Ride The Wave

Ride the Wave this Summer!

We often believe that when we hit our healthy weight, we will be free from cravings once and for all. Unfortunately, environmental triggers, physiological triggers, emotional triggers, and addictive triggers will still be hiding around some unsuspecting corner. The problem arises when we feel like a failure simply because we really want to eat that piece of cake or fast food that we know will stimulate the addictive eating area of the brain, sending us into a mindless eating frenzy.

Well, stop the demoralizing mind chatter, and realize that you will never be able to eliminate being exposed to triggers or cravings. The goal is to eliminate the affect and power these triggers have on your actions. Keep building your tools and strength, and you will soon find that desire trumps those cravings and triggers.

I like to compare cravings to riding a wave. They come in big and strong, but when you ride them out, they lose all strength and power. Each time you master a craving, it is like mastering that big wave: You become better skilled and masterful. It soon becomes natural.

Remember, cravings are common for all of us; they are not a sign of weakness or failure. Ride the wave with patience and persistence, and feel your own strength as the wave loses all power.

Potato Chips For Breakfast?

Potato Chips for Breakfast?

The key to weight management is not another diet with someone telling you what, when, and how to eat. The key to weight management is understanding the "why" to cravings, both physical and emotional. Let me give you an example of a "why" to a craving and what could have become a downward spiral into the black hole of guilt and eating.

I began a new form of movement this past week. It is an indoor cycling camp, which lasts 5 months, and is a pretty rigorous training to prepare for next spring’s outdoor road cycling. Because it is new to my body and the sessions are longer than I have been currently experiencing, they have been fairly difficult for me. Well, when I returned from class this morning, there was a bag of potato chips left on the counter from the night before. I don't really like potato chips, nor are they a food that sets off addictive eating or obsessive thoughts for me. However, I took a few chips to eat while I was preparing my breakfast. Oh wow! They tasted so good, and soon I was grabbing more and more. I stopped, asked myself, "what is going on? Why am I eating these chips like crazy? What is it that they are giving me that is creating this craving?" I soon realized that it was the salt. My body had actually been depleted from my new exercise of important salt, and my body was letting me know.

Now I wouldn't recommend getting your salt intake from potato chips, but that is actually what I did. They tasted so good, and I needed the salt. So instead of beating myself up, I just ate potato chips for breakfast. What did I learn from it? I need to watch my salt intake when I am exercising and exerting a lot of effort and sweat. Then, I need to make sure I get enough salt from a healthy source to compensate, or I risk having those very strong cravings for anything with salt.

Listen to your body! Find the real reason of cravings. Emotional and physical changes cause physiological cravings. Visit Totellwellness.com for help with your emotional and physical cravings.

Endless Cravings

It was a lovely Halloween with all of the candy and treats, which could tempt anyone during the entire month of October. For me, it wasn't any of those dastardly treats that got under my skin or into my stomach, it was my mother's homemade chili, rolls, homemade sugar and pumpkin cookies, and even doughnuts (which I don't particularly like) that sent me reeling into the big black hole of bingeing on Halloween night. I reminded myself, before heading to my mother's party, that food is not love, that I can choose what I eat, that if I stay away from sugar I will be able to hold to my healthy goals only to last – hmmm let me think – two minutes before I was devouring the cookies and moving on to everything else with vim and vigor.

I left my mother's party with a stomachache and that gnawing negative mind chatter, "I always do this; I have no discipline; what is wrong with me?" It reminds me of the doomed King Sisyphus from Greek mythology who was punished by being cursed to roll a huge boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down, repeatedly for eternity. In my most dramatic self talk, I repeated, "Will this always be my battle? Can't I just eat one and be done when I am at my mom's? Will this ever end?"

My first response was that I will always be fighting my mother's cheese, butter, cream and sugar. But my more educated and calm response was that no, I know what it takes to change neural pathways in my brain. This change is hard business, but it is achievable. We must commit to the process, the time, the patience and the endurance, whether it is a day, a month, a year, or even many years.

Neural pathways in our brain, which are linked to cravings and comfort, are like ruts in the brain. It takes lots of driving over them, grading them, and filling them in to create new pathways. It took years to create the old ruts and, although with conscious effort it can be shorter, it takes a lot of hard work to change them. Sometimes we give up and consider ourselves "doomed" simply because we don't realize how long it really takes. We feel defeated and give up. Well, I'm here to tell you, don't give up! Just keep going. If you haven't reached the transformation, it doesn't mean your efforts have gone to waste. Those efforts are smoothing out those ruts, and if your neural signals do get stuck in part of those old grooves, learn from it quickly. Get right back to the task of changing your responses and neural pathways.

It can be done. I know it, because I work on it daily. Is it easy? Actually, once you truly understand cravings and what is causing them, it is easier. When you understand what is happening physically in your mind and body, it is easier not to beat yourself up emotionally and to stay your course. Keep pushing the rock up the hill, and you will be surprised when one day it just lands in a nice grassy area and never budges again. Keep going; you can do it!

When Would You Stop Eating?

When would you stop eating?

I had an odd thought yesterday. Suppose you had a large plate of your favorite food and you began eating. But after a few bites, you noticed that the amount of food on your plate remained the same as when you first started eating. No matter how much you ate, the same amount of food was left on your plate. You really couldn't measure how much you had eaten. There was no way of knowing when you had finished your meal by the plate being empty, because it just kept replenishing itself. Would you know when to stop? If there were no way to measure or calculate how much food you were eating, how full would you want your stomach to get before you stopped?

Try this little mental exercise while you are eating sometime: Pretend that the amount of food will remain the same no matter how much you eat. How will you know when to stop if the plate is never clean or partially empty? Can you use your hunger index or full index to determine when you have had enough? Can you feel how full your stomach is? With no external clues, can you listen to your body to know when it has been properly refueled and has actually had enough?

Try it! Test your ability to trust yourself and intuitively tell yourself when you have eaten enough. Your body knows; you just have to learn to listen.

If you want to learn more about W.H.I. (What is your Hunger Index), logon to TotellWellness.com for more information.