Picture this: It’s 3pm on any given weekday and suddenly you find yourself with your hand in a bag of cookies – and you wonder to where half of the freshly opened bag has disappeared. Certainly you didn’t eat ALL of those cookies?! …by yourself?! …in under four minutes?!
There seems to be something bewitching about that late-afternoon time (or late morning or right before bed) when we often crave sugar and are the most desperate to reach for something we shouldn’t.
But is your body really craving the cookies or ice cream or sugary-laced latte? Probably not.
Cravings are a good thing; they indicate to us that something is out of balance. Many of us only get as far as the craving itself and never take the time to deconstruct what message it might be sending us about how to rebalance ourselves.
In my work with my clients and in talks that I give, I talk about something called “primary foods.” I learned this idea when I attended the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, and I have expanded on it in my own life and in the work I do.
Primary foods are essential to learn to balance in order to be healthy. They include relationships, career, spirituality, exercise and rest. In order to reach optimum health, all of these things need to be balanced.
For example, if your marriage is on the rocks and being anywhere near your home is stressful to you, it doesn’t matter how much broccoli you eat, you won’t be healthy.
If you are so focused on everything else in life that you don’t take time to nourish your soul and pray and meditate, then it doesn’t matter how much broccoli you eat, you won’t be healthy.
If you are always in “go” mode and never stop to take a breather, never take time out to rest, then it doesn’t matter how much broccoli you eat, you won’t get yourself off that roller coaster and to a place of health.
So maybe those times during the day when you reach for a candy bar late afternoon or late evening are not in fact related to hunger. Stop and think if there is a primary food that needs nourishment.
Are you bored in your job?
Has tension and frustration mounted with your preschooler?
Do you need to get up out of your chair and take a brisk walk?
Go to bed earlier?
If your body is truly craving one of these, then eating a bag of sugar won’t be the proper solution. Perhaps it’s time to give yourself some true soul food – food that feeds those essential, primary elements of your life: relationships, career, spirituality, exercise, rest.
Before you grab that handful of M&Ms think: “What am I really craving?”
To read more about primary foods and how to balance them, check out Joshua Rosenthal’s book Integrative Nutrition.
Heather Hammond is the mother of an ever-toddling daughter and expecting her second daughter in mid-March. She is a writer, speaker, health coach as well as a playwright, adjunct theatre professor and freelance director/producer. But the bigger her family gets, the more she is learning to say “no” to keep her life balanced. You can read about her exploits, confessions, and ways she’s working out her life and faith at perfectconfessions.wordpress.com and follow the white-noise of her life on twitter: @wholelivinggal.
