but I just, I really wish that I could do what someone else does and we kind of have to like just shake ourselves for a second and be like, why can't do anything about that? And you can't do anything about that. You can't do anything about how your body responds to Broccoli or how your body responds to eating more sugar, whatever, you know or like own your life. One of the things I always work on with clients about this is like we know that to counteract cravings, regular meal times are super, super important when you're well fed and properly fed and you're under stress and that kind of thing, you will have less tendency to have cravings when your wealth and then when you're running out the house, you know, in the morning was like Michelle talked about her podcast or redbull and a donut when I interviewed her, you know, type of thing. So when we know that when you're well fed, um, that you're not going to have those as well, but what your life looks like, it's going to be different than somebody else's. So we work with clients when I talk to clients all the time, it's like, okay, what does your workday look like? What does your day look like? Just plan ahead and go, you know what? Maybe you can't eat every four hours or whatever, but you know you're going to have a time period here and here and here. How can you maximize that for your lifestyle? Like I got 30 minutes between the time I leave work and I've got to pick up the kids and get them to soccer practice or whatever. Well, how am I going to plan if that's my only time they eat between then and when I get home after soccer practice and it's witching hour. The kids are starving. I'm like just grazing or whatever. We know that's not going to set you up for success. So find those places in your day that will best serve you well to serve your body well and feed it at that time. I mean, there are more optimal things and others, but you've got to work with what you've got, you know, start where you are with what you have and do what you can is a lot of times what I like to just tell people and that's what we did. What would you say are some examples, some common examples that you've seen overlap between, um, people moving from that chaos to try to find some sort of structure? Um, what are some common things that maybe the listeners can evaluate their own life and go, oh yeah, I could probably do the same thing that she did. Well, first of all, I think about having food on hand and you know, decent food on hand, um, because again, when you go back to if you want to change behaviors, you need to have things that are in place that are with those objectives and those behavior changes. So I feel like food shopping is super important. Is there some time in your weekly schedule, whether you're single, you have a family, whatever your situation looks like that you will consistently go food shop and you know that might be 10:00 at night because that's the only time you can get and that's the most convenient time that you can get through the store in 20 minutes or whatever it is. I always ask people peel back when is it that you can get the resources you need at the time you need it so that you can begin to prepare for whatever that day or next couple of days or weeks look like. That's really great. And since we're on the grocery shopping topic, some really quick grabs, um, to have on hand are in the egg section. There's usually a bag of six boiled eggs. Just grab a bag like this is so great. I've pretty much always have some in my fridge or I'm getting some. I'm especially running around like crazy because I always think I'm going to have time to boil some eggs and I never do. And then I'm upset about it. Yeah. And I would say not only just being prepared, but going back to what your body actually needs at that time and just realizing how big of an impact, you know, lack of sleep or lack of proper nutrition, just scaling back and realizing what does your body need right now that you're neglecting and managing your stress. That's a huge, that's a huge deal. A lot of white people start to make those decisions is because of their stress and they are not knowing how to be able to control that and handle that. And so I think that is also a big, a big underlying cause to this trajectory that people tend to go on and talk about cravings, sleep and stress are the two top triggers every single time and then not being well fed. So honestly, those are the top three, if you just step back and ask yourself those questions, what is my current sleep pattern look like? Where am I at seasonal life, stress wise? And um, you know, how can I be better fed? I mean, those three things are super huge to the whole craving factor. Um, and, and I know more, you know, 10, nine out of 10 times when we started digging, you know, peeling back in conversations with clients that say it's one of those
Speaker 3three, I would say a really great takeaway from this short conversation today is when you're talking about learning to navigate your cravings, look at those categories, sleep overall stress, and if you're being well fed and just take a look at the next time that your, those cravings are arising or you're feeling really impulsive, did you get enough sleep? When's the last time you ate? What's going on in your life emotionally, physically that could be causing additional stress and start to tackle the one that is influencing your cravings the most because we talk a lot about the domino effect and kind of choosing the one thing that is going to impact the next thing. Pretty simply lets you sleep. For an example. If sleep is the true culprit for your cravings, you can go grocery shopping, you can have Eczema, you can do all the right things and those cravings are not going to go away until you actually address the sleep. And if you had addressed the sleep in the beginning, you probably wouldn't be stressing about having more food on hand or eating the right kind of ice cream or whatever it is. All these other things that we've kind of been cycling through that are helpful. If foundationally what is the true problem is your sleep for your stress or being and and everybody has to take those three questions individually. It doesn't look the same for everybody. And so that kind of moves us from exercising that willpower to becoming more aware. What is it that you actually need? We've offered, you know, a ton of techniques and strategies and we can give you tons of lifts and downloads and guides, but ultimately you have to be aware of what your body needs. Because as God repeats so often is that willpower is an exhaustible resource. It's going to run out and when you're tired, when you're stressed, when you're hungry, there's not a lot of willpower. I went grocery shopping hungry last night and it was terrible. It was terrible. Mitchell was literally like, okay, are you hungry? Like, are you. And I'm like, I'm hungry. I'm just curious. It could have, it was on my list though and I do make a grocery list. I try to stick really hard and not be, but we always go grocery. We often go grocery shopping together and, and I'm starting to grab things like, oh, I need this and I need this. And he's like, are you hungry? Like, yeah, but I'm going to make this for dinner to the later this week. And he's like, no, no. So funny when when Scott and I were dating, we had just such a busy, busy work lives. Literally our Friday night date we'd go have dinner and then we go to the Walmart in each, grab a buggy and like get our groceries and then say goodbye and you know, I take my groceries, he'd take his home. This is kind of funny how like that was the only time we could get into both, like, okay, be together and get a, get a chore done. Actually way better to at nighttime. He missed the rushes earlier. It's like I can, we can be in and out in minutes. Totally. Um, so overall guys, the, what we're trying to offer you is strategies and skills, but ultimately we want to encourage you and challenge you to be more self aware. That's how you're going to know what your body needs. And of course we can help you narrow down and identify, we do discovery calls all the time with clients with just kind of hone in on exactly where their needs need to be met and what they can work on it. If you're interested in that, we can obviously get you set up, you can just email us@infoattheOmnifit.com. Um, but we hope from this takeaway, just learning how to navigate those cravings by focusing on those three big categories of sleep stress and being well fed and helping you move from deprivation into a lifestyle and from having to exercise your willpower into becoming more aware because self controls and muscle to and it gets tired and all of that will probably take care of the cravings. Absolutely. Out of control cravings anyways. Yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 1Well, there you have it guys. Thank you so much for joining in to another episode of the fit me forever podcast. If you guys have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out via email@infoattheOmnifit.com, and of course, please connect with us on social media. All of our handles are instagram and facebook are both at the Omni fit, and if you like this kind of content, if you like what we're putting out, please rate us on itunes and stitcher. That helps other people find us and it lets us know that we're putting out content that you enjoy. All right, talk to you guys soon.