Ep #128: What to Do about Food Cravings

This is the Strong Is a Mindset podcast, Episode #128.

If you have food cravings, what do you do with them? Let’s talk about it. This is the Strong Is a Mindset podcast, where you’ll learn how to build both a strong body and a strong mind by eating, moving, and thinking. I’m your host Physician, Personal Trainer, Certified Health Coach and Certified Life Coach, Carrie Holland.

Hey, how are you? What’s new? What’s good? So, what’s good here, we are going to talk about food cravings today. It’s something we have not talked about on the podcast yet and I think this is a good time of year to dive in and go over this.

With the holiday season officially here, and the loads of parties and baked goods and special recipes that come out around now, you may find that your cravings for sweet or indulgent foods are on overdrive, and I want you to be prepared for that.

So I want you to be ready to manage your food cravings. And notice I didn’t say “fight them”, because that’s actually the exact opposite of what I want you to be doing. We are not fighting anything when it comes to food, okay? Instead, I have a different way that I want you to look at this so that you’re not white knuckling your way through your food cravings.

Here’s what we’re going to talk about today. We’re going to talk about what food cravings are and where they come from. We’ll get into a little bit of the science behind them. And my point of bringing in the science is partly to reassure you that cravings are, in fact, normal. Food cravings are very much a normal part of being a human, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with you if you experience food craving, okay?

With that being said, there are most definitely things you can do to make those food cravings less frequent, less intense, and less disempowering. And that’s what I want to help you do. I want to help you with tools and skills that will help you manage your food cravings. Here’s why I think this is so important.

So, you know I’m a word nerd. I have shared plenty of times before on the podcast that I’m a math nerd, but truth be told I’m also a word nerd. I value language, and I pay really close attention to the words that my clients use because those words tell me so much about what my clients worldview is. And that’s probably true for you, too. Your words express your interpretation of the world.

When I’m coaching a client I listen very carefully, because her words are my window into understanding her perception of reality. And so, when it comes to cravings, some of my clients have told me things like, “I need chocolate. I can’t live without Oreos. I have to have something sweet after meals. I need salty, crunchy stuff when I’m done with the dessert. I can’t say no to chips.”

Notice the implication of these sentences. These kinds of sentences come up frequently in my client sessions and they represent an imbalance of power. Each and every one of those sentences put food, like cookies or chocolate or salty snacks, in a place of power they have no business having, okay?

When you tell me, “I need chocolate. I can’t live without chips,” think about the message you’re sending to your brain with those words. What happens when you say those words? What happens when ‘I can’t say no to chocolate’ becomes your story, a story that you repeat over and over again anytime someone offers you a chocolate cupcake.

Well, what happens is you make it true. When you believe that you can’t say no to chocolate, and that’s the story you tell yourself over and over again, you’re going to find yourself having a hard time saying no to the cupcakes. And really listen to what you’re saying when you say that ‘I can’t say no to chocolate.’ Really, why is that?

So I would encourage you, if that’s the story you’re telling yourself, or if it’s any of the other stories I mentioned, like, “I need chocolate. I can’t live without chips,” I would encourage you to really think about that and ask what you’re deciding for yourself when you make those statements. Because, to me, when I hear clients say those things, that tells me we have a power imbalance and she’s giving all of her strength and all of her decision-making capacity over to a piece of food.

But I don’t want you to feel powerless. Because the straight-up truth here is that you are not powerless over food, okay? It’s food. It’s chocolate. It’s tortilla chips. It’s food. You do not have to be powerless when it comes to food. But it’s going to start by perceiving food and talking about food and thinking about food and engaging with food in a different way than you might currently be doing, okay?

So if you’re tired of feeling controlled by food, and if you’re especially tired of feeling powerless in the face of food cravings, we need to shake that up. We need to change that. We need to empower you and help you see that you are in fact in charge of what goes in your mouth. It really can be as simple as that.

You are in charge. You are in control of the food decisions and what food you choose to eat. So if you currently feel powerless when it comes to certain foods, keep listening. Let’s talk through this. And I’m going to equip you with what you need to know in order to manage your food cravings. All right? So let’s go.

First, let’s get clear on what a craving is. At its most basic level, a craving is an intense desire to eat a certain food. Most commonly, cravings are associated with processed or calorically-dense foods like sweets, pastries, salty chips, and snacks.

I’m not sure that I’ve ever had a client tell me she was craving broccoli, but I wouldn’t say that’s unheard of. I have definitely found myself craving plain vegetables and salad after coming home from conferences where the food tends to be salty and oily and buttery. So when I’m off my usual routine, I’m not at home, and I can’t eat a salad every day at dinner, I will definitely come home looking forward to a salad.

So while a craving is an intense desire to eat a specific food, let’s talk about the difference between a craving, an urge, and just plain, straight-up hunger. Hunger is a physical sensation that your body gives you to tell you it wants food. Like your stomach growling. Or if you get really hungry, you might even notice a headache.

Hunger is your body’s response to the trigger of a lack of food intake over time. It’s a physical sensation. And while hunger can contribute to food cravings, they are not the same.

In contrast, a craving is often initiated by a trigger like a certain time of day or a preceding event or an emotion, like stress, anger, or boredom. And because there’s often an emotional component driving the craving, the craving is usually experienced much more intensely than straight-up hunger. Cravings are often stronger than hunger.

Another key difference between cravings and straight-up hunger is that cravings are specific for a certain food like chocolate or ice cream or chips. Hunger, on the other hand, is more generalized. And you can satisfy your hunger with any number of foods.

One of my very first clients used this information to get a handle on her cravings. She found herself craving sweets at the end of her long and stressful work days. But when she realized that her sweets habit was not related to hunger, and instead a craving brought on by stress, she used that information to her advantage.

So whenever she found herself picking up sweets, or going to her pantry for chocolate at the end of a stressful day, before she ate whatever it was, she would ask herself, “If this was broccoli, would I still eat it?” I really, really love that reframe for a number of reasons.

First, it forced her to slow down and take a second to pause and gather herself. It slowed her down enough to give her time to think about why she was eating. Second, it caused her to really zone in and focus on what she was doing, instead of just getting the candy or chocolate on autopilot because that’s what she had always done. And third, it caused her to get really, really good at identifying when she was eating for reasons other than hunger.

She used that question to discover the times that she was eating in response to a craving, or in response to an emotion, versus eating out of true hunger. And that skill, that skill of recognizing when you’re eating for reasons other than hunger, is an essential skill to develop if you struggle with overeating or emotional eating. So I think asking this question was a huge win for her. And I share her question often because I think it’s such a good one.

All right. And then, one other distinction I want to make here is the difference between a craving and an urge. I’ve talked about urges a number of times on the podcast, but I want to make this distinction and make it crystal clear for you, what the difference is between a craving and an urge. And to be honest, they’re related.

So your craving is your desire to do something. It’s your desire to eat chocolate. An urge is the impulse to act on that craving. It’s the feeling of needing to do something as soon as possible to answer or satisfy the craving. In the most simple of terms, your craving is the want and your urge is the need or the impulse to act on that want. So they’re related, but slightly different.

Craving is about the desire, which is entirely brought about by your brain and your thinking. An urge is about the itch or the push to take action or do something to satisfy the craving. An urge is more action oriented.

So here’s an example. If you’re at the mall and you walk by the food court and you smell cinnamon buns, you might start to crave one. But that is different from an urge, which is the impulse that arises and compels your brain to go and get a cinnamon bun right on the spot.

There’s a difference here, but it’s subtle. You can think of the craving as the want and the urge as the impulse to act. That’s how I keep them separated in my brain, okay? So now that we’ve talked about what a craving is, let’s talk about your brain and some of the science behind cravings. I want you to understand how your brain is involved here, because once you understand this it will make the tools that I have for managing your cravings more understandable. These tools will make more sense.

I’ve said this many times, but one of your brain’s key goals is to seek pleasure. And so, when we’re talking about pleasure, we’re calling in your brain’s reward system, which primarily means dopamine. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter and it has a key role in food cravings, because it’s released when we encounter highly palatable, indulgent, calorically-dense foods like chocolate and pastries and chips.

Over time, this release of dopamine creates a feedback loop. It tells your brain, “Hey, when we eat chocolate, that feels good right here, in the moment. So we should do that again. And we should do that as often as we can.” It’s foods that are high in sugar, salt, and fat that are most commonly associated with this dopamine surge.

To be clear though, your brain will release dopamine when you eat a salad and chicken breast in response to hunger, okay? Your brain releases dopamine to encourage behaviors that are necessary for survival, like eating or exercising or getting sunlight exposure or meditating. And your brain does this to send a message that says, “Hey, this is good. Let’s do it again.”

So your brain will spit out dopamine in response to eating food in general, but it’s the heightened response to hyper palatable, energy-dense foods like cookies, candy, and chips and other processed foods that makes this a problem. Your brain sees a larger release of dopamine when you eat a bowl of ice cream than when you eat an apple.

Over time, as you continue to eat ultra processed foods, your brain adapts and creates more dopamine receptors. And when you have more dopamine receptors, you’ll need more dopamine to activate those receptors. Leading you to seek out more of those hyper palatable, ultra processed food that causes that release of dopamine.

So in plain English, you can develop tolerance to it because of your brain’s unnatural heightened response to foods that are high in sugar, salt, and fat. You essentially can develop tolerance to those foods, and you might find that you need more of those ultra processed foods to create that same wave of dopamine. So you need more of those foods to get the same response to them. This is largely driving your food cravings.

Okay, so let me put this all together for you. You take engineered, ultra processed foods that are high in sugar, salt, and fat, then you expose your brain to them, which drives up an unnatural dopamine response that tells your brain this feels good.

Then take that and add in a stressful day… Your brain does not like stress and it wants pleasure ASAP. So what happens? Your brain tells you, “Hey, when you eat that candy that calms your stress. So go get some ASAP, okay?” And over time, as this pattern repeats, what do you get? Well, you develop serious cravings.

To be clear, it may not be that you have a stressful or bad day to crave those foods. It may be that you’ve been exposed to these foods enough that your brain just wants the food, period, end. And you may find that the craving is only that much worse when it is compounded by a bad day and your emotions are high. You may find that you have an even harder time managing your cravings on bad days because your brain is already primed to want the food, because that’s what brings you comfort.

But then you add a negative emotion on top of it, and your brain says, “Oh no, hold the phone. We need something to make us better, and we need it stat. So get the chocolate now.” It’s a combination of these things that can take a craving and drive it to become even more intense. All right?

So now that we’ve spent time talking about what food cravings are, how they’re different from regular hunger and urges, and the science behind cravings, let’s talk about what you can do with your food cravings. I want to get specific and hit this face-on.

If cravings are a struggle for you, let’s talk about what you can do to manage them. And to be clear, remember that food cravings are normal. Remember, 90% of humans experience food cravings. So this is not a unique phenomenon. Most of us experience food cravings.

However, where humans differ is in how we respond to them. I want to give you some hands-on actionable tips. But then, I also need to get into the bigger, deeper, heavier stuff because that’s the action piece. But on a much deeper level, there’s the thinking piece to this, which is going to be essential.

First, be sure that you’re eating enough food. Let me explain what I mean here. If part of your health and fitness goal is to lose weight, fine. But please remember what we know about weight loss biology and physiology. Your body does not like extremes. Okay? So if you decide that you want to lose weight, and you decide to restrict the heck out of your caloric intake, your brain is going to wig out on you. Part of that wigging out is going to be in the form of food cravings. Have you ever noticed that?

If and when you start a diet, what is it that you spend a lot of your time thinking about? Time and again the answer that comes up is food. And this is especially true when you take an extreme approach and cut your calories too low. Your brain says, “No, thank you,” and then starts sending all kinds of alarms to tell you to start eating already.

You’ll notice that your cravings may significantly increase. The food noise in your brain increases significantly because you’ve cut your food intake so low and your brain is trying to reverse that. And that’s when the food chatter comes on full force.

And so here’s the interesting thing that we’ve learned from research. There are a number of studies that have concluded that restricting your food in the short term increases your food cravings. At the same time, there are a number of studies suggesting that long-term restriction decreases your cravings. It’s fascinating.

If you raise your eyebrow at this like I did when I was preparing for this podcast, here’s how I made sense of this. When you take a fast, extreme approach to your diet and drastically cut your caloric intake, you are setting yourself up to fail quickly. Your body does not like it. Your body will revolt, and it will do everything it can to hang on to calories. And it will do everything it can to promote caloric intake, including messing with your hormones to drive cravings and drive hunger to get you to eat.

Calorie restriction and weight loss stimulate food cravings by increasing the levels of the hormone “ghrelin”, which tells your brain to go and seek out food. At the same time, it decreases the hormone that tells you you’re full. So you’ve got your hunger hormones working against you here. And it makes sense from a biological perspective, it’s about survival.

When your body perceives energy stores as low, like when you’re significantly restricting your calories, it responds by making you feel hungrier and causes you to crave high-calorie foods. It’s a survival mechanism. But when you take a slower, less drastic and gentler approach, and very slowly reduce your caloric intake over time, then you give your body the opportunity to adapt. Your hormones aren’t thrown out of whack in the way they would be if you go the extreme route. Over time, your brain, your body, and your physiology adapt and you don’t have the cravings that you would have by taking on an extreme, restrictive approach.

The point here is, make sure you’re eating enough food. You don’t want to overly restrict yourself because that is not going to work, okay? If you’re trying to lose weight, the extreme approach is not going to work. So you want to aim for a balanced approach, and a slow and steady caloric reduction. This will keep some of the food noise at bay. It will keep your hunger hormones more in check. And it will keep the food cravings from becoming too intense.

Another thing to consider here is to make sure you’re not letting yourself get too hungry. This goes hand in hand with eating enough food. But it’s a little different, so I want to make sure to point it out. When you let yourself get overly hungry, you might notice that you have more cravings. And, again, these are not cravings for tomatoes and cucumbers. Instead, when you get overly hungry, you will find yourself craving calorie-dense foods. Foods that are high in sugar and fat and calories.

And that’s because when you’re too hungry your brain sends signals to find food, but especially, food that packs on a lot of calories. And this is because when you get overly hungry your brain freaks out that it may not see food again for a while. So when you do finally eat, your brain is directing you to find more calorically-dense foods. Your brain is sending messages to say, “Hey, load up. Because who knows when you’re going to eat again. So go big.”

The best example of this I can think of is when you have a big dinner or a big party in the evening and you take the approach of eating next to nothing all day in anticipation of that dinner. For most people that generally does not go well. And if you’ve tried this, think about how you feel by the time you get to your dinner. If you have eaten next to nothing or nothing all day, in anticipation of a party, when it’s time to finally eat you’re usually not hungry for lettuce leaves, right?

No, most times you’re hungry for things like bread, chips and cheese, and nuts. Things that are more calorically dense. That is your brain sending all kinds of cravings for calorically-dense foods to make up for the too little food that you’ve taken in leading up to your party. So if you want to avoid this, don’t let yourself get hangry. Do not save up your calories, for a big dinner at the end of the day, by eating nothing.

Don’t try to see how little you can eat all day. That generally never ends well and causes you to crave calorically-dense foods that are really easy to overeat. And more often than not, you’ll overdo it when you do finally find yourself in front of food. Okay?

So next. The next thing you can do to prevent and manage your cravings is to make sure you’re eating a balanced diet. That means eating a balance of protein, fat, and carbs, including adequate fiber, because it’s a combination of these that will keep you satisfied. This is just another opportunity for me to sing the praises of protein, which I will do for just a second here.

Remember that in science high-protein diets have been shown to reduce activation in the areas of your brain that are associated with food reward and cravings. Protein has also been shown to reduce nighttime snacking and decrease food cravings overall. And let’s not forget about fiber, because it’s also important to keep you full and satisfied.

So it’s recommended that you eat 14gm. of fiber for every 1,000 calories you eat in a day. Fiber helps slow down your digestion. It helps keep your blood sugar stable. And it triggers the release of hormones that keep you full. So, while I want to make sure you’re getting plenty of protein, please also don’t forget to load up on fiber in the form of fruits, veggies, beans, legumes, and whole grains.

The idea here is that if you’re eating foods that keep you adequately satiated, you’ll be less likely to get hungry and start craving foods that do not line up with your goals. Okay? And while you’re making sure that you’re getting plenty of protein and fiber, you also want to limit how much ultra-processed foods you’re eating.

There are a number of studies that suggest the more highly palatable foods you eat, the more you will crave them. And while many of these are small studies, the message is still there. The more processed foods you eat, the more you will want. And this is likely, at least in part, due to the dopamine hit that you get from eating that processed food.

So the more cookies and chips and fast food you eat, the more likely you are to crave it. And maybe you’ve noticed the opposite to be true. If you’ve ever taken a hiatus from processed food, you may have noticed that you start to crave it less. I notice it, especially during Lent.

We always give up dessert, and by the end of 40 days, not having a dessert is not a big deal. I don’t notice it. I don’t feel like I’m missing anything by not having a piece of chocolate at the end of my dinner. I don’t crave it anymore. Okay?

So find ways to cut back on your processed food. One, you will feel better. And two, when you do cut back, you will notice that you crave it less. And while I just recommended that you limit the processed foods you eat, let me make it clear that I do not mean you have to cut out processed food from your diet altogether, if you don’t want to.

In fact, I don’t recommend you cut out all of your favorite foods from your diet. Because that’s no fun, and it will lead you to feel deprived and restricted. Deprivation and restriction will ultimately lead you to revolt, and it often leads you to overdoing it once you do start eating those foods that you’ve restricted. So instead of cutting out all of your favorite foods, what I would suggest is learning and practicing moderation around them.

When I say “moderation,” the goal is to practice having your favorite foods without overdoing it and without it leading to a downward spiral where you go on a food bender. So this means that if you love Oreos, you do not have to give them up. You do not have to swear off Oreos for forever if you don’t want to.

That being said, you will need to make a decision about how you’re going to manage yourself around them. You have to decide how you’re going to moderate yourself around them. And you can decide to practice moderation. You can decide how many Oreos you’re going to have, and when, and how often. And then you practice following through on those decisions about your Oreos. You make your decision in advance, and then most importantly, you practice following through. You practice making those Oreos no big deal. You don’t let those Oreos turn into a spiral. You don’t let them take control over you and lead you down a food bender.

No, instead you have the Oreos and you enjoy them. And after you eat them, you get on with your life. You show yourself that you can have a few and it’s no big deal. And this will take practice. But here’s why this matters. The more you practice moderating yourself around your favorite foods, and the more you make those Oreos no big deal, the easier this gets.

When you prove to yourself that you can have Oreos or ice cream or bread or chips and salsa, and it does not turn into anything, the more self-trust you will build and the less you will have to deal with cravings for those foods. Because when you practice moderation, you’re showing yourself that you can have your favorite foods and stay on track with your goals.

You’re proving to yourself that you can have some, you can let it be enough, and you can get right back to your plan without missing a beat. And really, that’s what this is all about. So much of the work we do in coaching is about proving yourself to yourself. And I want you to prove to yourself that you are more powerful than an Oreo. Okay? Or bread or chocolate.

I want you to show yourself that food does not have a power over you, it has no business having. Okay? So that’s really what is at the heart of practicing moderation. You’re showing yourself that you can have your favorite foods, still eat healthy, and maintain a healthy weight and physique. It is not one or the other. These are not mutually exclusive outcomes here.

You are proving that you can do both; you can eat healthy, still have occasional treats and fun foods, and it is not a problem Okay?

All right, so I alluded to this at the beginning, and now I want to come back to it and finish this out. In addition to the practical tips that I just gave you about managing your cravings, there’s another key takeaway I want you to consider. Here is that key takeaway: You are not fighting your food cravings. You’re not trying to tough it out. You’re not trying to resist your cravings.

This is not about mustering willpower or strong-arming yourself through your cravings. This is not the approach you want to take when you’re dealing with food cravings. In fact, instead of fighting your food cravings, I’m asking you to walk through them. Okay?

I’ve mentioned this concept before in relation to feeling your feelings, and it most definitely applies to your food cravings, too. You are not fighting them. You are facing them head-on and walking right through them. So often, when I’m coaching with a client about her cravings, she’ll tell me she’s trying to resist or avoid or ignore them.

Or she’ll say that she’s fighting through her cravings. Or she’s trying to distract herself. Or she’s using whatever willpower she can muster to get through them. And if that has been your approach, think about what that feels like. Most likely that feels exhausting. It feels tense. It feels like significant internal resistance, and that does not feel good.

When your approach to cravings involves any one of these words: resist, fight, battle, willpower, avoid, or ignore; you’re setting yourself up for a high-intensity situation that is likely going to exhaust you. So instead, what I want to offer you is this. Instead of trying to ignore or fight your food cravings, I want you to practice walking through them.

You walk through them, okay? What exactly does that mean to walk through your craving? It means you acknowledge and recognize your craving, and you allow it to be with you. You stay with your craving and you wait it out. You’re not avoiding it and you’re not battling it. You’re allowing your craving.

And when I say “allow”, I mean you give it brain space. You let your craving take up space in your brain, but you don’t react to it. This is a key feature of allowing your craving: You give it space, but you don’t react to it. You don’t freak out. You don’t fight it. You don’t put up resistance to it. Okay?

So remember what you’ve learned about cravings. Cravings are caused by a complex interplay between your brain’s reward center, your hunger hormones, habit, and easy access to hyper-palatable foods that reinforce those cravings. Also, remember that cravings are a normal part of being human. I said it, over 90% of humans experience cravings.

When you have a food craving you can remind yourself, “This is normal.” And here’s the key thing to know. While you don’t have to try to make your craving go away, you also don’t have to eat because of it. You’re not avoiding it and you’re not trying to suppress it. You’re just accepting the craving.

From a practical standpoint, how do you do this? How do you actually allow your craving? Okay, so first, name it. Call it out. I have mentioned this before, but there really is something to naming what you’re feeling. It’s the “observation effect” when you name what it is.

Like if you tell yourself, “All right I’m having a craving right now,” that takes you out of it. It pulls you out of your craving instead of swimming in the thick of it. When you name what it is you’re feeling, you create space. And that space is essential, so you can actually observe yourself having the craving. Because, remember, you are not your emotions, okay? You are the thinker and the feeler of your emotions, but you are not your emotions.

And the more you practice calling this out and naming your craving, the more you’re able to separate yourself from your craving. You can say to yourself, “I’m having a craving right now.” You name it, identify it, and then once you’ve done that, you observe it. Again, what exactly does that mean? What does it mean to observe your craving? It means you stay with yourself. You go inside and pay attention to what you’re feeling. Are you starting to feel tense? Do you feel anxious? Do you feel resistance in your brain? Do you feel restless? What is it that you’re feeling within your body?

All you’re doing here is noticing how you’re feeling while you’re experiencing the craving. And the other key here is that you’re not judging it. You’re not getting angry at yourself. You’re not fighting anything. You’re not trying to change anything. You’re just being open to it. You’re just accepting it. That’s it.

You’re letting it take up space within you for as long as the craving lasts. Which according to science is anywhere from three to five minutes, with some research suggesting that it can last up to 15 minutes. So imagine trying to strong-arm your way through a 15-minute food craving. Imagine trying to resist or ignore or fight a food craving for 15 minutes.

That is just a lot of energy to muster, and honestly, that is most often why fighting cravings does not work. Willpower fades out on you and it gets hard when you’re trying with every ounce of brainpower to fight your craving. So, instead, imagine letting your craving be with you, without having to do anything about it. There is no fighting it There’s no reacting to it. There’s no responding to it.

You’re just letting it sit with you. That will feel very different and much less tense and much less urgent than feeling like you’ve got to fight it. Then you keep paying attention. You notice what happens with the craving. Notice how it starts and then peaks and finishes. And all the while you’re not responding to it. You’re letting that craving wash over you and fade out, just like any other emotion. You keep walking through it and letting it be with you until it is no longer there. That is it. Okay?

That is the process right there, of sitting with and allowing your cravings. And if you’re thinking to yourself, “Hey, this smells of mindfulness,” well, you’re on to me. That’s exactly what this is. It’s being mindful and paying attention to your cravings. It is the exact opposite of ignoring them or fighting through them, okay? It’s mindfulness.

Fighting your cravings does not work and it’s exhausting. So, instead, you have a very different option in front of you, one that will feel less tense, less stressful, and less harsh. If you have repeatedly tried fighting through your cravings, only to give in to them, I encourage you to really think about this.

What would it feel like to let a craving sit with you, without reacting to it? What would it be like to allow a craving to rise and fall within you, without doing anything about it? What if you can show yourself that walking through your cravings is a much gentler approach that actually works?

It’s being mindful. And when I say “mindful” … I just described the exact process for how you do it … I’m not just saying be mindful without the goods to back it up. No, when you practice being mindful of your cravings, you are giving them attention without giving them undue attention. You are noticing them without being overtaken. You’re allowing it, but you’re not responding. You’re not reacting.

You’re acknowledging what is happening to you. And that is what I mean when you’re being mindful of your cravings. Okay? So please, I encourage you to try this out. See what it feels like. Prove yourself to yourself. Prove that you can manage your cravings. Prove that you are in control and the Oreos aren’t.

When you show yourself that managing your cravings does not have to be an uphill battle, food will start to lose its power over you and you will feel better. All right?

And if you want help with this, let’s go. When you coach with me, we will talk through exactly how you will manage your cravings, and how you’ll manage your brain around food, so that it loses its hold over you and you will feel better.

Check out my website. Send me a message at www.CarrieHollandMD.com/contact and let’s talk about how managing your brain is the first step to managing your eating.

All right. Thank you for hanging out with me. I’ll catch you again next week.

Hey, if you’re looking for your next great read, I’ve got you covered. Head over to CarrieHollandMD.com/books and download my list of most favorite reads. I’ve got two collections waiting for you. One is all about work-life balance. The other is a collection of books that have changed my life.

I’ve referenced many of these books in the podcast, and now you can access those titles all in one place. Again, that’s CarrieHollandMD.com/books. Check it out and find your next great read.

Thank you for listening to the Strong Is a Mindset podcast. If you want to learn more about how to build both a strong mind and a strong body by eating, moving, and most importantly, thinking, check out CarrieHollandMD.com.