[00:00:00] You are listening to episode number 294 of Better Blood Sugars with Delane, Maryland.
[00:00:07] Welcome to Better Blood Sugars with Delaine MD where you can learn strategies to lower your blood sugars and improve your overall health. I'm your host, Dr. Delaine Vaughn. Ladies, if you know you're capable of doing badass things at work and for your family, but you're confused and frustrated with why you can't seem to stop eating the chocolate cake, this pops podcast is for you. Let's talk.
[00:00:29] Hey there and welcome to the podcast. I'm so glad that you're taking some time for yourself and for your health today, and I feel privileged that you're spending some of that time with me.
[00:00:40] Today. I want to talk about moving past cravings, like how to move through them in episode number 292. Two episodes ago, I spoke about how powerless we can feel over our cravings and how when they are, you know, when we combine them with worry and anxiety and stress, that these cravings can become like monsters that take over us and turn into these habits that we really want to break and we have a hard time breaking them. In that episode, I recommended some old, tried and true methods that I teach my clients to manage cravings. One of them is to make a plan. I. I always feel that planning for a heart event, you can make it easier by planning for that difficult event before it's happening while it's still quote, unquote easy. So that is one strategy to manage your cravings is to make a plan for the food that you're going to eat and then expect that you're going to have cravings associated with it afterwards. I also briefly discussed the thought model on that episode, episode number two 92, and then how to process an emotion. I discussed how you can utilize perspective shifts and then distraction strategies to help you deal with the emotion in real time. And these strategies can be super useful in short term changes or to create short term changes. But if you're really interested in creating long term changes in your relationship with food, you need more than plans, you need more than distractions. Those are the first steps. But eventually you need to learn how to feel a craving and, and reinterpret what it means. You don't need to just resist it and you need to figure out how to not be compelled by it is really what the long term, the long game strategy is about. So today I want to dive deeper into a step by step aspect of processing an emotion. I throw that phrase around and lots of coaches Throw that phrase around. Maybe we throw it around too much. But frequently it goes without a true full explanation of what it actually means to process an emotion.
[00:02:48] I heard the process broken down by a psychologist recently and I found it so powerful that I felt like I had to share it here and really readdress this aspect of processing and emotion. So that's what we're going to do today. But before we get started, I definitely want to give you the warning. If you are medicated for your type 2 diabetes, please be careful making the changes that I recommend in these podcast episodes. The food changes I recommend in these podcast episodes can be dangerous. If you are medicated for your type 2 diabetes, your medications were started because of the way you have eaten in the past. If you change the way you eat, you are going to need to change those medications for most people. If you don't, you can end up very, very sick. The kind of sick that looks like a near visit, hospitalizations and possibly even death. And that's not the reason you're making these changes. So I need you to be very, very careful when you're making the changes that I recommend in these episodes. I need you to get a clear line of communication open with your medical provider. Whoever wrote you these prescriptions for these meds, I need you to call them. I need you to tell them you're going to be making some dietary changes. I need you to ask them how they want you to share your blood sugar readings with them. And then I need you to get clear on how they intend to share medication changes with you. That is how you are going to stay safe making these changes. So get a good line of communication open with your provider so that you can be careful, make these changes, come off the meds, live the healthy life that you're hoping to achieve for yourself. If you're not sure of what to eat, I have help for you. There is a 14 days to better blood sugars guide on my
[email protected] better that's B E T T E R. This is 14 days of a menu plan set up. Eat this, eat this, eat this and then watch your blood sugars drop. That's essentially what this, that 14 day program is for. It's really straightforward, it's powerful. Women see really quick results.
[00:04:52] I want you to go and download that if you're not sure what you need to be eating now. Lots of times women will be like, I did that and I can't eat that way forever. And ladies, I totally get that. That makes sense. My Friend, don't stress if that's what you're experiencing. Set up a better blood sugars assessment call. These are calls. These are 45 minute Zoom calls. You and I hop on together, we talk about what's worked, we talked about what hasn't worked, and then you set up a plan. Going forward, you can get some clarity on what you need to be doing long term to create the health that you're looking for. You can set up that. You can get access to my calendar, to my schedule, and set that call
[email protected] delanemdash call so that's calendly. C a l e n d l y.com delanemd that's d e L A N E M D forward slash call C A L L. You can get access to my calendar and set up a call right there. If for some reason you can't find a time that works for you, send me an email delanedelainmd.com and we'll get you on the calendar. It is possible to live healthy without meds. It is possible to let go of some of these foods that are making you sick. And there is help for you that's available and there's no charge to it. So get the help that's out there so that you can live healthy. So I want to discuss how to process a feeling.
[00:06:16] Specifically, I want to discuss how to process a craving without eating the food that your craving is compelling you to eat, or without eating another serving of food, if that's what your craving is compelling you to do.
[00:06:32] Most times a craving will look like a desire. I mean, a lot of times it will look like a desire for Twinkies or cookies or cake or candy or pizza or bread or whatever. These are non natural foods. And lots of times that's the craving that people are really familiar with.
[00:06:49] These are also the foods that typically get diabetics. Diabetic, right. These are the foods that typically create diabetes and keep us sick and on meds.
[00:07:01] Sometimes, however, we have a craving for just fullness in our tummy.
[00:07:06] That may mean that we over consume foods. My clients will talk about this. Over consuming nuts, cashews or almonds, or maybe over consuming cheese or definitely nut butters like peanut butter. We over consume them. The craving is really for more.
[00:07:25] And sometimes the more is not more candy, it's more healthy, quote unquote good foods. So it makes sense when our brain drives us to over consume foods like Twinkies and cookies, cakes, pizzas, all of those things for a couple Reasons one, those foods are engineered in order to make you want more. They are specifically engineered with design and research money that goes into it to make you want to eat more. That is done by the food manufacturers. These foods are unnatural. And because they're unnatural, our brain doesn't have a natural moderator or break to limit our consumption of those foods. There is no Twinkie tree out there. There is no pizza patch out there where the human animal in its natural state and a natural setting would come into contact with those foods.
[00:08:16] Our brain produces an exaggerated amount of dopamine in response to those foods, and our pancreas produces an exaggerated amount of insulin. And that exaggerated amount, the dopamine, the exaggerated dopamine causes the cravings, but the exaggerated insulin is what causes our insulin resistance in our diabetes. It's a double whammy effect. Those foods are not natural to our human bodies and our human brains, and the neurologic response to them is also unnatural. The biology, you know, all of it's biology really. But in our brains it produces cravings, but in our body it produces diabetes in our cells.
[00:08:55] So what do we do, though, when we're overindulging in good foods? It's easy to see the overindulgence in these unnatural foods and then be like, oh, those aren't even natural to our body. We just need to get rid of them altogether. That's fine. However, what happens when we're overindulging in quote, unquote, good foods or whole foods or natural foods? Women will see that when they overindulge or overeat, even these healthy foods, that their blood sugars will be higher than they want to see them.
[00:09:30] So this is because there's a dose effect. And what I mean by a dose effect is the magnitude of the effect is directly related to the dose or the magnitude of the exposure. If you eat one apple, that's about 30%, 30 grams of carbs. Those 30 grams of carbs get broken down into glucose, a certain amount of glucose, and then your body will have a release of insulin, a certain amount of insulin to respond to that, that glucose quantity in your bloodstream. And that insulin is meant to move that glucose inside of the cell and burn it as fuel.
[00:10:06] But if you eat two apples, you're getting 60 grams of carbs and double the amount of glucose and double the amount of insulin. And if you eat 10 apples, you' 300 grams of carbs and 10 times the glucose and 10 times the insulin. This is what I mean by dose response. The magnitude of the Exposure creates the magnitude of the effect.
[00:10:30] So maybe eating, you're like, yeah, but nobody's eating 10 apples. And I get it, you're totally not eating 10 apples. But a serving of nuts might be one ounce and it's pretty easy to consume five ounces in one sitting. A serving of peanut butter, I don't know about you, maybe it's not your problem, but a serving of peanut butter is usually one to two tablespoons. And it's really, really, really easy to eat five or even 10 times that serving size. And suddenly you're getting five or 10 times the amount of glucose in your bloodstream and then five or ten times the insulin release and then exposure by your cells.
[00:11:09] So insulin, remember, right. What we're fixing here is insulin resistance. That is the thing that we need to fix. Your blood sugars, yes, they need to come down and they will come down. But just pulling your blood sugars down is not the only answer. And that's why diabetic foods, diabetic candies, sugar free sodas, diabetic sugar free, low sugar foods, that is why they will not fear fix your type 2 diabetes. They will bring your blood sugars down, but do not address the root cause of your insulin being high.
[00:11:42] And that's what we have to address. Insulin resistance is what has to be fixed. Hyperinsulinemia causes insulin resistance. So high insulin levels in your body causes insulin resistance. And that's what has to be fixed in order to fix your diabetes permanently in a long term way. One of the main causes of insulin resistance is long term exposure to high concentrations of insulin. Over consuming foods, even healthy foods, leads to an overproduction of insulin. That magnitude of exposure, that means the magnitude of insulin, like how much insulin your body is exposed to leads to the magnitude of the effect, which is how insulin resistant you are or how diabetic you are.
[00:12:32] Most of us easily see that we need to cut the Twinkies and the pizza out. Maybe we understand that we're, you know, it's possible that you even already understand that you're going to want that food all the time. Like the dopamine effect in our brain. But women really get hung up on what about the good foods? That's where my struggle is. What about the over consumption of good foods? It's much harder to stop over consuming healthy foods, but because they're healthy and we're like, like the brain isn't, you know, it's not this artificial thing that happens from unnatural food that drives us to eat it. It's Something else. And learning to sit with desire, the desire to eat more even when we don't need it. The desire to undo or fix the quote unquote emptiness in our stomach, the urge to continue that hand to mouth movement.
[00:13:26] That is the harder thing for women to stop doing.
[00:13:30] And that's what I want to talk about a little bit today. So in order to stop this, you have to determine why you're doing it.
[00:13:39] I find that in order to stop it, you have to make a plan of what you expect to do.
[00:13:47] So first step is always a plan. And I know it's boring and no, you don't need to make a plan forever. And that's why you have to figure out why you're doing doing it. So you can learn how to do it differently. Learn how to treat the thing that's happening in your brain differently. Whatever it is that's making you want more of it, learning how to treat that is how you change this long term. So the first step is to make a plan. Are you going to need to make a plan for the next 60 years of your life, for the next 40 years of your life? No, you're not going to need to do to do that. But to start, you're going to need to make a plan.
[00:14:21] So if you struggle with eating Twinkies and pizza, make a plan for what you're going to eat. If you struggle with overeating, healthier good foods, make a plan also for how much you're going to eat.
[00:14:35] Then when the desire and the cravings set in, when the desire for more, when the desire for that hand to mouth movement, when it sets in, I want you to pause. You've made a plan like, this is what you're going to eat, this is how much you're going to eat. And you've already consumed that. But there's still this desire, there's still this craving, there's still this interest in reaching for more. I want you to locate in your body where you're feeling, that find it. Feelings are vibrations in your body. That is all that they are.
[00:15:09] Your brain will act like there is something truly bad about to happen because you're having this feeling.
[00:15:16] But the worst thing that's going to happen is you're going to continue to have this vibration in your body. That's all it is. That's all desire is, that's all an urge is. That's all a craving is, is this vibration in your body. It cannot harm you.
[00:15:33] The response you have to it can harm you in the form of continuing to eat and continuing to be diabetic. But the actual vibration cannot harm you. So get familiar with it, learn what it is, get comfortable with it. Where is that vibration in your body?
[00:15:53] This frequently takes people a long time to determine because we just are not accustomed to this. The modern human finds it difficult not only to name their feelings, but even more difficult to locate them in our body.
[00:16:07] When I did this work, I found that my cravings were located in my upper chest, and they radiated into my neck and my throat. There was a rapid vibration with it.
[00:16:16] There was an area like a fullness in the. In the base of my throat that I experienced cravings. And even now, I can bring that feeling about.
[00:16:28] It's not as powerful because I no longer match that feeling with reaching for food.
[00:16:34] So whereas right when, when I learned how to do this, that feeling was always matched with an action, and I felt very compulsive to replay the action that I had done all the time with that feeling. Once I realized that that feeling could just sit there and not action paired with it, the feeling diminished, the intensity of the feeling diminished.
[00:17:00] Once you can learn to define and describe it and realize that there's nothing actually happening with this feeling, there is no physical injury occurring with it. You can sit with it and it starts to diminish over time.
[00:17:15] But the part of us that drives us to eat this food really feels like there's a danger associated with these feelings.
[00:17:23] That's what's driving us to have that behavior. That's why cravings are so powerful. We eat the food because we're thinking it's going to make that feeling go away, and we're uncomfortable and unaccustomed to feeling it. So my next question, once you can locate the feeling, what are you afraid is going to happen if you do not pair the action of eating with that feeling? That is what complying with a craving is. You're having a feeling, a craving, and you are complying with it by bringing that action, by pairing it with that action. What are you afraid is going to happen if you do not comply with that. That feeling, that craving, Many times what I hear, it's going to be too much to bear. I might explode or I might lose control. I might eat everything. I think at the heart of this frequently when I ask, you know, my clients to go deeper, it's almost always, I might be unhappy.
[00:18:28] And your brain believes this.
[00:18:31] Your brain believes that happiness is created with the food. Your brain believes that something outside of you is going to make you lose control. And eat everything. Your brain truly believes that it may be too much to bear and you might explode. And there is nothing about the vibration in my chest that radiates to my throat and my neck that actually will create any explosion in my body.
[00:18:58] It's just uncomfortable, or it was uncomfortable. I don't even know that it's that uncomfortable anymore. It's pretty neutral. But in the moment, your brain believes it, which is why you are so heavily tied to the action, the paired action of eating.
[00:19:13] Learning how, learning what your brain believes is going to happen is imperative in this and then challenging. Is that really going to happen? Are you going to be unhappy? And initially your brain might be like, yeah, sister, we are totally going to be unhappy with this. And there may be some truth to that. But the belief that food creates happiness needs to be challenged. If you're interested in not being diabetic for the rest of your life, you're going to have to challenge that belief.
[00:19:40] Food does not create happiness. Maybe food can create some happiness, but it is not the only thing in your life creating happiness.
[00:19:49] Other things in life create happiness.
[00:19:53] The human animal 10,000 years ago didn't not have any happiness in their life. They didn't. They weren't, you know, default from all happiness just because food wasn't readily available or Twinkies weren't around.
[00:20:07] The human animal 10,000 years ago had interactions with other humans that created happiness. They had creativity experiences that created happiness. They had movement experiences that created happiness. They did all sorts of things that created happiness that had nothing to do with Twinkies or pizza.
[00:20:26] So the idea that food has to be associated with your happiness, that has to be challenged. If you're interested in fixing your diabetes, then I want you, once you can kind of locate the feeling and figure out what your brain believes is going to happen if you don't comply with it.
[00:20:46] I want you to consider what it would look like if you could unload that feeling, that craving, that vibration in your body. If you could unload the worry about losing control to worry about eating everything. If you could unpack it, start to know each and every piece of it, each and every part of it, get really good at experiencing it and realize that there's absolutely no harm coming to you from having that feeling in your body.
[00:21:14] If you could feel that and could prove to your brain that all the bad things that it's worried it's protecting you from or that it feels it needs to protect you from, is it going to happen that you don't need to keep Your brain from exploding, because exploding and losing control and being unhappy is not going to happen just because you have this feeling.
[00:21:37] If you could do that and not eat the food, what you will then do is create a belief that when you have cravings, feelings of cravings, you don't need to eat. The thing in the way that we comply with feelings normally or the feeling of craving normally is we have the feeling of craving. We have have all this compulsive feeling associated with it, and we eat it. We eat the food. What we're doing is proving to ourselves that if I have this feeling, I'm gonna lose control and eat the food. We are literally creating that chain of events over and over, creating more evidence that when I feel the feelings of cravings, I am going to eat food. So I can't feel the feelings of craving. I had better eat the food. That's the cycle that we create and it's why we keep stuck. If we can pause and feel the feelings and challenge that we need to have this movement, this action of eating, whenever we feel that feeling, can we just get good at feeling the feeling and not having that action, we create evidence to our brain that nothing bad is going to happen. We create evidence to our brain that we don't need to eat the food. We create evidence to our brain that we can feel that feeling, that vibration for me in the upper part of my chest that radiates to my throat. I can feel that feeling and I'm not going to eat everything.
[00:23:01] When you can create evidence to your brain that that doesn't need to happen, that's when we start to change that relationship with the food instead, asking your brain in that moment if it will be willing to let you sit with the discomfort, trusting that nothing bad's gonna happen, that the feeling cannot hurt you, allowing yourself to feel the feeling and not comply with the eating, not needing to comply with the eating so that you can suppress the worry, reminding yourself that your human body is totally capable of feeling all of those feelings and not complying with food, you're not gonna be any worse for the wearer.
[00:23:48] That is the crux step for learning to manage your cravings without complying with the food. It's wanting, your brain's wanting. Once you get good at this, you start to experience relief from those cravings and desires without eating the food. And with practice, you can start to trust that you will be happy. You aren't going to eat everything and you're not going to lose control and you're not going to be overwhelmed. But it takes practice. Once you unload all of that feeling without complying with the cravings, you can start to decide what you want to do with that energy and that time instead of eating or instead of worrying, right? Like suddenly it dissipates and you can do something else with that energy.
[00:24:34] I really want to encourage you to try this out. It is a practice. It's kind of like playing tennis or basketball. It's a practice. You have to do it over and over again to get good at a tennis serve. Certainly coaching helps. Coaching helps you perfect it. Coaching helps you get the good serve sooner. Coaching helps you learn to manage craver cravings and desires and urges easier and quicker. This is where coaching helps. This is what I help women do. You don't need to feel like you need to learn to be a proficient tennis player alone. And you don't need to feel like you need to learn how to manage cravings and urges alone. There is help. This is important to you. This isn't just tennis. Like, if you're not a proficient tennis player, that's fine. You simply find another hobby. But if you're not proficient at learning to manage those cravings, you stay diabetic. You cut years off your life. Fixing this part of your life is important to you and it's what you want in life and there is help for that. So if you're interested in that help, don't hesitate to reach out. You know you can always find me by emailing
[email protected] if you have any questions you can use that email also. Lastly, I have an ask if you're getting benefits from this podcast. If you could rate and review it on your podcast player, that would be helpful. The more ratings and reviews this podcast get, the more people it gets presented to. When you realize that 9 out of 10Americans are sick with insulin resistance on their way to diabetes, more people need to hear this. That's the realization that comes from that. People need to hear that they don't need to be sick and tied to medications in the health care industry for the rest of their life. The more times people rate and review this podcast, the more it gets put to new people. So if you could do that, I would appreciate it. Lastly, I want you to keep listening. I want you to keep avoiding foods that are making you sick and I want to want you to keep making choices for your vitality, your longevity and your health. I'll talk to you next week.
