Is Your Food Plan Hard to Follow? by Joan Kent, PhD
Here’s one reason you may have trouble sticking with your food plan.
Let’s start here: Do you have food cravings? And are the cravings specifically for sugary foods and other junk?
Next: Do you give in to the cravings by eating the foods you crave, especially sugar? If you answered “yes,” it’s possible that your way of handling cravings is actually creating more cravings.
Not Always Hormones or Stress
It’s easy to blame premenstrual hormones, stress or something else, but eating sugar when you crave it is a virtual guarantee that you’ll crave it again – later that day, the next morning, other times of the day, and possibly for two or more days after you’ve had it.
No, this isn’t the case for everyone. Some people really do have a take-it-or-leave-it reaction to sugary foods.
Still, food cravings are common. And it seems to be common “wisdom” that the way to deal with those cravings is to eat a little bit of whatever you crave.
I seriously question the wisdom of that perspective. Yes, of course, eating what you crave will take away a craving – after all, you just ate what you craved.
But the cravings will return – often stronger than before. You may be setting yourself up for these future cravings, and almost guaranteeing that they become too strong to resist.
What to Do Instead
This approach takes self-discipline when you have a craving, but stay with me. For short-term craving relief, here’s a solution before I’ve proposed before – and I stand by it.
Take 1 teaspoon of liquid B-complex when you have a craving. (First check with your doctor to be sure this solution is appropriate for you.)
Use B-complex, rather than any individual B vitamin.
Give the B-complex a few minutes – really! – to do its work.
Get on with your life, craving-free.
Plan Not-B
Now let’s say your doctor has told you not to use B-complex, or you don’t have B-complex available when a craving strikes. What’s an alternative?
Eat a little high-fat food – even something you might not consider particularly healthful. Examples can include nuts (roasted and salted are fine), cheese, guacamole, or some other high-fat fare.
Combine those fats with a small amount of starch (most people say “carbs”). If you feel that won’t be enough, add something hot and spicy. This is one reason guacamole will work well.
In any case, the combination will modify your brain chemistry so it resembles the brain chem you’d create by eating sugar – only you’ll bypass the addictive response you would have to sugar.
It’s a surprisingly good deal.
If I could do one and only one thing for my clients (and my non-clients), I’d love to communicate the absolute foolishness of eating what you crave – especially if the food is addictive.
A self-perpetuating cycle is characteristic of food addictions – and it’s not worth the taste of sugar, which will only keep the cycle going.
If you’d like help eliminating cravings or even quitting sugar for good, that’s what I do. Just visit www.LastResortNutrition.com and grab your free Empowered Eating Consult. Discover how easy it is to regain control, increase your energy, and feel fantastic. You can do this!
Brought to you by Dr. Joan Kent, best-selling author of Stronger Than Sugar: 7 Simple Steps to Defeat Sugar Addiction, Lift Your Mood, and Transform Your Health.
