Understanding the Science Behind Food Cravings

Welcome to the Satiated Podcast, where we explore physical and emotional hunger, satiation and healing your relationship with your food and body. I'm your host. Stephanie Mara Fox, your Somatic Nutritional Counselor.

I used to hate the experience of cravings. They felt all-consuming and like nothing would make them go away. After years and years of navigating food cravings, it was the field of somatics that started to shift my perception of them. I used to think of cravings as something I had to do battle with and couldn't listen to until I realized that I was defining listening to cravings as abiding by them and that listening to my craving meant I needed to eat the food some part of me was telling me to eat. I now experience and teach that cravings are bodily messengers. They are informing you of your nervous system state, your stress levels, your inner child, your nutritional imbalances, or your internalized beliefs. Cravings are meant to be listened to by bringing in curiosity about what the body might be trying to relay through having you want to eat a particular food. Sometimes it is that your body needs something in that food and sometimes it has nothing to do with the food itself but what somatic memories have been attached to that food.

I chat about all things cravings today with Jenn Trepeck. Jenn is an Optimal Health Coach, Podcaster and Business Consultant. Jenn founded Better Life Now LLC and after over a decade of coaching clients, Jenn started Salad with a Side of Fries Podcast to help pay it forward and reach a larger audience to teach the nutrition education we are all supposed to know but no one ever taught us. In addition to coaching clients individually or in small groups, Jenn implements wellness programs in doctors' offices, salons and spas to further expand impact and help change the state of healthcare. Jenn has been recognized as one of Podcast Magazine’s 40 under 40 and won Ear Worthy’s first Independent Podcast Award for Best Health Podcast and Best Independent Podcast in 2024. We chat about decoding cravings, the nutritional and blood sugar aspects to cravings, the role of guilt in cravings, and practical strategies to navigating your food cravings.

There are 11 days left to sign up for my Reclaiming Your Body Image with Somatic Eating® Practices Workshop, occurring live on Wednesday, August 27th at 5:00 pm ET. We are going to dive into all things body image from a somatic and trauma lens. It will be interactive, where we will do some body image mapping, and you can ask me questions on anything you're personally navigating. You can learn more HERE.

Now, welcome Jenn! I'm really excited to connect with you today. I feel like you have a lot of different perspectives and offerings in the conversation of craving, so I'm excited to get into all of it. But first, just want to start out with those who are listening to learn a little bit about you and how you got into the work that you're doing today.

Jenn Trepeck 03:40

Yeah, well, first of all, thank you for having me. I'm excited for our conversation. Also, it's funny, my background is business and marketing, and I came to all of this wellness, health stuff through my own saga. I call it a saga. I feel like the word journey, like, doesn't do it justice, yeah? And it was a lifetime. You know, I grew up a dancer. I ate really healthfully as a kid, and in my life, somebody was always on a diet. You know, my parents were always doing something. So when I started to gain weight between high school and college, I was like, okay, I know what to do, because I watched my family do this my whole life, and I did every diet under the sun like I sort of joke that there isn't a diet out there that I haven't done. My family hasn't done, or we don't know somebody who's done it. I mean, I've done everything right, and gained and lost. Lived on that rollercoaster. When I learned about the curriculum that I based my practice on, I was like, no, no, that's okay. I don't need whatever you have. You know, I've got my thing, and my thing was that wild rollercoaster. But I thought I knew all there was, right? And I didn't need whatever they had. But I heard people sharing their stories, who were following this approach, right? And there's one woman in particular. And every time I tell this story, I'm like, if you are out there, please contact me, because I don't know who she is, but she was telling her story of removing like, 150 pounds, and everything she said after that, I didn't even hear because, well, first of all, she removed the extra weight and then kept it off, and everything she said after, I was not paying attention to because I was having a conversation in my own head with myself, of like, I'm sorry what she's telling me, the equivalent of another human was attached to her, and like in looking at her, I couldn't see where 10 pounds could have been on this woman's body, and I had this moment with myself that was just like, Jennifer, right. Not even Jenn right. This was like, Jennifer, they know something you don't know, because based on everything you know, that doesn't make any sense. And I worked with a coach. I followed the curriculum, the program. It completely changed my life, like the only thing that allowed me to say I'd kick my food issues, and I really felt like it was the nutrition education we're all supposed to know, and no one ever taught us. I asked a million questions, because I was like, well, why isn't this what we learned? And how did all of those things come to be like, where did all of that stuff come from? And so I became a health coach on the side of my full time job working with clients. So this started like, late 2007 so before health coaching was really a thing, before podcasting was like, as, you know, present as it is now, before side hustles were really a thing. And, you know, I built this practice on the side of my full time job helping people help themselves, right? Because it's really about the education and the tools and understanding, and that made all the difference. So now you know, fast forward, I left my full time job July of 2019 launched my podcast salad with a side of fries in August of 2019, and now here we are, like six years later, and I get to sit here and talk to you and continue to pay it forward and help people, because food is such a fundamental human thing, and yet we're all supposed to just figure it out or take guidance from others who also don't really know much beyond you know, the same marketing and stuff that we've all been fed. No pun intended.

Stephanie Mara 07:30

Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing all that. I had a very similar experience where I grew up in a family that loved to cook, ate a lot of home cooked meals, but no one ever explained what nutrition was to me, and I went on my first diet when I was 13, and that didn't teach me what nutrition was or how to have a relationship with food. And it wasn't until I realized that what was playing out with food for myself in my undergraduate years was like, this doesn't feel right, and I don't like to use the words right and wrong very often, but I was like, this does not feel right. And that's when I saw my first on campus nutritionist that then I finally started to learn about nutrition and how to feed myself. But I agree with you that it's unless we are getting it at home or in school, somehow we don't really learn how to be an eater.

Jenn Trepeck 08:37

No. And even in those scenarios, what we learn is often not based on the human body or biology, right? Like I grew up on the food pyramid. Well, that was based on economics, not nutrition, getting us to eat what we grow in this country, what do we grow, wheat and corn and now soy, right? But it was about getting us to eat what we grow, not about what the human body needs. And so, of course, we're confused, right? How could we even expect to end up in any other place?

Stephanie Mara 09:12

Yeah, so I'm curious, as you started to learn more, I'm curious like, what you now teach, and how you started to like, you said, like, pay that forward in what you started to share with others and how to navigate food and their food cravings.

Jenn Trepeck 09:31

It's a couple pieces. So fundamentally, what I teach people is choosing foods, understanding low glycemic impact nutrition. So what we know from all the research, and you know, the people that I studied under were really like the first, like beginnings of what we now know as functional nutrition. It was, how does food impact the body? What does the body do with food, and how does fuel nutrition metabolic health impact every other piece of the human body, right? And so really, what everybody now knows and talks about is that whether we are metabolically well or metabolically dysregulated is a function of blood sugar. And whether we are metabolically well or metabolically dysregulated, translates into health or disease in every aspect of the body, in every organ, in every system. So fundamentally, by learning to choose foods to keep our blood sugar balanced and by balanced, I mean sort of in this middle range, right, avoiding the extreme highs and lows. We don't want it flat like we want it to fluctuate, just, you know, within a range. If our body is holding on to excess weight or fat, it will release it, and if it doesn't, it won't right. It's just fundamentally human and human health. And so by choosing foods in this way, it translates into, you know, this snowball effect of all the pieces. And certainly, nutrition is just one facet, right? We also know sleep stress, food sensitivities, lifestyle habits, you know, all of these other pieces play into it. And so when it comes to the cravings part, when it comes to some of these other things, what we see over and over with my clients is that very early on, in the first couple weeks, a vast majority of cravings resolve themselves, and then we can start to see when they show up, or where they show up, and then dig deeper and explore it. And we can do that in a second, but it really becomes a piece of understanding this interplay. And so as things were coming up for me, or my clients, like I'm an insatiable student, so I just start digging and learning and reading, and that's where, you know, I kind of bring together a lot of biology, psychology, neurology, right? All of these different pieces to kind of come together. Because what made all the difference for me is, like, on some level, we all know, like, no one needs to tell us to eat a cucumber over a Twix, right? We're all like, yeah, duh. So on some level, we all know what to do, but we in air quotes, right? Just don't do it. And so why is that? What I noticed for me is that the difference between knowing what to do and actually doing it was understanding why. And so for me, understanding why was not only about why I would be better off choosing the veggie omelet over the bagel. But why I had a craving for the bagel. Why in the morning, you know, I used to work in a hedge fund, and we had like a communal kitchen on the floor, and Monday mornings there was like continental breakfast, basically, like a whole platter of, like, mini muffins and croissants and all the things. And I could go in there and get water, like once, and I was like, okay, fine, you know, duck the platter. Second time going in to get water, it was like that croissant, Mini Muffin had a voice. By the third time, it was like we were in a battle. And I remember feeling like, what is wrong with me? Like, why can I just not go in the kitchen and leave and not have this bizarre dialogue with an inanimate object? So understanding then why those things were appealing also allowed me to then make choices. And so food decisions went from being emotional, right? Like, why do I suck? Why can't I just walk in the kitchen and walk out and not debate a croissant that was emotional to intellectual of like, oh, I get why. That's appealing to me right now, what I actually need to do is go eat the breakfast that I brought and then see how I feel about the croissant. If I still want it, fine, but I'm making that choice from a very different place. And so when it comes to cravings, right? It's really there are a host of things involved. But fundamentally, I think the piece that I always come back to, or really want to start with, maybe, is to say, like, because of years of dieting, because of living by the shoulds. I see it all the time, where people show up and they feel like this craving is a moral failure, you know, like there's something wrong with us and so fundamentally, there's nothing wrong with you, right? It's not a moral failing. It is simply the body communicating. I call it like learning the language of the body. There's only so many ways that the body can tell us things. Hunger and cravings are part of that dialogue, part of that language, and so we have to learn the language of the body, to start to decipher it, and then to dig into that right? It becomes a question of, well, what are the things, where do cravings come from so that we can then start to unpack what might be happening.

Stephanie Mara 15:05

Yeah, thanks for sharing all of the nuance in that. I literally say the same thing that that's kind of where my practice has gone with Somatic Eating®, is we have to start to see that your food urges and impulses are the way that your body has learned to communicate something to you, and I hear in your work, what it really started to point to, and kind of the groundwork has to be blood sugar stabilization. You know, if we start with the biology of how the body works and what nutrition it needs, and eating the foods that it needs in certain amounts and balances and timings and rhythms throughout the day, that that's going to stabilize the body where some of those cravings are going to decrease all on their own. And I love that you also added just because I know a lot of people here, you know, sometimes get worried about, am I eating the right things? And we practice food neutrality here, and it's like, yeah, we like, there are things that can help stabilize your body nutritionally, and that if you want to go choose the Twix, or you want to go choose the croissant, or you want to go choose the bagel, like there also isn't anything morally wrong with that, that also is okay. Let me continue to observe, when I eat these things, what happens in my body, so that it's not like this right or wrong thing that is happening. It's just, oh, let me just collect more information on how my body processes this. And so I hear for you, like, you really started to notice, like, oh, there's a reason that this danish is talking to me right now. And I'm curious about some of the things, like, I have an idea about maybe some of the things that you maybe started to discover that I probably talk a lot about here, but I'm curious what you started to discover about why that food started to speak to you so loudly, and you felt such a huge draw towards it.

Jenn Trepeck 16:56

Sure, well, so in that specific situation, right? And connected to blood sugar. When our blood sugar is low, our body is saying, I need fuel the fastest way possible, right? And the fastest fuel is the high glycemic carbohydrates. So of course, the bagel, muffin, croissant, whatever, is going to be very appealing, right? Because the body is like sugar, please. What I really needed in that moment was to go eat the breakfast that I brought, which was some fruit, and I think I had a veggie omelet, right? Like, go eat the quality food that I brought and then see how I feel. But the other pieces to this is that it is still physiological and not always connected to the things that so there's a piece that we feel like and that I think the rhetoric even today of wellness or health that before was diet culture, but it's now kind of same thing in a different dress, right? Like still makes it feel like the onus is on us, that there's something with you, right? That's particular. So I also like to highlight some of the other causes of cravings that I think often get overlooked. So fundamentally, is genetics. Now people don't realize there are genetic variations that will make you more sensitive to bitter things or sweet things, so we can genetically favor certain flavors and that can create cravings. Now it doesn't mean that we are doomed as we understand genetics and epigenetics, right? I sort of think of it like, you know, the old, like Marionette, like Pinocchio, right? It's like the puppet with the strings, right? So your genetics are the strings, but your lifestyle is what pulls on those strings for how the puppet moves, right? So those genes will express in different ways depending on how our nutrition and our lifestyle choices are interplaying with the genes. But for people to understand like there is a piece of this that is different between you and the person next to you, full stop. Processed foods also create cravings most often for more processed foods. But so even thinking about a lot of us have become very savvy consumers, right? We know the healthier options for things. We're choosing the healthier versions of the crackers. We're choosing this bar over that thing, you know, over a candy bar or whatever it is. But those foods, too can end up keeping us craving a lot of the other highly ultra processed foods. So even considering what we're looking at and where we're choosing our nutrition, now, what can happen with a lot of the healthier versions of things is that we like them because they maybe give us that crunch or that thing that's really hitting the spot, but maybe it's not really giving us so many calories, or it's not really giving us so many nutrients, and what ends up happening is that the body is getting signals that fuel is coming, but then it either gets food that's calorically dense but not nutrient dense, or sometimes even now, it's not even calorically dense, and it's not nutrient dense, but the body is getting volume, and it says, wait a minute, there's nothing here that I can do anything with. I need more, and I need the things that I can use. And so the body continues to send us these hunger signals, and we think, oh my goodness, I'm hungry and I'm craving more food, but I just ate. How is this possible? So there's also a piece of that, I think, understanding also the hormones at play. So a lot of times when we think of hormones, we talked about insulin, right, with blood sugar. There are also hormones that regulate hunger and satiety, so ghrelin and leptin, and we can become insensitive right, to those hormones. Just like you know, we can become resistant to insulin. We can become resistant to ghrelin and leptin. And so if you find that you start to eat and then have a difficult time stopping, or you feel like you're not hungry at all. You're not really eating all day, and then you see food, and you're like, oh my goodness, I'm starving, right? Those are some of those signs. And so especially then in those situations, like with Pringles, when you combine these ultra processed foods with a potential leptin resistance, of course, once you pop, you can't stop, right? They knew what they were doing. And then, you know, I don't know how deep you want to get into any of this, but even you know, sleep and stress if we don't sleep well, first of all, if we don't sleep well, we are leptin resistant the following day. But think about even when we don't sleep well, and our body is looking for energy. How do we get that energy? Right? It is the higher glycemic, faster fuel kinds of things, and we tend to feel insatiable, right? That next day stress, cortisol, right? Not only is food often a coping mechanism to feel better, it is also part of how the body is preparing to do this fight or flight thing that it's expecting, right? Because our stress response is still very cavemanesque, even though, you know, it's not a saber tooth tiger chasing us, it's just a text message that we find, youknow, annoying or frustrating or stressful. So I just gave a lot, but I think it's important to recognize, like, there's so many factors that play into this.

Stephanie Mara 23:19

Yeah, I love everything you just went into, because it really first, like you first started with, goes into taking the onus off of yourself, like stop punishing yourself for being a human being that has cravings, because there are so many things that are contributing to this that are not necessarily within your control. And when you were talking about first genetics, you know, I was recently doing a lot of research about how our food preferences start in the womb, by what our mother is eating and that we are tasting the amniotic fluid, I think it was as early as, like, four months into gestation. So like, your food preferences and what you are drawn to started way before you started choosing foods for yourself, or even before you came out into this world as a separate human being. So there's just a lot of compassion in that of like, okay, so your body just may be a little bit more sensitive to certain tastes and textures and flavors, and that doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with you, but it is learning, like, what resonates with my body, because I find, for a lot of those that I work with, when we bypass those cues of like, oh, I'm supposed to be eating a salad right now, that if your body's like, no, I don't like this taste. I don't like this texture. This doesn't work for me. This is hard to digest for me. It does also send you towards other foods that might feel like a more resonant experience even afterwards, because that just body listening isn't happening because there's all that diet and wellness, culture noise, and I love also the piece that you're bringing in is that our body changes based off of our life experiences. You know, that does kind of point to some of the things we talk about here, of past trauma, which can also affect your ghrelin and your leptin and how your response to them, and that, you know, it's not that you are necessarily doing anything wrong, but like you said, there's different things that you can play with to start to become more sensitive to these things again, so that, like you said, if you're someone who waits all day and then eats later, well sometimes eating consistently can start to kind of shift things in your body, where you can kind of hear these cues a little bit easier. So I'm wondering, with some of the amazing things that you just listed, like you were talking about the marionette, what are kind of things that you are often exploring with people to start to adapt or respond differently to just the way that their body is functioning right now.

Jenn Trepeck 26:01

We start by choosing foods protein, fiber, quality, fat, choosing foods for nutrition and building our meals. And then we get to notice where the cravings show up. And I think part of that differentiating between hunger and craving, because, like you were saying, you know, I don't feel like a salad that doesn't feel good to me is very different than a craving. Hunger tends to be more general. There might be a bunch of things that sound good to you, so I always liken it to you know, like when you go to the restaurant and you're looking at the menu and you're like, I can't make a decision, right? There are too many things that sound interesting and appealing. That's true hunger. A craving, is much more specific. It's, I need a cookie. It's the only thing that's going to do this for me right now is a brownie or is a bag of chips, right? It tends to be much more specific versushunger that's truly general. So one of the things is, when this comes up, is for us to even just sit there and go, does broccoli sound good? Like, if broccoli sounds good, then, like, we're legitimately hungry. Let's eat something with nutrients and move on. And in that moment, it's not the time to say, well, but right, like, if we're willing to eat the broccoli, doesn't have to be broccoli, but eat something with nutrients, even if you just ate right. And then we can start to look at that timing or some of those kinds of things. If it's really specific, it's this one thing. And no, broccoli isn't gonna cut it. And if I feel into my stomach, I'm doing this in the moment, right. If I feel into my stomach like, no, I'm not hungry at all. But this thing sounds good, then we can say, if we're willing to, and by the way, this might be a mile, two miles, three miles down the road, I'll talk to how we can get there. But then we could say, okay, why am I looking for this thing right now? What else is going on? And the best question that my therapist ever asked me, that I share with everybody is, where am I not being fed? What am I looking to feed with this cookie? Is it comfort? Is it a break? Right? I see all the time we can justify a break to eat. We have a really difficult time justifying a break because we need a break, you know, whether that's from work or kids or anything, right? Like we can justify leaving other things behind, to eat something, but not as much, to walk or do nothing or have a minute of silence. Starting to say, like, what do I actually need? Am I looking for some me time. Well, okay, if what I'm really looking for is some me time, is there a way to get that without needing the cookie? And what I was saying before, of like that might be a mile or 10 miles down the road what I mean is that there is a process, an evolution, to this. So the first piece, as we were talking about, is really just noticing that it's happening. And you might still eat the cookie, but it's like, yep, I have a craving for a cookie. I am eating a cookie, and you may or may not even know why you're eating it, but you're aware, and that's enough. And then the next time you might say, I'm eating this piece of chocolate because I am so annoyed with work, and I am really hoping this is going to make me feel better. Cool, right now, we've gone a step further and said with our awareness of what we're choosing and why, and then maybe the next time, and this might last a very long time, you might say, I'm fully aware that I am emotionally eating right now, and I'm at least just going to have berries, maybe berries and some walnuts right? We swap the food out for something that's a little bit more nutrient dense, and then we might say, I'm just going to have some tea, right? Then it might evolve to tea, and then it might evolve to, like, I'm going to have the tea and read a book to take a break. And then it might evolve to, you know what, I can read the book without the tea. And then it might evolve to, I need a break. I'm going to take five and go read my book. But we have this expectation that we're going to go from, oh my god, I need a cookie and only a cookie to I'm supposed to go read a book right now, and that just makes me want to throw the book at someone right like we expect ourselves to just flip a switch, and that's not how this works. This is a process, and being part of that process and recognizing that it's not this or that, right? It's this and and then over time, we'll get there, and we'll play with different things, and we'll figure it out. And maybe today it's not a book. And, you know, yesterday, a book worked, and today the book isn't doing it. And we use, you know, a song or something else, right? Like we end up, my objective when working with people is that we develop a tool belt so that we can go live the rest of our lives, but our expectation when we start this is that we're supposed to flip a switch.

Stephanie Mara 31:32

Yeah, I love all of that, and I really appreciate you pointing out that this is a process, and I often say food and as well of that, sometimes it's going to look like actively owning the decision to choose the food and being with that decision and noticing what that's like and like you're pointing to it starts with that awareness, and I find that we can't make changes disembodied. Change has to come from a place of first being in our body, sometimes with the pattern exactly how it is, like you were pointing to, like, okay, eat the chocolate. Be aware that you're eating the chocolate out of a place of maybe stress, and notice what it's like to eat the chocolate because you are stressed, not with any shame, guilt, judgment. It is just a decision. It's a choice that you get to make. And then notice what that's like. And I find that, you know, it was a process that I went through as well as I noticed, like, okay, if I neutralize all these foods, chocolate is just chocolate that actually eating chocolate when I'm stressed give me the bodily experience that I'm looking for? And a lot of the times, it was no it didn't actually make anything better. It didn't actually make me feel calmer or more connected or solve anything. And so slowly it was like I can choose to eat the chocolate when I'm stressed, but I also don't really want to, because it isn't facilitating anything for myself. So I really hear you talking about this process. One question that did come up as you were describing that that I feel like comes up a lot on social media. I feel like this is where, like the diet culture and the anti diet culture are at war with each other, like constantly battling over eat the thing that you're actually craving, or like you're talking about, like, find a substitute that's going to be more nutrient dense. And I'm wondering, in your experience and your thoughts around okay, I feel like there's a place for both, probably, and it's not always that you always have to substitute the thing that you're eating, but I feel like people get really confused around like, okay, if I substitute it, is that going to lead to more cravings? Because that's the predominant message that's out there. That's like, you know, if you actually want to eat the ice cream and you eat cauliflower ice cream. I don't know, like you're gonna just want to end up eating the ice cream anyway. So you know, I'm wondering your thoughts, if there's any identifiers of like, when to substitute and say, actually a more nutrient dense, balanced snack might help me here, and when I actually just need to eat the thing that my body is saying it's craving.

Jenn Trepeck 34:20

I love this question. And of course, there is no simple this or that answer, but the piece, to me, comes down to frequency. If your objective is to eat ice cream every single day, then you might want to play with the cauliflower, spinach, avocado ice cream. And by the way, I made that up. That's probably not a thing like but there is also in our lives going to be experiences where what's available is not the cottage cheese pancake. But the old school legit pancake and we are served, our health and our lifestyle are served, by learning how to enjoy those other things, right? The original as it was as well. And so there are tools for that too, right? There's pieces for everything. And so I live in a world of and, right, yes, and and in the reality that I used to work in hedge funds, okay? I had my health coaching practice on the side. I worked in hedge funds, I ate out three meals a day. To this day, I'm not great at having groceries around. And I also say to everybody, like, challenge me, I can find anything on a menu. Wellness, to your point, like, some of these things have become just the new version of diet culture that makes us feel like the shoulds are just different, and now the should is like, if you're not adding cottage cheese to everything you ever eat, you're not getting enough protein in your life. And you know, not required, right? To me too, the question that also comes back for each one of us is about the guilt and the shame. So if eating the cauliflower, spinach, avocado, ice cream helps you enjoy the thing and not have those other emotions, awesome, and let's also work on why maybe eating the old school recipe ice cream has you feeling all of these other ways. And one of the things that I see most is that what creates the guilt or the shame is not keeping the commitment we make to ourselves. And it's really interesting because, you know, as women, but I also think as humans, we will keep the commitments we make to other people far more than we will keep the commitments we make to ourselves, because somebody else knows if we don't keep that commitment. And a lot of times, when it comes to the commitments that we make for our health or our nutrition choices, they're commitments we're making to ourselves, and so we're the only ones who know if we aren't sticking with that. But the thing that I also help everybody recognize and like this comes up a lot when we're talking about like vacations or events and barbecues or holidays or whatever, create the plan that includes the things that you most enjoy, and as long as that's the plan, there isn't any guilt involved. So if we are going to the barbecue, if we are going out for ice cream and we want to enjoy it, let's decide what we're going to have right. Make that the plan and do the thing that was the plan, and that ice cream will not impact you physiologically in the same way there was actually research where the study where people were given a milkshake, and one was told that it's a healthier, low calorie milkshake, and the other group was told It was an indulgent milkshake. The people who enjoyed the indulgent milkshake were more satisfied and had better blood sugar after eating it than the people who were told it's a low calorie, healthier version of a milkshake.

Stephanie Mara 38:35

I reference that study all the time.

Jenn Trepeck 38:37

Yeah. So our perception of what we're having is really powerful for our physiology. So figuring out, right, like, what is our plan that includes the ice cream we really love, and go for it, enjoy it and move on. Keep going.

Stephanie Mara 38:57

Yeah, I love everything that, and completely agree with everything that you just mentioned around what I hear is it's first slowing down to take that pause. And sometimes that can be so hard when the craving sounds so loud. And so I find like practicing this needs to occur before you get to the point of like, the craving is so overwhelming and in your face that it's like hard to navigate. It gets easier with time, the more that you practice it. And you were kind of referencing that as well. But I find that it is kind of slowing down and first assessing, like, what's my intention here? And also, I usually like to bring in even as you maybe get to know your nervous system and your nervous system states like, where is my body at right now, I know that on a day where I am sleep deprived, I maybe didn't sleep well, my stress levels are really high. It is going to be much harder to eat a particular food that might be more of what we would call hyperpalatable food and tell myself to stop, because my body's not going to want to stop. Like biologically, what is happening inside of my body is it's going to want to keep eating that to get energy to feel good, to stabilize, whereas on a day where I was feeling really rested and felt really calm and connected, like you were even pointing to it will digest very differently, even eating the same food. And so I find that if we take the focus off of, do I eat this food or not? Do I substitute it or not? It's kind of first assessing like, where are you at and what is going to be best for your body in that moment where then you get to decide, you know what, actually, based on the context of the situation where I'm feeling calm and rested and I'm going out with my best friends, and I totally want to have the ice cream with them and create a memory with them, you're going to feel really good about making that decision to engage with that food. Whereas when you're home alone and you're feeling just tired and exhausted and low, and that's going to be a very different experience with that ice cream. That might not lead to what you're looking for with that experience with that food. So like we pointed out at the beginning of this, like, this is very nuanced. There's not like, a simple yes or no answer here, so I just appreciate you, kind of like diving into that question, and yet it is multifaceted.

Jenn Trepeck 41:31

And I love what you're saying too. And I think there's a piece of even noticing that, like your reflection might be in the beginning, after the fact, like we might be mentally going back and going, oh, you know what I could have done, you know, or like, now that I think about it, I had a conversation earlier in the day with my boss that, like, kind of left me feeling uneasy. And now eight hours later, you know, I'm into the pint of icecream before I even realize what's happening, right? We realized it at all. Take that as a win, like you're saying, you know, it's like that moment of pause, and sometimes, especially in the beginning, that moment of pause might be after, and that's okay, too.

Stephanie Mara 42:15

Yeah, you've been pointing that out. It's like you have to start somewhere where it's, you know, even the process that you talked about of, you're not just gonna go from the awareness to then suddenly not engaging in the food behavior. You're gonna build the awareness, and then you're gonna keep engaging in the food behavior because it's doing something for you. And so it is kind of discovering whether that's emotional or whether that's blood sugar or like, it's something that your body is communicating. It's going to take some time to figure that out, and then it's also going to take some time to practice something different and to have that different thing become the new, comfortable, safe norm, thing that you start to go towards.

Jenn Trepeck 42:56

Exactly

Stephanie Mara 42:57

Yeah, so I'm curious, as people are listening to this, and they're like, okay, I'm in it, like, I have a hard time even pausing before, during or after my food cravings. And they're maybe feeling inspired about, like, meeting their cravings differently. I usually like to wrap up with, like, a little bit of a baby step that someone can start to play with. I'm curious where you might guide someone who wants to start engaging with their cravings differently.

Jenn Trepeck 43:24

Yeah, I would say right now, just think about the last time you had that experience of whether it was a craving or eating something and then feeling mad at yourself afterwards. What did we have? Why were we mad at ourselves after? What was happening just before? And, what else happened that day? If you can remember, I always say to people, we're looking for patterns. One time, one event is not a thing. We're looking for the patterns. So once you have that written down, we can look at it and say, how often does that whole scenario happen? Is it regularly, or is it like that was a wild out of the ordinary day? That's it.

Stephanie Mara 44:12

Yeah, I really hear just starting to bring curiosity. You know that we can't hate ourselves into change. And when you start meeting whatever's playing out with food, with so much curiosity around there's something playing out for you here. Let's start to get curious. And sometimes that's afterwards, an afterward reflection, which I find is so important as well, that you're not always going to be able to pause and stop yourself before the food behavior has happened, and sometimes it is afterwards, and it is kind of collecting that information on, yeah, how did this actually make me feel like I know that was something that I certainly had to go through is to actually like embody some of the foods that I kept eating over and overagain, when I was starting to try to decrease my own kind of binge eating that was happening, and starting to notice, oh, you know, I felt dysregulated and I went and I ate that food, and it didn't really do anything for me. And then I did it again, and then I did it again. And so I think that there has to be so much compassion that we have to meet ourselves in this, that it's like it's gonna keep happening, and that as you collect that awareness of this isn't actually supporting me in doing what I want it to do inside of my body, you know, there might be an impulse to start, like, picking up the book, like you were talking about. So I think that's such a great suggestion. It's just starting to be like, what is my body trying to tell me through this and that, like, are my stress levels high? Did I eat consistently throughout the day? What has my day been like? And just starting there such a great first baby step.

Jenn Trepeck 45:55

Yeah, for sure. And like, it might not even be an awareness of how your body felt. It might just literally be, you know, I went to work right? Like, wherever we are, just it is what it is, and we'll keep playing with it.

Stephanie Mara 46:12

Yeah. Well, I just love this conversation. Thank you so much for sharing all of your wisdom today. And I'm wondering how people can keep in touch with you and what you're doing in the world.

Jenn Trepeck 46:22

Absolutely. Well, first of all, again, thank you for having me such a pleasure wherever you're listening. Now, check out salad with a side of fries and all social media I am @jenntrepick, J, E, N, N, T, R, E, P, E, C, K, send a message. I love hearing from you. By the way, my website is a saladwithasideoffries.com. On there, I have a little freebie for you that's a download called it's not what to eat, it's how to eat. Because, like I said, no one needs to tell you to eat a cucumber over Twix. The question is, how do we want the cucumber? How do we make that the appealing choice? And then also, how do we enjoy the Twix and have it not impact us the same way it does right now.

Stephanie Mara 47:05

Yeah, I will leave all of the links in the show notes and just thank you so much again for being here and sharing your wisdom.

Jenn Trepeck 47:11

Thank you.

Stephanie Mara 47:13

Yeah. Well, to everyone listening as always. If you have any questions, reach out anytime support@stephaniemara.com always also love connecting with you all, and I hope you all have a satiating and safety producing rest of the day. Bye!

Keep in touch with Jenn:

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