You have cravings. I have cravings. We all have cravings.

For most of you, it is wanting to pop in something sweet and sugary. Some folks have a craving for savoury stuff. But they are cravings.

There's nothing harmful about cravings.

But occasionally, when you miss a meal, or are sleep deprived, or had a stressful day at work, or just had an argument with a friend, you find yourself elbow deep in double chocolate ice-cream. It happens in a blur. The autopilot just kicked in and there was no room for rational thought or slow thinking.

Photo by Emile Mbunzama / Unsplash

That's definitely a problem.

After a solid meal

Another scenario that crops up is the craving to have something sugary after a good meal. You just ate. You are rather full. You ate well.

But still, there's this sugar craving. Why?!?!

Some of you are pros at this. You pop in a square of dark chocolate and you are good to go. Some of you cannot stop at one square, and it is a slippery slope.

That's definitely a problem.

I've written earlier about how to tackle sugar cravings. Here you go:

But in this post, I want to introduce a weird and alien concept. If you check all boxes (will get to it) you actually wont get any sugar cravings.

Here's a relevant clip from The Matrix for you to watch.

The Matrix: What are you trying to tell me?

The mental model I want you to have is this:

  • There are a hundred switches in your gut.
  • In your meals, when you eat highly nutritious and fibrous stuff, these vitamins and minerals and amino acids and fatty acids and whatnots start closing these switches.
  • When your meals lack some of these whatnots, and when your meals repeatedly lack them - some of these switches are not turned off.
  • Your gut recognises that there's something missing, and that comes across as a craving.
  • In you pop that sugary goodness, and the craving goes away.

But funnily enough, what's actually missing is something else - one of the aforementioned whatnots.

When you switch to eating real food, and regularly are eating that way, your cravings go down. And there will be many meals when you do not get any cravings.

Isn't that a superpower?

You eat sugary goodness when you want, coz you feel like it. Not because of an uncontrollable urge to do so.

More power to you!