Craaaaavings And The Lure Of The Forbidden

Tag: , ,

(Listen to this post here, or subscribe on itunes.)

Today, I ordered a Frappuccino and didn’t really like it.

If you think that’s weird, trust me, I understand. There was a time, about 6 or 7 years ago, that I loved Frappuccinos.  I thought they were wonderful.  I couldn’t wait to sneak out of the office for a little coffee break.  I was dieting at the time, so I would assiduously save Weight Watchers’ points so that I could get a coffee Frappuccino (if I had the points) or a lite one (if I had less points and didn’t mind the sucralose headache that I would inevitably get).  They were a special treat, an airy delight, a moment of sweetness in an otherwise dull and stressful day.

I didn’t have them every day but I craved them every day. The days when I didn’t have the points or the time to pick one up felt a little more dreary, a little less special.

frappuccino from starbucks

Delicious or "eh?" (Image courtesy of starbucks.com)

If you had told me back then that I could never have a Frappuccino again, I would be seriously upset.  If I heard that now I wouldn’t care at all.

So what’s changed since then?  Basically, I’ve gone through a fundamental change in my relationship to food.

The weird thing is that I now have no restrictions at all.  I don’t count points or calories or fat.  If I really wanted a Frappuccino every day I could technically have it.  The amazing thing is that by letting go of the restrictions, I now have the clarity to realize that I don’t want a Frappuccino every day.  In fact, over the last few years, I seem to really crave one once a year or so.   It seems like I crave it mostly as a check-in that, yes, I still don’t think they’re that great.  I still want certain foods, but my choices seem much more connected to what my body really needs.  I rarely get a craving that has the feeling of desperation that I used to experience.

So how might this work for you?  How can you let go of cravings that don’t quite feel right and get clarity on the food that your body is really asking for?

The truth is, you have to stop restricting.  You have to stop telling yourself that you can’t have certain things and can have other things.  This can be extremely scary, but also extremely healing.  When you have lots of cravings for foods that you don’t think you should eat or want to eat, you feel like your body is betraying you.  You feel like you can’t trust your body.  But it’s actually the opposite, you can absolutely trust your body, but you have to give it full rein.  You have to say to yourself, “I can eat whatever I want, so what do I want?”

Click here to tweet: “The best way to stop cravings is to stop restricting.”

You can’t stop cravings by ignoring them or getting mad at them or your body. Instead, you have to treasure your body’s wisdom and allow it to tell you what you need and want.  That is the only way to stop the craaaaaavings and instead connect with what your body really craves.

So this week, try experimenting with letting go of diet rules and connecting in with your body instead.  Let me know how it goes in the comments section below.  And if you’re ready to let go of cravings for good, get the support you need by signing up for a free Body Love Breakthrough Session with me.

Golda is a certified holistic health counselor and founder of Body Love Wellness, a program designed for plus-sized women who are fed up with dieting and want support to stop obsessing about food and weight.

13 thoughts on “Craaaaavings And The Lure Of The Forbidden”

  2. I believe that we are being conditioned from childhood, by our parents, the media, physicians, and schools to have a fear of certain foods, the tastiest most enticing foods that are often high in fat and sugar content. So many of the health fears are not based on scientific fact, there seems to be almost an anti-hedonism behind it. I like Jon Robison’s blog piece entitled the Food Phobic Nation or something like that. We have been so indoctrinated to fear foods, fear obesity, fear health consequences, improve our eating, that we have all become psychological basket cases when it comes to eating. We can no longer enjoy eating because of all these fearful critical voices in our minds that have been put there from the outside. Nature is benign and intelligent, but we humans can no longer trust nature that has made fats and sugars taste especially good so we know what to eat to meet our calorie nutritional needs. We need to stop second guessing nature. It has been shown that children have a natural ability to self regulate. It is lost when fearful parents begin try to control a child’s eating pattern. Parents need to learn that they are receiving wrong messages from physicians, the media, and government. Then we will all grow up to enjoy the lost art of happy eating.

Comments are closed.