Hi guys! Welcome to Episode 310 of the Wildly Successful Lifestyle podcast! I’m kind of on a roll about health and nutrition but I just go where my intuition tells me and our diets have A LOT to do with our mindset. So we have to be aware of how we use our words and our thoughts. That’s why this topic came up. I used to think I was hungry all the time and to be fair, I probably was because my body was telling me to eat, because like I talked about in Episode 309 I had created a monster. I didn’t know whether I was actually hungry or if my body just wanted more sugar and fat. But that’s what happens on a high processed food diet. And when I say diet I mean what you eat. That’s the definition of the word “what you eat”. That word has gotten a bad rap but 100% of us are on a diet of some sort. Anyway.
My friend was telling me a story of staying with her sister for several days and how healthy they eat. She said after a few days she was so hungry because all they had was healthy food around so she offered to take them all out to eat, which they did and their meal of choice was a Mexican restaurant. She said she was so happy to finally not be hungry. I laughed and thought to myself, you were not hungry, you were craving. Now, I didn’t say that out loud to her and Im not judging because I used to be her. I’ve been there. I have Eaten super healthy in front of someone, only to stop at a convenience store to grab a snack because Im still so hungry or just to come home and eat again. Ive been there.
The moral of me telling that story is that my friend had plenty of food to eat so she wasn’t hungry, shed had plenty of food, just not the kind she wanted. She wasn’t hungry, she was craving. Not a problem in itself, just it’s helpful to call it what it is.
Knowing the difference is helpful. Our body is quite manipulative when it is in a craving mode. Which if your diet consists of mainly processed foods That’s a lot of the time. Those foods are addictive by design. They want you to keep eating it, how better than to make it addictive. So when this is happening, your body will scream out for sugar bad fats and salt in whatever form that looks like for you. So we think we are hungry when it’s really our body craving and slipping a note to our brain to get us to think we MUST have this thing or we will die, or get a headache or be cranky, whatever. And this cycle will continue as long as your body is addicted to sugar, bad fats, and salt which is what a majority of processed foods are made of. I know because I lived for years like that.
Ive talked about Scott Quick before, he was a trainer/nutritionist that used to be at our gym. He was very very good at understanding nutrition, his bedside manner needed a little help. He wasn’t the friendliest guy around but sometimes that can be helpful because they usually just shoot straight with you and even though we don’t like it, here I am 10 years after working with him still using some of the tips he gave me. But anyway. My husband was working with him one day and he told him he liked to eat a protein bar in the afternoon when he got hungry and Scott said basically “why were you hungry when you had eaten lunch?” So Eric said well I don’t know. To which Scott said “you’re not hungry, you’re craving. You’re craving the sweet and salty of that protein bar”. Next time it happens, imagine an apple, if you don’t want to eat the apple, you’ll know I’m right. I still use that technique to this day. IF you think you’re hungry, imagine an apple, if you don’t want that apple, you’re craving.
Something I also realized recently, well Ive known it, but I didn’t realize how not good it was until I educated myself. is that I have a tendency to graze throughout the day. I’m programmed and also terrified of letting myself get hungry so I grab a handful of nuts or an apple with almond butter. But here’s the thing I realized it’s just a habit. The layout of my house, I have to go through the kitchen for most things I do. To get to the laundry room. To get to my favorite work space, which happens to be an extension of the kitchen, which I hadn’t really thought about. To leave the house by way of my car, I have to get to the garage which of course I have to go through the kitchen. I feel like every time I go through the kitchen, my thought is oh, there’s the pantry, let me grab a few nuts or maybe a handful of those siete kettle chips. Or Oh that apple looks good, let me grab some almond butter and have a snack. Completely out of habit and completely out of my brain telling me “Im in the kitchen so I must need to eat”. I realized that I never really allow myself to actually be hungry. And I know those are healthy snacks but our body doesn’t need food 24/7 and we can easily overeat healthy snacks like nuts and almond butter. I was talking to my friend Rae at the gym, shoutout to Rae, he also listens to my podcast, but he was telling me that episode 307 resonated with him because he used to try every new exercise for the very same reasons, if you haven’t listened to that one go give it a listen. But then I told him I have an episode coming out about food and we started talking about this very thing. You can unconsciously WAY overeat healthy food. He said before he really got serious about his nutrition he would grab a handful of nuts every single time he went through the kitchen, and then he started taking note of what he was eating and realized he was eating like 5000 calories worth of nuts. It doesn’t take that long to do it. He wasn’t hungry for that much food, he was craving and eating out of habit as well. And once he figured that out, he stopped and his physique changed drastically, he’s a machine now.
The reason your body craves sugar, carbs, is because that’s what it’s used to getting and so that’s what it’s using for energy, so it thinks it’s gonna die if you don’t get it more fuel. But in order to get out of that vicious cycle you have to go through a little bit of hunger and a little bit of detox to let your body start appreciating food that will give it actual nutrients like whole foods, salads, nuts, avocado, sweet potatoes, eggs and lean grass fed meats.
I mentioned in the food episode 309 that if there are ads for certain food, maybe steer clear of it. When they say “shop only the outer aisles”, that’s very true, that’s where your nutrition comes from, that’s where 80% of your food should come from, the other 20% can be down those center aisles, that’s where I get the siete chips which are not health food but I eat them as a treat. That’s where I get our sparkling water and our tea. But if you can help it, limit what you eat from those aisles.
Our body will convince our brain we are starving because often times we are, even after eating because we are simply not getting the nutrients our body needs. That’s a good thing to know. Because as long as you continue to feed it non nutritional food, it is going to continue to tell you in some sort of way that it’s starving. What is it going to take for us to listen. And, that will look different for everyone. For me, it looked like inflammation, itching, mood swings, headaches and weight gain. Our bodies are beautifully designed so that they will sludge through as long as they can, but if you really want to thrive, not just survive, you’ll start listening to what your body is trying to tell you.
The answer to a lot of our problems would be to eat for nutrition not entertainment. When your body gets real nutrients it can go much longer in between meals. You’ll notice your need to snack is more from habit than hunger.
When your body is getting what it needs to thrive, you will notice you still may have the HABIT of snacking, I still have moments where I find myself not hungry but walking through the kitchen tells me I should nibble on something. You don’t have to grab a bite of something every time you go through the kitchen.
My challenge to you this week is to get really good at noticing the difference between whether you are actually hungry or if your body is simply craving. Also, notice what your body is telling you when it’s screaming out for more food, what is it really asking you for? It’s not asking you for more processed food, it’s begging you for nutrition. And you’re not going to find that on the inner aisles of the grocery store. It’s not there. I love you guys. I’ll talk to you in a few days.
