The two week junk food root cause.
How many times have you bought a book or a meal plan only to loose interest after a week? How many times have you gotten frustrated when the diet hasn’t been working so you quit?
This is when we have the opportunity to look at our relationship with food and our hormonal health. Let’s look at some possible questions to ask yourself.
Do you think food is good or bad?
What messages did i get growing up around food and dieting?
What food did i grow up eating?
Do you love it or enjoy it?
What is food and it’s role in your life?
What do you know about how hormones influence your mood and food cravings?
Food can be viewed many ways, both good and bad. We can see it as nutrition helping us have energy to live our lives, and the thing that can bring friends and family together. Or we can also view it as the very thing that is keeping us from having the slim trim body we want. As long as we view food in a bad and or negative way we can have trouble getting our health and weight in order.
For example, a negative thought will cause our bodies to produce cortisol instantly! Stress signals your brain to pump cortisol into your body, your heart and breathing rate gets higher, and your liver releases glucose into the blood stream for fuel.
The moment you think negatively about how you look in those jeans, grocery shopping, or meal prepping. Your body can’t distinguish that this thought isn’t really happening it just follows what it’s told to do, be stressed.This causes digestion to shut down making the assimilation and burning of calories less efficient. And an added “bonus” of your body holding on to fat as a result of high cortisol.
As a women we also have hormonal phases throughout the month, and some of those phases naturally have higher cortisol levels. During the luteal (7-10 days before your period starts) and menstrual phases (actual bleeding week) of your hormonal cycle your resting cortisol levels go up. During those two weeks your body needs more fuel/calories and it needs to take it easy on the crazy hiit cardio workouts. Per the wisdom of Alisa Vitti and her book In The Flo “you need about 237 more calories during this phase”. On those weeks your metabolism increases 8 to 16% and brings an increase in hunger. If you keep trying to restrict foods, intermittently fast and workout out doing hiit training your setting your self up for hormonal disruption and a possible binge on junk food.
When you have a craving for something sweet or savory find some alternatives that will support your hormonal health. Dark chocolate (sugar free Taza has some great options), avocados, sweet potatoes, coconut yogurt and bone broth are great options to curb the cravings and nourish your body. And i have a free dessert ebook available with a chocolate mousse dessert that is so creamy and rich.
Take this time to observe without judgment when you crave certain foods, are you on hormonal cycle where your body requires more fuel? Or was the craving or hunger triggered by bad day or emotion that got stirred up? Having the awareness of what triggers the cravings can help you have a more loving response to it and help you have an action plan that will support your body.
Learning to to have a more calm, peaceful, and positive view of food will have numerous benefits. You will be able to enjoy food, make better food choices, digest and burn calories more efficiently, even stick to that meal plan more efficiently. Next time you begin to stress about finding the perfect diet or workout routine ask yourself- what is my relationship with food like?