Author: Caroline

young and the resting

Cravings Don’t Need To Be Fought {Sugar Part 2}

How many times have you heard about “Combatting Sugar Cravings” or “Reducing Carb Cravings” ?

I’ve heard vegans supporting each other on “Overcoming Meat cravings” -and Hell! -when I was raw vegan I would read in the community forums people discussing overcoming their evil and addictive “Cooked Food Cravings“.

Cooked Food Cravings! Oh the horrors.

In my post In Defense of Sugar- Part 1 I talked about how I came to believe that sugar was not inherently bad. Here I will go more in depth, and relate it to addiction, cravings and more of the mental components.

Sugar Addiction Myth

Sugar is treated like an evil drug, and any desire for it is feared and shamed. And while it is true that sugar can be used like a drug in binges or emotional eating, it is not inherently evil or bad, and neither is the desire for it. Craving carbs is not a symptom to be squelched.

I am under the firm belief, that food cravings are not a problem unless you have denial or guilt associated with the craving. In my opinion and experience, denial and guilt are the things that lead to overeating and intensified and irrational food cravings, not the food itself.

If there was no guilt attached to a craving, you would eat it, and go on with your day. You would digest it and gain the maximum benefit from the food that your body had been asking for (cookies included). And you’d probably be feeling great!

Last Supper Syndrome

If you are giving into a craving under the conditions of “Just This Once then Never Again”. Then you will most likely subconsciously fear for your impending lack and potentially abuse it- maybe overeating till you’re sick. Then you blame the problem on the food itself, instead of your disordered relationship with the food. You will also have feelings of guilt associated with eating this food.

And guilt never helped no-no-nobody.

But You Swear! You Really Are Addicted to Sugar!

This is what I have come to see that the supposed “sugar addiction” really is:

Eating carbs and sugar is calming and feel-good for the brain. This is normal and natural. If you do not allow yourself to eat carbs regularly, you may find yourself “addicted” to the way you feel on carbs when you give into your natural cravings for them. This may lead to overeating or bingeing. Is this because carbs are bad? No! It is because you are denying them!

Sugar also elevates blood sugar. This is also normal and natural. If you are not used to eating sugar, your body will not handle the sugar as well. It may rise too high. It may rise high and crash, leaving you to crave more. Is this because carbs are bad? No! It is because you are denying them- and not used to metabolizing them.

The more you deny carbs, the more you risk “addiction” symptoms because of the feel-good properties, the body’s ability to metabolize them, and because of abuse due to denial and guilt.

What Does This Mean?

Start eating what you crave.

I do not know what you crave. I would never dream of forcing you to eat cookies or pizza or a rotisserie chicken just because that is what I craved and ate today.

You are the only one who knows what you crave.

Your cravings may not be ‘rational’ but do not discredit them. What you crave is what you need. Not only because your body is probably asking for something quite specific, but also because the longer you deny your cravings, the more insane and intense they may become.

What If You Crave Twinkies? Should You Trust Yourself THEN?!

Do I think that there is great nutritional value to Twinkies? Not necessarily. The reason you crave them specifically and not “cake” is probably psychological. Linked to some past denial or memory from childhood.

But it is a food, and if you crave it, the sooner you start eating as many damn Twinkies as you want, the sooner the Twinkies will likely loosen their hold over you.

The first healing that has to happen is your denial/guilt relationship with food. Only then can you feed the body for the right reasons instead of fear-based reasons, denial reasons or guilt reasons.

So, Should You Be Eating Lots and Lots of Carbs?

While I do not believe that sugar or carbs are villains, and that they are necessary, for example for optimum thyroid function etc., that doesn’t not mean that I believe people always need to be pounding sodas and cakes for their health and well-being. Again, it all comes down to what you crave.

But, I feel very strongly about defending and supporting carbs because:

your body does need carbs
denial of cravings often leads to disordered eating
guilt with cravings often leads to disordered eating
food phobias are detrimental to intuitive eating

I think that a moderate, healthy intake of carbs is only sustainable and health supporting if it is coming from your true desires and cravings. Only then will you eat what nourishes you and be happy to stop when you are satisfied. Not out of fear for your waistline and health, but out of true desire.

BUT the only way to get to that point is to allow yourself to heal your relationship with food. Which means allowing and indulging all cravings. Which, may lead you to eating a shit-ton of sugar for a while.

And I want you to be ok with that.

In Defense of Midnight Snacks

For as long as I can remember I have been unable to sleep if I’m hungry.

I must eat before bed or I won’t fall asleep. In fact, the nights I have tried to sleep with a hunger pang because I convinced myself I was tired enough, I just ended up lying there until I got out of bed and ate some damn food.

So out of necessity I have been ignoring the rule: “Don’t eat 3 hours before bed” (or whatever variation you may hear) because it was truly impossible for me to follow.

But recently, as I have been reading more about adrenal fatigue, hypothyroidism and recovering from diets, it appears that I was onto something all along.

1. If you are in a metabolically compromised state, bedtime snacks are not only ok but beneficial.

And if you have been living your life from diet to diet, and are reading this post, you are most likely in a metabolically compromised state.

The most important way to support yourself through adrenal fatigue or a slow system/hypothyroidism, is to eat. And that includes before bed. (And it can and should include carbs and fat, too.)

2. Calories Don’t Need to Constantly Be Burned Off

One of the reasons people have argued against eating at bedtime, is that your body will turn the food to fat because it can’t burn it off. But this is submitting to the incorrect, stressful (and disordered) assumption that calories need to be manically burned off as soon as they are consumed. This is just false, and also a huge reason why obsessive cardio doesn’t work. Don’t get on the treadmill of calories-burned obsession!

3. True Starvation at Bedtime Can Point You in the Right Direction

If you are hungry at bedtime, chances are you did not eat enough during the day.

If you don’t eat enough during the day, your body is going to need to get those calories one way or another. Logical!

One mistake I would make in my earlier “intuitive eating” days, was to get in a habit of “listening to my body” (not really) during the day and not eating very much, but then by the time bedtime rolled around, I had to eat a huge midnight meal. So if you are extremely hungry at bed time, let this be your FULL PERMISSION to Eat More During the Day.

You clearly need it anyway.

Let’s Talk Body Image

I have been trying to start writing about Body Image. But every time I start, something stops me.

I think it is because I am afraid to sound too lovey- dovey, and I am afraid to alienate male readers when I start talking about women loving themselves. I am also afraid to alienate bigger women readers when I talk about difficulty accepting an extra 5-10 lbs. But most of all, I am afraid I am not worthy to talk about a subject in which I am only half-way healed.

So what to do?

Can I instead open up a dialogue? Ask some questions and get some answers, and also get some questions in return?

Because, if there is one thing I am sure of, healing your relationship with food alone isn’t going to help your life if you still senselessly hate your body.

There is no good in hating your body. Though, sifting through the many beliefs and feelings surrounding our own Body Image is much easier said than done.

Hating your body is debilitating, depressing and … truly…. arbitrary. Shaped by the media, unhelpful perfectionism, our brainwashed cultural preference for thin, and fear of the “perils of fat”. Yet it can have the power to control so many of our thoughts and feelings about ourselves.

Why Are Women So Judgemental

Readers wrote in subjects for my podcast, and many people wanted to talk about Body Image. And since the podcast project is on the back burner for a little while longer, I want to start the discussion now. One reader, Susie, wrote: “Why are Women so judgmental of their own and other women’s bodies? Like, “Oh look at her butt!”

My thoughts? I think we are mean to ourselves because we have it ingrained in us that we must be beautiful and slim to be appropriate and desirable and controlled. And the idea to us that we could accept our imperfect selves and bodies seems foolish and weak, so we think that constant disapproval is the answer to whip us into shape. And we are cruelly judgmental of others because it makes us feel like at least we aren’t the worst ones. At least we aren’t as big as her. At least we are able to control xyz and be good enough to be abc even though we aren’t quite good enough to be 123. Oh God, it sounds like its going into a song. But of course none of these things help. And it just digs us deeper down into the hole of projected perfectionism and starts to alienate us from other people.

UGH, there are so many many more things to say on this topic. And it is so very complicated and difficult to mull through. But it is necessary. This is just the beginning of the dialogue, and I intend it to go a lot further.

Recommended Reading

I recommend the book by Kate Harding and Marianne Kirby: “Lessons from the Fat-o-sphere”.

It has opened up my eyes to more of the Health at Every Size movement, as well as helping me see that fat is not the health hazard people and the media pin it as. It is the guilt and the self-destructive habits that are actually the health problems.

Fat acceptance, even though I am not technically “fat”, has been very helpful for me. Because the way I was treating myself was like scum. The authors argue eloquently why it is essential that fat women (and men) treat themselves wonderfully. And I have been able to apply their lessons to myself, and also start to change the way I see other people.

The Thin Fantasy Exercise

Write out all the things you tell yourself you’ll do “when you’re thin (or fit)”. Write out all the ways you’ll be. Write out that awesome person you are expecting to be when you finally aren’t afraid of food, and eating intuitively and are wonderfully, beautifully, acceptably, perfectly and enviably slim. (notice any sarcasm? yet I DO still catch myself thinking this way).

Write it all out. How you’ll look. How you’ll feel. What you’ll do. What you’ll say. Get specific. Write the drink you’ll order at Starbucks and the shoes you’ll wear and what people will think when they see you walking down the street.

Now read it, and circle all the things you can do, think and be right now.

And then, fucking BE IT. Because that’s what you want more than being whatever you consider a “perfect body”. You think the perfect body will bring you these things. So start with the things, and let the body work what it will.