Michelle was surrounded by tempting treats and her food cravings skyrocketed as a result. Her husband liked to graze and snack his way through the evening until bedtime.
She used to muster up the willpower to say no to food cravings and while she initially felt proud of herself…
She would eventually feel deprived… and then guilty when she ultimately gave in…
Whether that be minutes or days later.
After 14 weeks in the Courage to Trust Method, Michelle cured her nighttime overeating and banished her food cravings.
But first, she had to address the root cause of emotional eating:
The absence of specific self-care in 4 critical areas: hormonal balance, emotional management, mindset and community support.
Eliminating food cravings by balancing hormones
The first hurdle Michelle overcame to cure her food cravings was to work on Hormone Balance.
Two and a half weeks into working with me, Michelle shared this win:
One HUGE thing I noticed over the last couple of days is that I am full or satiated during the day and am eating less. When night-time arrives and my husband starts his snacking routine I am soooo full that I can’t imagine why on earth he is eating!!!!
To balance hormones, Michelle focused on the specific nutritional and lifestyle protocols for stress-management that I teach in the Courage to Trust Method.
The first step Michelle took towards hormone balance so she could feel satisfied enough that after-dinner snacking no longer appealed to her:
Are you ready? Drumroll please…no one? OK then…
Michelle ate regularly throughout the day, with a focus on protein.
If you struggle with food cravings – click here to grab my free guide “You’re Done Dieting but Still Want to Heal Emotional Eating”.
The biggest mistake women make when they are trying to control food cravings
While it sounds simple, the biggest mistake I see women make when they are trying to control food cravings is:
They don’t eat during the day and then are famished at night.
Simply focusing on eating metabolism-boosting foods regularly during the day, balances blood sugar and therefore the stress hormone cortisol.
When cortisol is balanced, you can eliminate 95% of strong food cravings for most people. For more info on cravings associated with cortisol, check out this blog post.
How emotions can lead to food cravings
Once her hormones were better balanced, Michelle had the energy and clarity to focus on emotional self-care, because many of her intense food cravings were gone.
She realized she’d struggled with emotional eating since she was 10 years old. She never would’ve labeled herself as an emotion eater because she is a high-functioning, capable woman, and she didn’t think the two things went together.
However, after reflection Michelle said:
I am indeed an emotional eater and have been for most of my life. Emotions don’t have to be negative. I found that I not only ate when I was upset, stressed, angry, mad, overworked etc. but also ate when I was happy, excited, on vacation or used food to celebrate – lose a pound? let’s eat!; get a new job?; Eat! and the list goes on…
In the Courage to Trust Method, Michelle used self-compassion practices to help her:
- Safely feel her emotions
- Create space to accept and process how she was feeling
…so she didn’t have to eat in order to numb her emotions anymore.
Michelle learned to care for herself and her emotions without food and that allowed her to stop using food for comfort.
If you struggle with food cravings – click here to grab my free guide “You’re Done Dieting but Still Want to Heal Emotional Eating”.
Top 2 mindset issues that lead to more food cravings
Michelle recognized her thought patterns were a large part of the problem, she said:
I was either thinking about food – what I was going to eat or I was trying to figure out how to lose weight and get food under control! It was a vicious cycle.
1.How All or Nothing thinking leads to overeating
That vicious cycle, where you’re either thinking about how you can indulge or restrict, often occurs due to all or nothing thinking.
Have you ever tried to make a change, only to mess up and think:
“Why even bother? I blew it, I’ll just eat whatever I feel like now and restart again later”?
All or nothing thinking causes you to stop (nothing) when you aren’t perfect (all).
And it not only stops progress towards whatever goal you may have, but it’s often how we justify overeating.
Thoughts like “I already had one, why not just finish the bag” are justification for overeating when food cravings hit.
2. The way you think about yourself matters
Food makes you feel good, and if you are denying yourself care or feeling bad in other ways… you might turn to food for self-care.
A quick non-Michelle example to illustrate this:
I spoke to a woman who was a leader in several widows groups, helping recent widows in their bereavement.
She realized she was using food at the end of the day for her own self-care. She was giving and giving to others, penciling herself in at the bottom of her own to-do list… but something always came up, and overeating was how she was caring for herself.
Maybe you can relate?
If you struggle with food cravings – click here to grab my free guide “You’re Done Dieting but Still Want to Heal Emotional Eating”.
Healing mindset issues by focusing on progress, not perfection
Michelle focused on the progress and small wins she had, rather than lapses and mess-ups during her time in the Courage to Trust Method.
Through weekly community acknowledgment of what was working and immersion in a new way of viewing her eating journey during weekly group coaching calls, Michelle was able to make incremental, consistent progress.
Why a supportive community is essential to healing from food cravings
Michelle shared that she was a closet eater, or a secret car eater.
In my experience helping over 60 women in the Courage to Trust Method heal overeating and feel great in their bodies – it’s common for women to think they are the only ones secretly eating or taking their wrappers to the can so no one sees them.
That feeling of isolation makes emotional eating shameful and deeply painful.
Michelle found sharing her journey with a community of like-minded women in the Courage to Trust Method to be essential for healing her food cravings.
She says, “there are other ladies that feel and think just like I do about food and are willing to share their journey.”
If you struggle with food cravings – click here to grab my free guide “You’re Done Dieting but Still Want to Heal Emotional Eating”.
Does your ice cream stay around long enough to get frostbite?
Once Michelle implemented specific self-care routines around the 4 key areas we just discussed:
- Hormone Balance
- Emotional Eating
- Mindset
- Supportive Community
…she was able to cure her nighttime food cravings.
And then one day I got a message from Michelle where she shared this:
Fun fact, I noticed that we have an unfinished 1/2 gallon of ice cream in the freezer that has been there for the last couple of months!!! That usually doesn’t last but a couple of days with my husband and I.
Way to go Michelle!
How to get results like Michelle
If you struggle with food cravings, the best next step for you is to grab my free guide here. You can start to copy the exact same self-care steps Michelle followed to stop the nighttime food cravings by getting to the root of the issue.
Maybe soon you will be just like Michelle, who says:
I will celebrate the success of being able to control my food and not have it control me, more quality sleep, less cravings and understanding what my body needs.