It Goes Both Ways

The more sugar you eat, the more sugar you crave. The more TV you watch, the more TV you crave. The more you sleep, the more sleep you crave. The more soda you drink, the more soda you crave. I will stop there. You get it.

It is so easy to give into cravings when they are the things we shouldn't give into. There is something about restrictions, or the thought of being deprived, that we naturally rebel against. The problem is, the more we partake, the more we crave. Here's the funny thing about cravings........you can crave what's NOT bad for you, just as you can crave what IS bad for you. You can train yourself to crave the good things!

It all starts with a choice. You make a choice to trade your normal drive through breakfast for a bowl of oatmeal and an apple. You make a choice to drink water instead of soda. You make a choice to give up desert tonight. You make a choice to get in a run after work, instead of coming straight home and planting your booty on the couch for hours.  And I will stop there. You get it.

Cravings are a result of the choices we make. We are faced with choices all day long. We struggle with making good choices because of subliminal messages and busy lives. It starts with a bad nights sleep, a long day at work, the craziness of playing taxi for the kids, the missed trip to the grocery store, a pizza commercial on the car radio, and so on. The next thing you know, the day is nearly over and the whole family is famished. You grab a pizza and binge on it because you haven't eaten for hours and the healthy, low calorie lunch you had is nothing but a distant memory. One bad day, and the cravings begin.

How do we overcome.....? You have your bad day. You eat your pizza then pass out minutes later. You wake up and CHOOSE to have a determined attitude that one crazy day isn't going to define your future choices. You face the cravings that last nights chaos left behind with that determined attitude, and you get through it. If you don't......the cravings have only just begun. The battle only gets harder to fight.

It doesn't matter if you are cleaning house, mowing the lawn, running a marathon, cooking dinner, reading a book, telling a story, making a grocery list, sleeping, shopping, walking to get the mail, or whatever else you do in your 24 hour day. If you lose momentum, you have to focus to get it back. It's nothing more than a speed bump. It happens in everything we do, even in our sleep. It is impossible to go through life and never lose momentum. Some speed bumps are harder to recover from than others, but we make the choice to focus or to not. Eventually, you fly past the speed bumps without skipping a beat. Eventually, an interruption to your day of healthy choices is no big deal because your good outweighs your bad so you no longer crave the bad things. You would rather nibble on carrots and broccoli than eat a fried meal. Your workouts have a scheduled time, and you have a mini panic attack when you think you may run out of daylight before you get the time to get out and run. You have changed because "it goes both ways".

Can it really be that simple? Yes! All I have to do is train my cravings? yep! And by making the right choices about food and exercise throughout each day, my cravings will change on their own? You got it!

I hope you start altering your choices today. I hope you chose to train your craving and gain control of them. And I hope you inspire others to do the same. Healthy living is inspiring. People see you doing what they think they can't, and they want it too. Be a testimony and an example to someone today. Show them that they can do what you are doing. Don't let your efforts be selfish. Share your story and help others. We all need inspiration.