Let’s Normalize Food Cravings (Outweigh)

a holistic health and heartache consultant coach. How do you like? What did you say that? Contay consultant? And you were on four Things this week my four Things podcast on Thursday, and we were talking about helping people heal from heart ache and grief, whether it's through a breakup or a divorce, or the loss of a loved one or job, even something that you held tightly that suddenly is no longer

with you is very difficult. And I think sometimes when we're in a process of grieving or heartache, we have different cravings and we can end up trying to get frustrated at those or pick those apart, or feeling defeated if we quote unquote given to a craving and outweighs is about just bringing comfort to people that might be

experiencing any thoughts like that. I don't assume everybody listening right now is grieving, but you might be one day, And this is information you could keep in your back pocket, so that way, if something comes up and you do have these thoughts, with these cravings, you can have this as a tool or a resource to refer to. Yeah. Absolutely,

and thank you for having me. Yeah. It's interesting because even if it's not grief, you know, stress or overwhelmed can have a similar physiological response on our taste buds and our appetite and digestion and all of that. And I think we have this connotation that all cravings are bad. But first, I think it's important to really normalize cravings any time. Cravings are totally normal, and they're also especially normal when you are in a difficult season of life.

So don't beat yourself up for having them, don't beat yourself up for any decisions that you have been making. You're doing your best. I am sure you're doing your best. And with that said, we can take what feels like a very out of control craving experience and really kind of get control of it by understanding what is happening with our cravings and the different kinds of cravings, and then just consciously choosing what we want to do about it.

You know, I guess I should say sometimes you just have to go for the craving itself, and that's okay, but you want it ideally to be something you are choosing for yourself, because that's empowering versus feeling like the craving quote got the best of you. So well, that's what leads to the spiral of then it's and it's just this merry go round, right, you go in and

then you're you feel lost in it. But I I agree, it's so empowering when you get to choose and you get to almost feel proud, Yes I ate that, Yes, and I feel great value or you can recognize, oh, yes I ate that, and like I'm not feeling so great. So then who you learned some information? It's true and also it is also true that well to some extent, especially if you have you know, let's say you are

insulin sensitive or you have an allergy or something. There are certain foods that are probably not going to make you feel great. You might have a blood sugar crash and spike and crash um or might hurt your stomach. But it is also worth noticing if you have let's say one day you have the doughnut and then you beat yourself up about it, how do physically feel versus having the doughnut and being like that donut was awesome. I enjoyed it and I'm going to go about my day.

How do you physically feel? And I tend to find and there's research for this that you actually can physiologically have a have a different response when you are just enjoying it and allow your allowing yourself to be freaking human like, it's part of the human experience, right, I mean, cravings are largely how we are wired, wired for survival to get things like sugar and fat really quickly into our bodies. So so craving does not make you bad. No,

you said normalized cravings. Yeah, there's no moral assignment with food, guys, Like ever, it's not a thing like there and there's no wagon, there's no on the wagon, off the wagon, Like we give food way too much power when we when we kind of anthropomorphosized food and turn it into this person that can do things to us and has qualities. It's just food, and sometimes the most nourishing thing, like

I said, is to just have the donut. So going back to initially, when we are under stress, overwhelmed, grief, there are lots of different ways that we can have craving. Some people tend to have more salt cravings, but I would say the most common that people find is going to be a combination of sugar and fat. It's probably going to be the primary craving, you know, for things like ice cream or just fast acting carbs essentially you know,

easily broken down simple carbohydrates and sugars. And that is for a lot of different reasons. That can be because you are going through major, major stress and so your body is looking for sources of energy. Maybe you're not sleeping as well, you're in fight or flights. You actually

need more energy, don't. Your body thinks it needs more energy going to your blood and to your muscles to prime you for this this difficult experience which is actually happening internally, but our body is kind of respond to it like we are about to go into a ring and fight. So it's totally normal that you have these cravings for sugar because your your body is looking for that energy. Plus all of these stress hormones that are coursing through your body, like adrenaline and cortisol. So first

of all, it's worth taking notes. Sometimes we don't know that we're stressed until we notice what we're doing, the decisions that we're making. So you may not even know that you're stressed and overwhelmed, but all of a sudden, you're sugar craving through through the roof, and then maybe it's time to look and see is there a sort of stress that I'm not even aware of. But again, there's no judgment, there's no good, bad, or right or wrong.

It's just what serves you. So first, just understanding that it's normal. It's natural for your cravings to ebb and flow. It's normal to have them, it's normal to be obsessing over them and thinking about them. I mean, one of the other reasons when we're grieving that we have these cravings for these hyper palatable foods, so you know, foods that contain sodium, msg sugar, fat, all of that, these hyper palatable foods is because it's a coping and numbing device. Again,

totally normal. You're not doing anything wrong. This is part of the human experience of grieving, is that we we look for ways to cope and numb and food that has a quick reaction in our bodies, that that gives us that hit of dope, but mean really quickly. Of course you want that. Of course you do. You know, like we all do. It's okay you you haven't. You haven't made a mistake because you are biologically wired to want to self soothe, and that's a really easy way

and a quick way to self soothe. Now, ultimately, if we do that more than we put some nourishing foods in our bodies, it's not going to help our healing process long term. But I think the most important thing is to understand that there are different types of cravings. Ask yourself what type of craving this is, and then

again just consciously choose. That helps with such self awareness, and I think awareness is so key, and it can be the first step to unlocking so many things and giving yourself that permission that it is okay that I'm feeling this, it is okay that I am craving this, and on Thursday's episode over on four things we we talked about, You know, if you have lots of appetite, So y'all can go back and listen to that episode UM with Loreleie if you want to hear what's going

on with that and how I thought it was fascinating in that episode when you shared that your body has so many other things going on that it's worried about that like it, you might not be hungry because it doesn't really have time to digest anything. It's busy. You have other heartache and other things that it's tending to.

So everybody's body responds in such a different way. So I think another thing too, when you're going through something difficult and you're also navigating a potential eating disorder or body image issues, is you may look at how other people handled it. Oh, well, when that person was grieving, they lost weight or when that person so therefore, why

am I maybe not doing that? Or you start to look how other people's bodies handled grief, and I just want to remind you that everybody's body is totally different and you cannot look at how someone else responded to grieving and food and exercise and all the things and think that that is going to be exactly what your

body needs. One of the difficulties if you, especially as a woman, if you've ever had a history of eating disordered disordered eating, is that when you lose your appetite for a while and then you lose weight, a lot of people women in particular, have resistance to gaining that weight back because then you go into sort of revenge

body culture. Um. But remembering that that's not sustainable and that's that was a that was a stress and a grief response for them, and then you know they have to mentally navigate getting back to a healthy weight and that's not a fun process to go through either, you know. So asking yourself like one, seeing that everyone's journey is different and realizing that as much as you can try to nourish yourself from the beginning so that you're not

ping ponging is actually can be a blessing. Huge like this is a tool to have that you can know if you if you can understand it. That's why I said the aware this is so key. If you can understand at least this piece, that helps navigating all the other pieces. If you're numbing, then you're not feeling what's really happening, and then it's just gonna take the whole process. It's going to take you longer. And I've been there.

I speak from experience. There is no judgment when I say this, Like it's taken me years and years and years to heal from certain things because of all the numbing that I did with food and purging and exercise, like all the different things to distract myself. And so if that is you, this is your journey and you will figure it out in the right time. And maybe this is a conversation that you needed to hear to

just like kind of have that lightbulb go off. But ultimately it's going to take you putting in the work. But awareness is first. And I know the initial conversation was about normalizing cravings, but also you know, normalized feeling

just super confused, right, Yeah, it's okay. I just the you know, some days maybe needing to to go just let out a good scream, because if you are experiencing grief on top of any type of eating disorder or body image issue, it's just so exhausting because your brain is already so occupied with so many other things and you don't have the space for it. But the quicker you can try to find the resources and help and

the right team. If you have access to that, then you know the better off that you're going to be, and that taking care of your body and nourishing it will get you to the healing point faster. But again, faster is relative. Just because someone else healed in this amount of time doesn't mean that you have to. Yeah, And because grief is so nonlinear again, it's like we can't compare to other people's journeys because things may resurface

for them in years, you know. And so just because it looks like someone is doing well, I mean, we hope that they are, but we can't compare because that's not fair to you because you don't know what their long term trajectory is. And I think your point about crying is really important. One of the things I absolutely insist is that as much as you can, let the tears come when they want to, I know, something realistic. You know, sometimes it's not realistic, but but when you can. Mean.

One of the reasons I organized my my research according to the stages of grief is because sometimes what we really need when we're in the anger phase anger stage is to scream and cry and punch pillows. They're a rage room type of things. There's like one in opery Land where you can go and break stuff, and I didn't. I mean, I've heard of them across the country, but I don't know operate. I actually haven't been, but I've kind of wanted to. I don't think it ice cubes

and thrown them on the concrete outside. That's perfect. That's a thing to do. My therapist told me, or maybe one of my kids. Therapist said to do it, and I was like, you know, for them, and I was like, I'm going to do it. I've had a therapist recommend safely burning things, you know, I mean memorabilia obviously safe safely, safely, safely recommended by therapist outside safely. But all of these things do say if you But yeah, sometimes we really

need to get that out. And so the food, we we can just without judgment, non judgmentally, notice how we are being with food and ask ourselves, is there something that I'm not getting out of my system and it's showing up in these craving So other ways, you know, finding other ways to express that emotion is really really powerful. Art is a great way to do that. If you're

someone who likes art, that can be amazing. Time and nature, which we've talked about, gentle forms of exercise and movement, something that's very healing for my sister, which might not be ideal for people if you've got a lot going on around food, but if you're listening in your and more of recovery, or you're trying to play around with different foods and feel safe with certain foods, is cooking

and how therapeutic that can be. My sister always talks about cooking is just a therapeutic for me, and that's just not been my thing. That's really not my route, and maybe it's because of my relationship with food. But I have to say I made a soup the other day from scratch, and it was very healing and therapeutic, and so I thought the whole time is making it was like my sister's right. I mean, I was shredding the chicken and blending bablano peppers and a jalapeno and

suted onion. And my kids don't I think the recipe called for everything to be chunky, but my kids, I knew that they would freak out at the chunks of the peppers and stuff. So I just blended it all so that way, I for sure had the same flavor.

I didn't blend the chicken that was chunky, and don't worry. Well, I've followed some accounts before they recommended that, and I was like, oh, and yes, I've I have blended meat in my very disordered days, mainly for digestion, but also I didn't my body didn't have an issue digesting meat. But I saw someone else doing that, so I thought I needed to do it, you know what I mean. That's why it's not good to do whatever, like compare yourself to what other people are doing, because you may

have different needs. So and then you're eating blended meat and you're like why So anyway, the soup I found it to be very healing, which I know something you're doing too is part of You're consulting and you've done cooking classes a ton in the past being a holistic chef. But do you have some new cooking classes or something coming up? Yes? Totally. Actually had someone today on like a Q and A say, how do I fall in

love with cooking again? And I think it's important to just know that, like not everyone has to like cooking and you know has to cook. I mean it's a great way to save money. But I normalize normally is not being like, yeah, you can be in the kitchen, especially if you're a woman. Totally it's totally fine. But with that said, it can be really therapeutic and it can be really knowledgeable. It can offer a lot of knowledge about your body, about what works best for your

lifestyle and your family. So I have launched a series of cooking classes called Cooking for Heartache here in Nashville, and the first portion of the class will be talking about how you can take care of yourself inside and out no matter what season you're going through. And then I am going to make six recipes from my upcoming cookbook which is called Recipes for an Aching Heart, and just gonna nourish people and feed them in a really safe environment and they can connect with each other and

ask questions. And when you register for the class, you get those recipes. So yeah, if anyone's looking for just a healthy way, really safe way to spend time, if you're going through something difficult, um, you can definitely you know, learn about the classes. Would love to spend time with

you well, and people can find all the details. I'll link everything in the show notes, but lll balanced dot com is Lordly's website, and then your Instagram handle is Lordly Balanced, which the lee is l E. A ye, thank you. I feel like sometimes people might search l E. But again I'll link it in the show notes. So Lordly, thank you for coming on Four Things on Thursday and then also recording Outweigh with me because I feel like food grief, how we handle grief and heartache, it's also

tied together, especially and I know you. You were a part of Outweigh when it first launched. It wasn't even its own podcast, it was just a four part series that I was doing on Four Things, and you were kind enough to share your personal journey with food and body image stuff. So you're one of the people that was a part of Outweigh when it was just a little baby and we didn't know what was going to happen with it. So thank you for coming back on.

You're welcome, Thanks for having me. All right. I hope you all have in the day you need to have By