Why you have food cravings and don't know where they have come from
The body is a super biocomputer. It doesn’t make mistakes.
It maintains a healthy temperature, your heart never misses a beat and your lungs never forget to breathe!
Learn to listen to your body
If you find yourself craving something, your body is telling you something. Listen to it and find healthy ways to satisfy the craving. Look at the foods, insufficiencies and behaviours in your life that are the root causes of your cravings. Many people view cravings as a weakness, but actually, they are important messages to help you maintain balance. When you experience a craving, analyse it and ask yourself, what does my body want and why?
In my 6 month health coaching programme I help people with this process of deconstructing their cravings. There are 7 key causes of cravings that we explore. Our 1-to-1 coaching conversations help you to slow down in our increasingly fast paced lives, allowing you to develop higher levels of self-awareness and become an expert of your own health.
Why cravings happen and how to overcome them
When we are living life at a million miles per hour, we feel we don’t have time to get to the root cause of our problems. We also are in auto-pilot and less ‘in the present’ so our self-awareness is low and we don’t know what food is causing what feelings in our body (e.g. physical or emotional symptoms). We are tired and lacking in energy so our impulses to improve our health are very short lived and then we go back to square one.
However, when you work with a Health Coach and spend 1 hour every two weeks talking about your health and what change you want to bring about, plus create achievable actions steps for how to do this, it is very hard to not bring about change. It’s hard, in fact very hard, to keep your limiting patterns and your life the same when you focus so much consistent attention on what you really want and make commitments to a third party.
Where food cravings often come from
The root cause of a craving is often a lot deeper than just relating to the food that we are eating. It is often due to a lack of Primary Food. Primary Food, or non-food sources of nourishment (like a career we love, healthy relationships, hobbies that give us joy, a good dose of physical activity etc), are what really fuel us. As children, we all lived on primary food. People deeply in love thrive on the pleasure and peace they are experiencing, and passionate entrepreneurs are so fuelled by their work it’s 6pm, they haven’t eaten since 12 noon let alone think about the bar of chocolate in their drawer! The joy and engagement of daily life feeds us more completely than any food.
Being dissatisfied with a relationship or having an inappropriate exercise routine (too much, too little, or the wrong kind), being bored, stressed, uninspired by your job, or lacking a spiritual practice may all cause emotional eating. Eating can be used as a substitute for entertainment or to fill the void.
How to bring about desired change and achieve your goals
Bringing about change in these areas can seem like a very big and daunting task. If you need help with any of these areas then get in touch and set up a free coaching call with me to experience for yourself how you can deconstruct your cravings and break down big goals into very small and manageable steps. You will feel less consumed by them and can release that grip that they currently have on you progressing with your health goals!
Hi, I’m Meryl! I like to keep things simple in my life. I love the outdoors and keeping active - preferably in nature with my dog by my side and with my trail running shoes on! I am a big believer in the power of the mind but also in the power of good, nutritious food to heal the mind and body. I love to help people achieve balance in their lives so they can ‘spin all the plates’ that are important to them and live a healthy, fulfilled life.
Certified Integrative Nutrition Health Coach
Certified NLP Professional Coach
GB ultra-trail runner
ASICS Frontrunner