We've all had those moments—standing in front of the pantry or fridge, hoping a snack will fix the stress, exhaustion, or overwhelm we're feeling. But what if cravings weren't something to fight or feel guilty about? What if they were invitations—to slow down, tune in, and let God meet us where we are?
In this episode, we unpack five grace-filled ways to better handle cravings, blending practical strategies, intuitive eating principles, and faith-led wisdom.
Here's what we'll cover: 🌱 How to identify whether a craving is physical or emotional ⚡ How to uncover what your cravings are really trying to tell you 🙏 How to invite God into your cravings and let Him guide your response 💡 Simple alternatives and tools to respond with awareness and compassion 💌 How to reflect on your choices without guilt, shame, or self-criticism
📓 Plus: Download your free companion guide, Cravings Decoded: Your Faith-Led Guide to Handling Cravings with Grace
Let's move from guilt and frustration to peace and confidence—body, mind, and soul. 🌸
Join The Nourished to Bloom Community: www.community.karatrochta.com
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The Nourished to Bloom Podcast Show Notes: www.podcast.karatrochta.com/shownotes
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So it is not uncommon for our cravings to have us
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feeling out of control or like we're just failing at
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all of this. Yet again, I want you to pause and take a deep
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breath. You are not alone in feeling this way.
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In today's episode, we're going to get super practical
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by exploring five grace filled ways to better handle
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your cravings. They're rooted in how God designed our bodies and our
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minds to work together. So let's take a moment, invite him
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into these moments when we feel weakest and learn how to find
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peace, not guilt, when those cravings hit.
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Welcome to the Nourish to Bloom podcast where your faith meets
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your health. I'm your host, Kara Trachta, a registered dietitian and
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certified Catholic coach, and I'm here to help you cultivate a deeper connection
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with your body, your spirit and the nourishment that sustains them
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both. In a world filled with noise and
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confusion about food, health and body image, this podcast
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offers truth and healing from a Christ centered perspective.
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Together, we'll untangle the deep roots of diet culture and discover
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what it means to truly care for ourselves through joyful
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nourishment of mind, body and soul. We're here to dive into
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the transformative power of intuitive eating coupled with the rich teachings of our
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Christian faith. With every episode, I'll be cheering you on,
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offering insights, inspiration and practical tools to help
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you heal your relationship with food and embrace the beauty
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of your body as a temple of the Holy Spirit with
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confidence and courage that can only be found in Christ.
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Join me as we journey together towards a more holistic approach to wellness,
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one that honors the wisdom of your body as God's creation,
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the teachings of our faith, and the unique purpose you're called to
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fulfill. You were made to bloom
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to come into full beauty and health in order to bear good fruit
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for the Lord with your life. So if you're ready to nourish your body,
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feed your soul and bloom into the best version of yourself, then
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you're in the right place. And I'm so happy you're here.
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Welcome to Nourish to Bloom, where every day is a sacred
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invitation to thrive.
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Hey there. Welcome back to the Nourish to Bloom podcast. So happy to be
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spending some time here with you. This week we are
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continuing on with our Cravings series, our decoding
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Cravings series. So if you caught last week's episode,
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we talked about what your cravings are actually telling
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you how they are not a sign of weakness or that you were
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out of control or failing but they're really just
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messages from your body, mind or soul that are
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trying to get your attention, trying to help you take better
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care of yourself, saying, hey, something's going on, let's
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look at this. So this week we're going to continue
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to build upon that, really understanding, okay, what are our
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cravings telling us? And if I
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have better tools, can I not fall victim to these cravings
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anymore? And that's what I want to help you with. This week we're going to
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get really practical and talk about five ways that you can
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better handle your cravings without guilt or
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willpower battles. Because once we start listening to our
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cravings, we can really start to
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better answer that next question. Using these five
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tools is what do we actually do with them?
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Right. Because we don't want to give in. We have maybe tried
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to resist in the past and that hasn't worked. And
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we need some really practical, grace filled ways to go about handling
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this. So that's why we're going to explore these five faith
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led ways to handle your cravings that don't lead to guilt or shame
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or that exhausting cycle of man,
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I caved again. Right. So let's go ahead and
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dive in. So before we jump into the steps, I
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want to really start with a little bit of a mindset
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shift. Right? Handling cravings isn't about
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controlling them. Right? I think that's what we all jump to, is
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that, okay, I have this craving coming on and we want to
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control that craving. We want to like not
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give into it. Right? So instead of thinking
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about cravings as something to be controlled, I want you to start
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to shift to really, what
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can I understand from this craving? Craving, right. So a
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lot of times we see these cravings as a problem to fix. And if that's
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the way we're seeing, we're going to feel like we're always losing this battle.
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But if we instead see them as clues, we dig into understanding
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them. They're really these little invitations to check in with our
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bodies, our minds and our souls. And from there we can
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respond from a place of awareness, not
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willpower or trying to grasp control. And
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when we invite God into that process, he is the one who really helps us
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discern what's truly beneath that craving and
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shows us how we can meet what it is that we really need
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or what we really desire with peace instead of panic.
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So let's take that mindset shift. We're going to switch
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from how we control our cravings to how we understand them.
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Okay, Keep that in mind. As we go through our five
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steps. So, so the first step in better handling your
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cravings is to identify the source. Is your
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craving physical or mental? So you're going
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to pause and you're going to ask, is this craving coming from my body
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or my mind? Physical cravings often
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come up with body sensations. You're maybe feeling hunger
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in your stomach or you're noticing you have low energy, maybe a
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feeling of lightheadedness or irritability. Those are those
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natural physical cravings. It's your body's
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response to needing fuel. Whereas those mental
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cravings on the other hand, they tend to come on suddenly.
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They're like a pop up ad in your brain and they are flashing.
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Eat this, eat this, eat this. You're not
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really feeling hungry. You're just seeking something to soothe,
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distract or comfort yourself. So when
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your cravings hit, I want you to pause and just do a
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really quick body check. Start with your head and work your way
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down. Just check in, you know, what am I feeling in my head
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area, in my neck area, my shoulders, my chest, my
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arms, my abdomen, my legs, my feet?
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Right? These can all help us understand is
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this the sensation that we're feeling physical right
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now or is it really being more mentally emotionally
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driven? Right, because we know that all of our,
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our emotions have a physical manifestation. Right? So if we're doing
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this body check in, we can understand what kind of cue we may be
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getting that is actually physical and what kind of cue our body
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is giving us that maybe pointing us to this is emotional.
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Okay, so step number two is to really ask,
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what's under the craving? What are you really seeking?
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Because oftentimes what we're really craving isn't the food.
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It's the feeling that we think the food will give us. It's
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what we're seeking, what we're desiring. Comfort, relief,
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reward, connection. So pausing and asking,
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what do I really want right now? Sometimes
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it's needing rest. And maybe that looks like a nap or a
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break, or maybe you're needing comfort. And that comfort comes from a
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hug or talking to a friend.
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Right? When we can start to identify what the emotion underneath
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the craving is, we can respond with compassion rather than
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criticism. And that leads us into step three.
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This is where we're going to invite the Lord into our craving and
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ask him to purify it. This is where our
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faith can really transform our cravings. So when we
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bring our craving before God and say, lord, what is this craving
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pointing me toward? What am I truly hungry for?
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Is it something emotional? Is it something physical, is it
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something spiritual? We start to shift from that self reliance,
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that trying to control the craving,
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we can move to surrender, which helps us to better understand our
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craving. And sometimes he'll show us that we need that
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physical nourishment from food. Other times he's going
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to reveal a deeper spiritual hunger connection,
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rest, peace, right? So our cravings,
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when we put this, this faith led
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lens on them, can really become
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opportunities for us to draw closer to the Lord,
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to surrender more of ourselves, more of our life to
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Him. And then that un also helps us build this
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continuous prayer throughout our day, knowing that in every
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aspect of our life, even something as simple as our
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cravings, that we can surrender that over to
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the Lord. And when we learn to surrender these, these little things
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that we have felt like we could control for so long, we start
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to see that he's going to show us the way through
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that craving that doesn't lead us to guilt or shame like it has in the
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past. And it helps us to build that trust that we then
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begin to feel like we can surrender more and more and
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more. Okay, step number four is
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really something that you can do, right? And it's
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creating a list of helpful alternatives. So once we
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know kind of the why behind our craving, we can choose
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helpful hows, right? Helpful and helpful ways
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to cope with what our craving is that will help us
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actually achieve that feeling
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that we're wanting to feel. Comfort, peace, joy, right? So
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maybe you're craving something, you're craving something sweet,
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but what it's actually you're craving is, is energy, right?
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Sometimes our bodies just need that fuel. It needs that energy. And one of the
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best ways that it's going to get that energy, one of the
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best forms of energy it likes to utilize is carbohydrates.
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So sometimes you, you may have this like craving, come on for
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something, for something sweet or kind of like that carb
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binge that may come on. And that can be a sign that your body is
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just needing fuel. So instead you can think about, okay,
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maybe I am going to have this something sweet,
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but what can I add to it that's going to make this more balanced, that's
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going to give me a balanced form of energy and
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fuel, right? So
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maybe you also have a different craving and it's really for comfort food,
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but what you're really needing is, is rest. You just want to feel
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like you're wrapped in this, this hug, right? And so
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maybe you pause for prayer or you reach out to a friend to
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say, hey, can we go for a walk, right? So trying to
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create these helpful and helpful alternatives when
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you are in a non craving mode
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is really important because if you try
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to find this alternative or create this alternative in the
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middle of a craving, it's probably not going to go very well.
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You can't kind of rationally and reasonably think about it. So
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this list of helpful alternatives is something that you really need to create
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when you're in a non craving mode. So really thinking about
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a list of these alternatives of what can I reach for instead,
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that's going to give me this emotion, right? And maybe you even break
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it down into different emotions. Like when I'm seeking
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comfort, these are the things I can do. When I'm seeking
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rest, these are the things that I can do, right? So
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they're really helpful to make when you're not stuck in that craving mode because you
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won't be able to think through it logically or rationally. So
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make that personal list of go to options for physical, emotional and
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those spiritual cravings. Just think of them as
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reminders of how you can lovingly care for yourself. Okay,
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that leads us to step number five. And this one is important.
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If you do give in to your craving,
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be compassionate and merciful with yourself.
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This one is so important. If you eat the cookie
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or the chips or whatever it is,
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please don't let the guilt or shame have that last
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word. Right? I want you to instead
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pause and just gently reflect because
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at some point we're all going to give into our cravings. It still happens to
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me, even though I've been doing, you know, intuitive eating for many, many
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years at this point. Sometimes you just want
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that thing and that is okay. But it's not okay to beat yourself
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up afterwards. So when you're reflecting,
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just ask yourself, how did I feel after I had this?
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Did it actually solve the problem?
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What did I learn and what could I do
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differently next time? This is where we're building
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reflection and learning moments and really trying
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to promote growth instead of restriction and
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punishment. And the more that we practice this
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awareness with compassion, the more peace that you're going to
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be able to find around food, the less you're going to
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feel like a victim to your cravings.
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So just a quick recap of our five better
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ways to handle your cravings. 1. Identify the source of
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your craving. Is it physical? Emotional? Two,
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ask what's underneath the craving? What are you really feeling?
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What are you really seeking? 3. Invite the Lord to
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purify it. Hand it over to him to
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have him show you what this craving really means.
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Number four, Create those helpful alternatives that you can reach for
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that is going to help you manage those emotional
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cravings. And five, Respond with compassion. If you do
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happen to give in, y', all, you
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don't need more control. It's really about
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more connection and more surrender with your body,
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your heart, and with our Lord. Your
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cravings aren't meant to be fought. They're meant to be something that is
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understood and a beautiful tool that the Lord has gifted
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within our minds and our bodies that we can better take care of
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ourselves and be better stewards of the gift that he created us
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as. So this week I challenge you that when your cravings show
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up, just pause. Go to these
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five steps, breathe, pray and ask what
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it's trying to tell you. Get curious and then respond
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not out of guilt, but out of grace.
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Don't forget that you can grab your free companion guide Cravings
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Decoded. Your Faith led guide to handling Cravings with grace.
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That's going to be in your show notes and in this companion guide.
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I'm going to walk you through these five steps and help you be able to
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put them into practice. So I thank you so much for joining me here
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this week. I hope you have a beautiful and blessed week.
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Until next time, Remember, beauty held is the seed, beauty shared
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is the flower. It is your time to bloom. We'll talk soon.
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Take care. Bye.