Hey there, friends, welcome to today’s episode, thank you so much for joining me and I am super happy to be here with you and to dive into cravings today. That is what we’re talking about. So I hope you have a great November so far I am over here, drinking my sparkling water that I forgot about and put in the freezer. After grocery shopping like this will be really great. And I tossed it in the freezer, knowing full well I’m probably going to explode this because I’m gonna forget.
And my husband just got home a couple hours ago and he was like, Do you want this sparkling because it’s very close to exploding was a wonderful guy and brought it on down to me. So my take some of that while we hang out together today as we record this, and we’ll chat about cravings. So yeah, here we are.
Number one, the first thing I want to say is if you have not listened to a previous episode, just a couple episodes back about what I feel is the 80/20 rule or incorporating sometimes foods. And always foods, I would give that a listen first, because that just kind of goes a little bit more over my overarching approach, which if you’re newer here, that would be worth your time to listen to what in general, I think is a healthy Bill’s way of eating, which in a nutshell is 80% whole clean foods, and 20% treats. But within this, you know when we’re all trying to do this, so you’re already on board with that. Maybe you’ve been with me a long time we’ve worked together, cravings are still a real thing that affect all of us. I’ll say so I this is my personal opinion not research. Even more so women, and like our with our hormones at you know, in play, and in the picture. And then you know, pregnant or not pregnant, like cravings are a very common thing and a common obstacle and struggle that I hear my clients dealing with, like Oh, my goodness, like I am committed to this, and I know what I need to do, but then a craving strikes. But how do I know? Should I give into it? Is that part of like, can I work it into the 80/20 thing? Or should I ignore it? Like, what do you think? And I think this is so interesting, because this topics been hit a lot. And there’s a lot of ways you can go with this. And I’ve heard advice from like journal about it to go for a walk or chew gum or whatever. And everybody has, you know, their own opinions. So I’m just going to share with you today kind of what I think, is the best course of action to take here. And sometimes it’s actually allowing yourself to enjoy what you’re craving. And sometimes that’s telling yourself no right now, and that’s kind of my whole approach with this 8020 thing is that sometimes, you know, to actually eat at 20 You do have to tell yourself, no, sometimes, if you’re thinking like I want to donate, and I want kettle chips, and I want ice cream, like you’re gonna end up being 50/50 in your nutrition 50% Hopefully in food and 50% treats and indulgences, right? So it’s always picking and choosing. And then same thing if you’re making sure that you’re balancing out your macros within that. And making sure you get a good amount of carbs, fat and protein, you have to pick and choose some things like you might want are higher in carbs and fat, but you haven’t hit your protein yet today. So you’ve got to prioritize protein like it also comes down to sometimes telling yourself No, right? But what does it look like? Like? Should you should you be fighting or wrestling with these cravings? I do think cravings are a different conversation from emotional eating. Because oftentimes emotional eating like we just get sucked into whatever’s right there. Like we just need to feel in control, or distracted or numb are different reasons why we might emotionally eat. But speaking from my own personal experience, the two have not been the same, like a craving is more like, Ooh, I either hear something and I want that, like you see a commercial. Like I want that right now. Or that’s how it works. We pregnant usually is like seeing it or smelling something that I’m like, oh, I need that right now. Again, this is pregnant or not pregnant. So I think they’re two different conversations. I’m not really talking about emotional eating today have done past episodes on that, but more just about when a craving strikes what to do. So say you do see or smell commercial. Maybe you just are watching football, minding your own business and you see like a taco bell commercial. And you’re like, wow, that looks great to me for some reason. Or, you know, sometimes like they really do, like, what are you actually filming because that is not the same product you’re selling, or whoever it is about right and I’m talking about, but say a craving comes up somehow for a certain food and is not the healthiest it would definitely be in your 20% Treat category.
Alright, number one, especially if this happens to you repeatedly. Like you get really random cravings. Or this would probably be even more if you didn’t see it or smell it. You just got a random craving for something. I would actually to google it, and try to see if your body is telling you it’s deficient in something. Because there are many, you know, signals or writing gives us if we’re like craving Doritos, maybe you’re low in sodium and your body actually needs sodium, or something like that, you know, being low on potassium makes us crave weird things like, especially if this is a recurring thing for you, or a common craving, maybe you just need some electrolytes in your diet, or maybe you need you know, something actually is missing, that is going to actually solve half the problem for you. Okay, so, I mean, best case scenario that happens where you’re like, oh, wow, I looked it up. And I actually just need more sodium, but to hold the sodium any more electrolytes. So I kinda keep doing what I’m doing with salt, salt in my food, and take in some electrolytes like problem solved. Awesome. Okay. But that’s not always the case. not always that easy ended podcast now.
So on to the next, if you have a hankering for a food, that isn’t the healthiest option, again, it would be like in your 20%. And you haven’t planned for it, like you have not worked this into your day. So it would not fit in at 20 or into your week. You know, this would be too much like overdoing it, say you’ve already, you know, had a full day of eating, and you should be full, but you’re not. And now you have a craving for this food, say it’s like nighttime, and you want to chicken finger sub whatever, could you make it healthier? Could you make a healthier version of that. So even though like you know, maybe quote unquote, your calories would be like over you because you haven’t planned for it. And whatever, you are still having a healthier version of the thing or say like you plan your perfect day, that’s going to fit all your macros your carbs, fat and protein. But it gets down to and you just really don’t want it like I did this not too long ago when I got to dinner. And it was some kind of chicken stir fry thing. And I’d already made it like it was really the family I need and they’ll with them because of whatever I had something to go to. So when I came home that’s can also be a factor as time. This is why we tend to crave different things at night. I was eating late is a great example of this and why you shouldn’t do this. And by then I didn’t want the healthy chicken stir fry. I wanted pizza. But I didn’t want to just like go order fast food pizza or something like that. So I made little English muffin pizzas, I had English muffins in the freezer. So you know sauce, cheese, pepperoni. It was not what I had planned to eat that day. I had not planned to plant it in. But it wasn’t the worst thing I could have had. And I definitely saved a lot of calories and carbs and fat by and transplant and all that whatever. The not so great for us fats by making it myself and making it healthier. So I love this is probably my very favorite tip to use for cravings in general is like, Can I make a healthier version of that? You know, pumpkin spice lattes, like huge sugar bomb from Starbucks, whatever. Can I make this healthier? I’m sure you can. I’m sure tic tac has a video for that. But those kinds of things like I love doing cauliflower pizzas, I am a big pizza person. So sometimes we are making real pizzas I’ll make crust from scratch, we’ll do that or we’ll have pizza out now and again. But cauliflower pizza is a great one. When I’m just craving something, I could pop it in the oven. Chicken fingers like if you are a chicken finger person, these are like just some common hankerings I feel like people have you can make a ton of different really good homemade chicken fingers, things like that. So open your mind up to can I make this in a healthier way sometimes to like if I am craving ice cream, we don’t usually just keep ice cream and house. I’ll make my little protein banana ice cream. Because it’s the closest substitute I can get to right. Which leads into if you can, it’s kind of a bonus little tip here.
Try to put some time or difficulty between yourself and the craving. And what I mean by this. I think this is you know why tips in magazines used to say like go for a walk or journal or whatever. Just make it a little harder on yourself, especially in today’s day and age to actually fulfill your craving because right now we have DoorDash and we have drive throughs. And we have all these really easy ways to get the food that we want immediately. And there have been times where I’ve had a craving and thought like I want to go get that right now. But it wasn’t convenient, like I have is home alone with kids. So I’d have to bring the kids out to get it. Or it was late and they’re already in bed but I had this craving and if I just gave into like the robot, I can DoorDash it or oh but I can UberEATS it or whatever. Get it delivered like yeah, I’d have it on my doorstep in like a half hour and then I wouldn’t even have had to think about it. But sometimes the difficulty makes it pass you know, you can’t get into that craving I’ve thought that before I thought like there’s no way I can do this tonight. But tomorrow I’m for sure gonna like order some chicken wings. And then by the time the next day comes, I’m
like I don’t want that anymore. No big deal like it has passed. So try to put some time or difficulty between you the craving. And then lastly, if you’ve kind of gone down all these things, you know, you’ve googled it you know you’re not deficient in anything. wasn’t it? There’s something that you really can’t make healthier, don’t want to make healthier. It’s a weird substitution.
The last step is to let yourself have the thing in moderation. Okay? There is another answer. It’s not black and white of like, do not let yourself have a thing and absolutely indulge in overindulge and and gorge yourself on the thing. There’s a middle road here that’s like, yeah, enjoy it in moderation. You know, if you’re really craving ice cream and your husband’s out, and he’s on his way home from work, and you’ve had a day and you really just want to eat some Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, you’re like, can you grab me a pint of ice cream, but then when you get it, portion it out into a different cup, like don’t eat it out of that pint a plank does not really serving for most of us, most of us do not have that many galleries to play with. And you know, that is like, I think sometimes that’s the idea is like, we are going all in or all out like the cheat day kind of a thing, like the whole pizza, there’s a middle road, you can have the real thing. And I think this is also really effective, though I shared that probably my most go to tip is can I make a healthier version of it. Sometimes the like knockoff versions of something, don’t cut it. And we would actually be more satisfied by having the real thing like, for example, some weird knockoff sugar free kind of chocolate, not going to hit this bot, like just having a couple of squares of a real chocolate would. Okay, it’s totally different. So I hope that’s helpful. I hope that also gives you a little bit of permission and maybe more of a perspective on like, this overall relationship with food. It’s to me, someone just asked me this the other day. To me having a good relationship with food means that you’re not feeling guilt, or shame around things that you’re eating, you’re also not feeling totally out of control, with things that you’re not feeling like. If a pizza is put in front of you can’t help but eat the whole thing. Or, you know, you just, it just goes back to that control. Like you can’t control yourself around food or you have bad feelings if you just have one cookie, but you then feel bad about it. I think that where I’d love for all of you to get until be able to live is that you feel okay with the fact that you sometimes have treats and you can enjoy the treats without guilt or shame. But you also are not like a wild animal let loose at a buffet when there’s food available. You know, that’s fair, I think being a middle ground that is what we all do for.
All right, next episode. This is not going to apply to everyone but I have had many requests for it is for me to share a little bit about how I’m preparing for birth and postpartum times. And so I will share that next episode. But if that’s not your jam, just catch us again in a couple. Until then I hope you have a great rest of your day. I hope you’re having a great little holiday season so far. And I’ll talk to you next time. Bye
