Crush Your Cravings

Start off slow to build the neuromuscle of self confidence. A new identity. Trust, self trust. I will not have sugar for breakfast. Awesome. Follow through. You just build self trust. Are you ready to beat your sugar addiction once and for all? Are you ready to let go of sugar and stop it from controlling you? We're going to talk about what causes sugar addictions or even sugar cravings. And I've been or was a sugar addict for most of my life. And I finally got sick and tired of being sick and tired. Anybody else feel that way? So I haven't had any refined sugar in about 15 months. But on my way to no sugar, anybody else here eat too much sugar like I like? For me, one cookie was never enough. One piece of cake was never enough. One frozen yogurt scoop or two were never enough. Anybody else? Way to go. Living my 2.0, right? Anybody else other than me? So many of you know, hold on. Behavioral neuroscience is my passion. I want to understand what was going on in my brain. Is it possible that your brain may be somewhat responsible for your sugar cravings or addiction? Is it possible that not only your brain. Okay. Is it possible that your diet may have something to do with your cravings for sugar? Is it possible? Just crazy, crazy thoughts, right? Stress may have something to do with your sugar cravings. So let me share with you a little story. When I was a kid, my mother loved to bake. My mother loved to cook at bake. And so every week she made cakes, she made cookies, and she allowed us to eat a ton of candy. So I grew in a household where for breakfast, pay attention to for breakfast. In the culture that I grew up in, they didn't eat a big breakfast of eggs and bacon and things like that. We ate like milk, cereal and little cookies and cakes. Milk, cereal, cookies and cakes. Every day before school. That's what I ate. And I used to eat candy on top of that. So I became addicted to sugar at a very, very young age. Anybody else have parents that maybe, you know, gave them a lot of sugar? And I'm talking specifically about refined sugar. So let me share with you a couple of things to be aware of when I kept going through these, you know, yo yoing of stopping sugar, starting sugar, stopping sugar, starting sugar. I finally got sick and tired of being sick and tired. And I asked myself, what is the root cause, the root cause of my sugar addiction? Now there's a difference between, you know, sugar cravings once in a while and sugar addictions where you. You just continuously want to eat Sugar. And so I'm going to share with you a variety of different things. I'm going to share with you what I did and I'm going to give you some ideas of what you can do if you want to be healthier. Now, have you ever heard the fact that sugar can be, for some people, more addictive than cocaine? Have you ever heard that sugar can be more addictive than cocaine? Now, all the research shows that sugar can hijack the reward center of the brain, the dopamine releasing center of the brain, the nucleus accumbens and insula is what it's caused. And whether we're craving sugar as a result of the addiction to it, the psychological and maybe even biological addiction to it, there's also in many cases a dietary factor that causes insulin levels. Okay? And this is when your body ingests sugar, too much sugar, it spikes your insulin, raises your insulin to lower the sugar, all right, To a safe level. Does that make sense? So here are a couple things that I want you to think about. There are, in my research, several factors that we want to look at. Right. First and foremost, not everybody's a sugar addict. I was not anymore a sugar addict. Not everybody craves sugar. But for those of us who, you know, we love sugar, the question is, for me, is what is the cause for you of your sugar cravings or addiction? What is the cause? Would you agree that if we want to be smart adults, instead of fighting the effect, I'm eating too much sugar? Right. Why not ask what's the cause? What is the cause that's creating the craving, the desire, the insatiable appetite, shall we say, to eat too much sugar? Right. Let's go to the cause. So there are a couple of things that I want you to consider. One, cause can be a sugar imbalance, which means that your diet is causing your sugar to spike, okay? And then a release of insulin is released into your blood to regulate your sugar. So that's one thing that it could be. Another thing that it could be, all right, is too much cortisol. Has anybody heard of this? Just out of curiosity, Too much cortisol. Do you know what cortisol is? Cortisol is the stress hormone. So when we have too much cortisol, you know what happens? It can cause us to want to eat sugar. Alright? And when we have too much cortisol in our blood, it releases glucose from our liver, which then raises our blood sugar. So it's a counter strategy from your liver, okay. To balance out what's happening in your body. So stress can be a cause of your desired eater. So could be diet, could be stress, it could be sleep. If you don't sleep well, you can actually increase your leptin levels, which also then affects cortisol, which also then affects glucose in the blood because your liver is releasing the insulin to make up, you know, for imbalances. So is your craving or is your addiction stress related? Is your addiction dietary related? All right, so first and foremost, we want to go to cost. So for me, mine was stress. Stress during the day, sleep at night. I have severe sleep apnea. I sleep on my back and I used to snore like a bear. And so I had that checked. And I have anyway severe sleep apnea. So I wasn't getting enough sleep at night. That was raising my leptin levels. That was causing me to guess what have sugar imbalances. So I would be eating sugar or high glycemic foods during the day. Okay, so just a couple things to think about. What I want you to focus on is not the effect, the eating of the sugar or the addictions. I want you to focus on what. What is it for you that may be causing the cravings or addiction for sugar? Right. So those are a few of the first things to consider. Cause versus effect. Now I'm going to take you somewhere else for just a moment. When you and I eat a lot of sugar and then we repeat the patterns over and over and over again, is it possible that we develop a habit eating a lot of sugar? Right. Every one of us is an addict. The question is to what? So when we develop a habit around eating a lot of sugar or the wrong foods, high glycemic foods, which is carbohydrates, but simple carbohydrates, like pasta, like bread, like white rice, etc. Versus Whole Foods, which has a lot more fiber and nutrients to it, we tend to release way too much insulin to make up for the sugar that those foods create. So when we develop the habit of eating too much sugar, is it also possible that we start to develop a self image and an identity of somebody who eats too much sugar, is addicted to sugar? How much do you think your identity, how much do you think your identity and self image feed your sugar cravings and addiction? A ton. A ton. So identity, self image, and then your environment. So when you have these triggers, do you have an environment, your kitchen, your pantry, whatever, that makes it easy for you to follow through? Okay. That makes it easy for you to follow through with the behavior of eating too much sugar. So those are some things that I had to discover and understand because I want to focus on the neuroscience of sugar addiction or sugar cravings. I want to focus on the biology of it. And so when we say, you know, I think I had a sweet tooth, well, what is a sweet tooth? Right? There's no teeth that are sweet. Right. The whole idea is what's causing me to really want, okay, to eat the sugar. Right? What is the biological thing that's causing me to crave those foods? And it, in many cases, is a sugar mouth. So first and foremost, I focused on changing my identity and self image. So what did I do? I created a little story. I wrote out a story. First. I'm going to give you the process and how I did it. I wrote out a story. I'm so grateful and happy for the fact that I no longer crave sugar. I'm so happy and grateful for the fact that I eat healthy whole foods. I'm so happy and grateful for the fact that I weigh this much and this much body fat. I'm so happy and grateful for the fact that I've been able to release my sugar addiction. So I wrote down a series of new identity and statements of what I wanted. Does that make sense? First, I'm working on the inner game. First I wrote it down and then I actually recorded it. And I used to listen to it every single day in the morning. So first, the inner game. Would you agree with that? Inner game first, identity, self image, first. Second, I asked my wife to make sure that when my cravings kicked in, which was usually at night, after work was over, I was sitting by the TV watching TV or reading, and all of a sudden I get this trigger. I asked her when I was triggered, could she just be my accountability buddy? Can she just be my accountability buddy to get me to stop for 10 minutes, to just pause for 10 minutes between the time the trigger hit and me walk into the pantry or the fridge. So self, image, identity, and then accountability, accountability. My wife. And she said, sure. Number four, environment. I made sure that in my pantry and in the fridge, I had a couple of things. So in the fridge I had some unsweetened non fat. And since I'm vegan, I had some unsweetened non fat coconut yogurt. And what I would do is I take some coconut yogurt with a little bit of fiber, okay. And I would add a little bit of oil. So I had fiber and oil. Why fiber and oil? Well, fiber slows down metabolism. Oil slows down metabolism. It Regulates fiber and oil and protein, by the way. I would put a scoop of protein powder in this yogurt and I would eat a little bit of that. Now what did that do for me? I was able to replace the sugary foods with some fats and protein, some fiber and a little bit of protein to slow metabolism, but also to satiate me. So I replaced the behavior. I replaced the behavior I didn't like, stop the behavior. I replaced the behavior with something healthier. What? Why? Well, I'm going to go back to neuroscience for all of you. Every behavior and habit specifically has three components to it. Ready? Trigger, whatever the trigger is. Behavior, reward. Trigger, behavior, reward. So I became aware of when I was being triggered to eat sugar. The behavior was usually go eat something sugary, which released the protein. I'm sorry, which released the dopamine. Right. The anticipation, the walking and then eating it would release dopamine, the feel good neurochemical. That's called a habit loop. So once I found out the trigger got accountability changed what I had in the fridge in the pantry. And I give myself an opportunity to eat better foods. Now my body got used to eating something better that would not. Okay. That would not affect, okay, my insulin levels the way sugar did. And yes, we can also grab a handful of nuts, right? Nuts, seeds are great. Olive oil, avocado is good also. So I replaced the behavior with something healthier. Now I'm going to give you a couple other pieces. Okay. To this. Whenever we're looking to change a behavior, remove an addiction, there's a piece of this that is rarely talked about, and that is this. Are you making the decision for a reason? Are you making the decision for a season or are you making the decision for a lifetime? A reason, a season or a lifetime? Which one are you? Because if you're doing it for a reason, then you'll probably be able to, you know, reduce or release your excessiveness or your addiction, but it's not going to last. So a reason or a season usually will not last. But a lifetime means you're taking into consideration how awful refined sugar is for you. Now, fruit sugar, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries. The berries are the lowest on the glycemic index, meaning they don't have a lot of sugar in it, so they don't spike your insulin to regulate your blood sugar level. So in my morning smoothies, like I just had about 15, 20 minutes ago, I'll have my, you know, coconut milk that my wife makes. In the coconut or in the ingredients, the milk makers I'll have some protein powder. I'll have some really good Udo's Choice oil, omega 3, 6 and 9 fat. And I will have some berries, okay. In my, in my smoothie in the morning, which will be used during the day, but they don't spike your insulin level. So a reason, a season or a lifetime? So answer the question for me. Do you want to give up your sugar cravings or addiction for a reason? A season or a lifetime? Which one? Because if it's a lifetime, then whatever you choose as your new way of eating and being, it's no longer a diet, right? It's just a way that you are which feeds back into, which feeds back into you, your identity. So I don't see myself as a sugar addict anymore. I used to be. I don't see myself like I have cravings sometimes depending on my diet. But my diet has gotten so refined as a vegan now. And I also don't drink alcohol for nine years or so or, sorry, for 12 or 13 years. No alcohol vegan for nine years. So I've really been able to get my diet right, my sleep right, my diet right, my exercise right, so that I don't have the same cravings I used to have before. I'll give you a few tips. So number one, start off with a really great breakfast, okay? The thing that you want to do is make sure that you have balance in your breakfast. So I have fiber, okay, Whether it's non soluble and soluble fiber, a little bit of fruit, some oil, protein powder. And being a vegan, I have plant based protein powder. And the, some of it has, some of the protein powder I get, doesn't have any sweetener in it. Some of it has a little bit of stevia, okay. That is said not to increase your, your insulin levels. Number two, make sure that you are hydrated. A lot of times when we're not hydrated, it messes up with our blood sugar level. Okay. Number three, when you feel triggered, when you feel triggered to eat something sweet, okay, do something else instead or eat something that's sweet, that is low on the glycemic index. So you can have a, you know, half of a sweet potato if you want. Find something that has low on the glycemic index, that is not a refined sugar, replace it with a whole food, okay? Like a sweet potato. The other thing that you can look at is squash, okay? You know, A little bit of a, you know, carrot. Vanilla rock, A cow. Cinnamon. Vanilla rock. Cinnamon is shown to reduce sugar cravings as well. Smoothies. I have a smoothie every morning with about 500 calories that sustains me from like 8:30 to like 1:30 every day. If you can use ginger and turmeric. Ginger and turmeric actually help with insulin resistance. Right? So there are so many different things that you can do. But the first part of all of this is your self image, right? The first part is your self image. Second part is understanding your triggers. The third part is getting an accountability partner. The fourth part is to make sure your environment is conducive to you keeping off of refined sugar. Okay, so how did I do it? There's another piece to this. So here's the other thing. When we're looking to change habits, when we're looking to, you know, eliminate cravings, okay. I like to have you consider the 137 methodology. 137, okay. And it goes like this. Control it for one meal, one meal. Control your sugar cravings for one meal, one cycle, then three meals. Okay, one meal, then three meals, then one day, then three days, then seven days. So one meal, three meals, one day, three days, seven days. Why? First you want to build your new neuro muscles of I can control this versus it controlling me. When you control one meal, what do you do? You build self confidence, you build self trust. Right? So if you could do one meal, can you do two meals back to back. If you do two meals, can you do three meals which is one day, then let's go for three, three days. So you focus on a short time frame instead of I give up sugar for good. Start off slow to build the neuro muscle of self confidence, a new identity. Trust, self trust. I will not have sugar for breakfast. Awesome. Follow through. You just build self trust. Self trust gives you more confidence, more confidence, gives you a little bit of certainty, more certainty says maybe I could do two meals. Right. You start to fire off new neural pathways and you reinforce them by following through on the behavior. And when you follow through on the behavior, you have so many other benefits. I did it. Now what do you prefer to do? Set a goal that you don't achieve and go, I didn't do it again and disappoint yourself. Or do you set a goal that's small and follow through to completion? Are you a goal setter or goal achiever? So one, three, seven control, one meal, three meals, then one day, then three days, then seven days. And you just get better and better and better at it. And so let me share with you. For my 60th birthday last year, I decided for my 59th birthday, my gift to myself was one year because I've done one day, three days, seven days, 30 days, 100 days. And so then I said, okay, I'm going to do one full year. And then after I did one full year from September of 2020 to September 2021, by September 21st on my 60th birthday, I said, I just don't need to eat refined sugar anymore. But it started off with a small, simple goal that I did repeated and then I built upon that. So how do you build a muscle a little bit at a time, right? So when we are looking to change habit, especially disempowering negative destructive habits in some cases, right? Then start small. Build the neuro muscle and the behavior muscle, the confidence muscle, the certainty muscle, the identity, the certainty. Now who's in control? You or the habit or addiction or the cravings? And I'm going to leave you with one last thing. Okay? Every result that you and I achieve, every result is an effect, right? An effect. Don't focus on the effect, especially if it's a result or effect you don't want. Be aware of your effects. Always, always, always focus on the cause. The cause. If you focus on the cause and your process, the effect will take care of itself. Does that make sense? And I appreciate you. Thanks for being in my orbit and I hope you have an awesome day. How about a high five? Boom. Boom, boom. All right, have a great day and thanks for sharing this. Bye now. Hey, this John. And if you like that video, watch the next video because it is packed with things that you can do right now to achieve success way faster than ever before.