5 Steps to Dominate Your Cravings
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Stop letting your food cravings dominate you! It's time you take control and start dominating your cravings. Am I right?! In this bonus episode, I share 5 steps you need to take to successfully dominate your cravings. No these tips aren't anything like "drink more water" or "take this supplement" or "go for a walk". Sure, these things help minimize your cravings temporarily, but the 5 steps I share with you will eliminate the control your cravings have over you for good!
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TRANSCRIPT:
Hey, hey, beautiful human. Can I steal five minutes of your time? I have something super important to share with you, but I promise I'll be really quick. You're listening to my weekly bonus episode of Embrace Your Real with me Julie Ledbetter. I'm about to give you a quick tip for building your confidence, honoring your body, and unconditionally loving your authentic self. Stay tuned if you're ready to embrace your real, let's get it. Let's go.
Hello and welcome back to the Embrace Your Real Podcast. We are back for another bonus episode, and we're talking about food cravings. If you have all the food cravings and you feel like they're dominating you, I have five steps to help you start dominating them AKA your cravings. Before we dive into today's episode, I want to share the quick review. Kira K three says, "Words of wisdom, I listen to this podcast every morning as I walk my dog. I can't imagine a better way to start my day than hearing the encouraging messages from Julie. Huge thanks to Julie for all the advice and motivation to be my best self. She's empowering, relatable, and most of all, so, so real. This podcast is perfect for anyone looking to gain confidence and grow both mentally and physically. Definitely worth to listen."
Thank you so much Kira for the review. If you haven't already rated and read the podcast, we are over 100 countries strong, and this helps spread the message of embrace your real to women all over the world. So if you could take less than 60 seconds, scroll all the way down on Apple podcasts, click rate and review. And if you do, please send it to me in a DM so I can personally thank you on Instagram. All right, let's dive into the five steps to dominating your food cravings. Number one, you've got identify your current patterns. Now, to dominate anything in your life, you need to know exactly what you're up against, right? So look at where you're at right now and what your current patterns are.
Maybe your current pattern is to give into your cravings after 10:00 PM. Maybe your current pattern is to eat great during the week and then completely overindulge on the weekend. Whatever it is, you've got to know what you're up against. So, emotionless, sitting down, giving yourself five to 10 minutes and ask yourself, okay, what is it that I'm up against? What are the things that I'm struggling with and what are my current patterns? Number two, identify your triggers. Now, once you know your pattern, you know what you're up against, you need to figure out what is triggering you to keep repeating this pattern. Like for me, if I'm sleep deprived or stressed, I might be triggered to have heightened cravings or overindulge or go over my macros, or whatever it is. Since I know lack of sleep and stress, and that's my triggers, I know if I focus on managing my sleep schedule and my stress levels then I won't have as many cravings to overcome.
Most often, it's not the craving itself that you need to manage, it's something else in your life that needs to be managed in order for you to reduce your cravings. So, identifying those triggers is super helpful and will help you know what it is that you need to start managing. Number three, meal plan and prep to ensure that you are eating balanced meals. If you listen to episode 16, three things your food cravings are trying to tell you, you'll know one reason why you have food cravings is that your body is asking you for more food. It's when you're starving and you're deprived when your cravings are the most, and when you feel like you need to go crazy eating whatever it is that you're craving, right? This means if you regularly nourish your body with what it needs by eating the right amount of carbs, fat, protein that your body needs for each meal or snack, you will experience fewer cravings. Trust me when I say this.
And when you do have a craving, you won't feel the need to overindulge because your body is properly nourished. And if you are someone who just started macro counting, who just started meal planning and prepping, please hear me when I say that your body needs a little bit of time to adjust. So when you first start filling your body optimally, your body's going to go through some changes, right? If your body's used to constantly having this triggering constantly giving into whatever it is, it's going to take your mind and your body a little bit of time. So, be patient with yourself, give yourself grace, but set yourself up to win. Meal planning and prepping will help to ensure that you're eating enough protein, carbs, and fats. And it also allows you the opportunity to make sure that you're eating foods that you love, right?
You don't want to be eating foods that are bland, that make you feel like, argh, I'm on this food plan. Nobody wants that. Nobody wants a boring meal plan. Nobody wants boring foods. Or at least I don't, I'm almost eight years strong in this. And that's one thing that I've learned over the years is like, I do not do well when my foods are boring. I need to have some options. I need to have things that make me feel happy and satisfied. And that will just overall help you so incredibly much. Number four, find healthier options. To be honest with you, sometimes the healthier options tastes way better than the real deal, because when you're done with it, you feel nourished, you feel energized, and not way down or guilty or whatever it is.
I know for me, there's certain foods I'm like, oh, that's really good. And then I eat it and I'm like, oh, I don't feel good. Right? My eyeballs are telling me one thing, my stomach's telling me another thing. So, be mindful of it. There is so much on the internet. Thank you, Google. Thank you all the food bloggers out there because you make my life so much easier. That is not my forte in terms of coming up with brand new recipes. There are some recipes that I've come up with and those are like, man, I really hit the jackpot there. But I'm so grateful for Pinterest and all the things. So, one great food blogger that you should check out is Minimalist Baker. All the recipes are simple, healthy, delicious alternatives to the real deal. So, be sure to check out Minimalist Baker.
Number five, don't deprive yourself. Eat what you're craving. So, I just talked about there's sometimes where my eyeballs want it, my belly is like, Oh, that doesn't feel good. And there's sometimes my eyeballs wants it, and my belly is like, yeah, girl, get it. Right? Perfect example of this, Texas Roadhouse Rolls. I can have one, maybe two. Do I need four baskets? No, I don't need four baskets, but I can allow myself one or two guilt free. Right? I think that you should always eat the food that you're actually craving, because the reason why your cravings have so much control over you is that, you either limit yourself to when and where you're allowed to eat this food, or you never allow yourself to eat this food. So when you do eat it, you feel like, Oh gosh, I'm never going to eat this again. So you like have five Texas Roadhouse baskets of rolls. And then you're like, Oh my gosh, I feel so sick. Right?
Sometimes you just need to allow yourself the opportunity to eat something that you typically don't allow yourself to eat so you'll eventually stop craving it. Right? So for me, I could make a healthier alternative. And most of the time, I would say, for the majority of the week, if I'm craving a pizza on a Tuesday, I'll say, okay, how can I make this more macro friendly? But for me, I know typically every Friday or every other Friday, or a couple Fridays a month, I'm going to have a Domino's pizza. So, that's the real deal, right? And then throughout the week, I'll be like, how can I get an alternative? I can make a calzone, or I can make a macro friendly pizza, or whatever it is. You've got to know the time and place, and I think that's the deciphering that you just have to practice.
The more you practice it, and the more you do it, and the more you allow yourself the opportunity to listen to your body, listen to your body for what it's craving. And then also listen to my body, how can I honor my body and nourish it right now in this moment? What does that look like? The more you'll feel comfortable and confident around cravings. So, be sure to tune into episode 16, three things that food cravings are telling you. If you haven't already, I want to recap the five things. Number one, identify your patterns. Two, identify your triggers. Three, meal plan and prep. Four, find those healthier alternatives. And five, eat what you're craving. In the show notes, I've linked episode 16. I hope that you found this message encouraging or helpful or insightful or practical on tips and tricks that you can implement today when it comes to dominating your cravings.
If you know somebody that this podcast episode would help, all you got to do is click the three dots in the top right on your phone screen. If you're listening on Spotify or Apple podcasts, you can copy out the link, send it in a text. You can post it up on your story, screenshot this, tag me, JulieaLedbetter. I would love to see what came from this episode. I love you so much. And I'll talk to you in the next episode.
All right, sister, that's all I got for you today. But I have two things that I need you to do. First thing, if you're not already following me on the gram, be sure to do so, juliealedbetter. Yes, it's with a in the middle, for that daily post-workout real talk, healthy tips and tricks, and honest accountability to keep your mind and heart in check. The second thing, be sure to subscribe to Apple podcasts, to never miss an episode. Thank you so much for joining me. It means the absolute world, and I'm going to leave you with one last thought. The most beautiful women that I have met in my life are the ones who are completely confident and secure in being authentically themselves. Remember that beauty goes so much deeper than the surface. So, go out there and embrace your real, because you're worth it.