A lot of us are scared of our food cravings.
As soon as a food craving comes up, we either try to distract ourselves—by running a bath, going for a walk, or calling a friend—or we give in to the craving immediately, feeling powerless to it.
Why we feel so out of control around our cravings is because we haven’t taken the time to understand them.
I’m here to give you three simple steps you can implement today that will help you conquer your cravings once and for all.
Acknowledge your cravings.
Consciously say to yourself, “I’m craving (insert craving) right now.” Because you are, right?
We have this fear that if we acknowledge we have a craving, it’s going to overwhelm us and make us reach for that food.
The opposite is true.
When you deny a food craving by distracting yourself and pretending it doesn’t exist, it creates more resistance and pull between you and that food, making you crave it even more (and inevitably reach for it later).
Once you acknowledge you have that craving, it reduces the resistance between you and that food, allowing you to relax a little bit more around that food.
When you’re relaxed, you can think clearer and move on to step two.
Analyze your food cravings.
Look deeper into the craving you have. Invite curiosity to the table, go inward, and ask yourself some reflection-based questions.
“Why am I craving chocolate right now?”
“Did I eat enough during the day?”
“Have I had enough water today?”
“Did I get enough sleep last night?”
“Is there something emotional going on right now that is making me crave chocolate in this moment?”
“Am I feeling bored?”
“What am I hoping chocolate will provide me in this moment?”
“Did I eat enough during the day?”
“Have I had enough water today?”
“Did I get enough sleep last night?”
“Is there something emotional going on right now that is making me crave chocolate in this moment?”
“Am I feeling bored?”
“What am I hoping chocolate will provide me in this moment?”
Analyzing and going deeper into that craving to see what’s there gives us more information to work with.
From there we can move on to step three.
Allow yourself to decide.
Allow yourself the opportunity to consciously decide, given the new information you have, whether you want to have the food you’re craving or not.
Perhaps what came up from step two was that you are feeling bored and want to reach for chocolate to perk you up. With this information, you can now make a conscious choice as to whether you want to go ahead and follow through with your food cravings.
Sometimes you may want to eat the chocolate anyway, just because.
Sometimes you may consciously decide, “No, I’m not going to eat the chocolate. I know I’d only be eating it because I’m bored, and then I’ll have two problems to deal with…my boredom and feeling ill from the chocolate. I’m going to investigate this boredom and find something fun for me to do instead.”
Making this conscious choice is super empowering.
It means we are no longer in a fear-based relationship with food, but instead we are in a conscious, healthy relationship with it.
Instead of running away scared, we are taking responsibility for our food cravings and for what is going into our bodies. It’s really important we consciously decide what we want to do from a place of responsibility and ownership of our cravings.
So there you have it:
Acknowledge. Analyze. Allow.
IMAGE: MELISSA RICCARDI
IMAGE: AUTHOR'S OWN
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