Why Your Cravings Don’t Have to Define You Anymore
Here’s a lesson I learned about why people fall off their diets…
One of our members recently told me a story about a chili dog. Which reminded me of my life-long temptation with potato chips. Which taught me an incredible lesson about why people fall off their diet.
So, a quick story:
A few months ago, I was talking with one of our members who was ready to graduate from our program. She was doing great! She’d stuck to the plan we’d created together and she’d completely turned around her health. As we were talking, she mentioned that after she was at the point where she could begin adding different items back into her diet, she was at a barbecue where they were serving chili dogs.
She tried one.
Nine months before that day, she would’ve eaten it and felt normal… or, she would’ve felt terrible (she now knew) but she always felt terrible so there wasn’t much of a difference no matter what she ate back then.
On this day, though, she could feel it instantly. The chili dog was not good. It didn’t taste good. And, moreover, she didn’t feel good after eating it.
And she told me, as we talked, that it was amazing that once her system had been reset, once she’d eliminated all the terrible food she’d eaten her whole life, and gone full-in on a plant-based diet, her body could tell instinctively when it was fed something that wasn’t giving her the nutrition she needed
Overcoming the Misconception
I think this is an amazing example of what people who haven’t gone through a detox or thorough dietary transition don’t understand. The idea of giving up soda, hamburgers, or potato chips (once my kryptonite, as I’ve mentioned before) sounds impossible from the outside. Won’t you have constant cravings? Won’t you think about nothing else, every minute of every day?
The truth of it, though, is that yes, it’s hard at the beginning. But as you get in touch with your body, learn the “why” behind your cravings, and face them directly, eventually, your body, as you feed it what it needs, will learn what works for you—and what doesn’t.
And, more than that, you’ll learn to listen for the signals it’s sending you.
If you begin building the habits that provide the foundation for so much of our health—awareness, consideration, transformation (which you can read more about here)—your body will tell you what it needs. It will tell you when you feel great and will communicate when something is wrong.
You, as we’ve said before, are your own best doctor. And when you feed it what it needs and respond naturally to its signals, the cravings for the junk you used to eat—the garbage that’s slowly killing you—eventually disappear.
Good News, Good News
So, there’s a double heaping helping of good news here.
The first is that if you fall off your diet, it’s not the end of the world. It just means that it’s time to hit the reset button again (with, for example, a detox) and get your body, mind, and soul realigned.
The other bit of good news is this: If you’re doing something wrong, your body will be sure to let you know!
