21: When Substitutions Work Against You

Hayley Sohn here, nutritionist and Weight Loss expert and today we are talking about making healthier substitutions and how to make them work for you instead of against you This came up on a recent call I hosted for my free training, Master Your Cravings We were discussing when we have a craving, aka we want to eat something in the moment…sometimes its a strong desire and sometimes you just think “I’m a snacker”. Either way, in our area of focus when we are consistently eating things we don’t want to be eating or that are preventing us from losing weight, I teach my clients how to handle this in the moment. The goal of this training is to take participants through an activity that gives them perspective on when these cravings are happening and how to work through them in real time and NOT eat. The idea is the more you don’t honor the craving, the more times you can take it through and not eat because it told you to that eventually your brain quiets down and stops asking. So anyway, we are doing a live call coaching call about this and one of the participants said can I just substitute out what im craving for something healthy. Another participant chimed in and said she uses healthy substitutions all the time, and that can’t be bad I love this topic and thought it would be fantastic to discuss with you here First of all: The diet industry does not promote any sort of brain/mind management around food. What they tell you is if you have a craving, if you are wanting to eat things that don;t serve you you either Need to distract yourself Get more willpower OR substitute the craving for something healthier! What this does is teach your brain that when it asks for food, it gets food. Even if its not what it asked for, it got rewarded for asking It perpetuates your brain asking…constantly substituting cravings for something healthier does not make managing your cravings easier, it makes it more difficult! One of my clients told me about how she used to over do it with chocolate so she would swear off chocolate, and then she would find herself overeating licorice, and she doesn’t even like licorice! But i had this same experience too. Making substitutions doesn’t work…your brain continues to ask, you perpetuate and sometimes strengthen your desire for food So what i told her was this: Healthier alternatives are great. If you are building your day to day by creating healthy meals, making sure you are eating foods taht feel good to you that is fantastic. One of the participants on this call is gluten free and dairy free so she was like don’t tell me substitutions are bad! They are not, more power to you BUT a substitution in the moment is not helping you get what you ultimately want If your brain is like ice cream sounds incredible, so you make a healthier ice cream alternative and have that instead, you still fed the craving You told the screaming toddler that throwing a fit will get it a reward, you reinforced bad behavior Ultimately, your cravings are not going to calm down using the substitution method. What do you do instead? You have to BE WITH the craving. As uncomfortable and un-action oriented as it sounds That was the participants question: ok so if i am not substituting the cravign and I am not distracting myself from it or running away, what am i doing? I’m action oriented I told her your action is to go into your brain and body and solve it there. She was in the training so she had access to the 5 step process i teach for this I was like that is your action… Honestly this is one of the most challenging things i teach because we all want to be taking action all the time…when i say we need to focus on your thoughts, on your emotions, on your brain….people are often times like but shouldnt i cut out sugar? Or exercis more? No, those are actions and they do not help your brain learn or change. They are also not sustainable unless they are coming from a thought and emotion that is sustainable… Ok that is your takeaway for today. I'm Hayley Sohn, Nutritionist, Weight Loss Expert and your host of Weight Loss Without Dieting. If you are interested in working with me, I recommend you join my Waitlist and be the first to know when spots open: bit.ly/callwaitlist