Why Willpower fails you and what to do instead

If you’re lamenting your sweet tooth or wondering why you always prefer the sweets and not the 10 almonds you “should” have then listen up!

Give yourself some grace and compassion and dig into a bit as to why you (and so many others) often choose the sugary, salty or fatty food over the healthy proteins and fiber you are supposed to eat.

Hint: It’s not that you’re unmotivated, lack will power or are self-sabotaging.

We are all part of a food and eating culture that lauds people for eating healthy but make it nearly impossible to do so with processed and highly palatable foods (HPF - foods made by manufacturers that are often highly processed and filled with sugar, fat and salt) available everywhere, conveniently accessible and sold for next to nothing.

When you eat a lot of HPF’s, which is literally everywhere and is extremely accessible, there are several things that happen:

Your brain becomes habituated to craving those foods. You become more dopamine dependent which over time gives you a more frequent and intense need to feel reward through food.

Eventually and unconsciously, your brain becomes re-wired to prefer sugary and high fat foods over veggies and fruits and other healthy alternatives. This is why you may always prefer the pasta to the vegetables, the chips over the carrot sticks and the sweets over the fruit and feel shame for it.

Sugar and HPF degrade the population and diversity of your good bacteria which feed on fiber and prebiotic foods. Eating sugary foods creates more colonies of bacteria, and certain yeasts, that prefer sugar and need it to proliferate. When they metabolize sugary foods, it releases chemicals that tell your brain to eat more of it which is partly responsible for your sugar cravings.

Let’s not forget about the emotional side of habituation. Irrespective of what is happening in your brain, you may also be an emotional eater or comfort eater, making it even harder to consciously choose healthier food. I don’t know about you but back in the days when I was binging and emotionally eating, it wasn’t on carrots and celery. Sugar comforts for a reason. In chocolate for instance, some of the substances in it can literally mollify pain and create a better mood.

Don’t forget that your love of sugar and treats goes way back. Maybe you got a lollipop at the doctor after a shot when you were a kid. Or maybe, like me, you have great memories of eating oreos on the couch with your friends watching movies. If emotional eating didn’t work so well, there’s no reason why any of us would do it.

Along those lines, if you’re not getting enough joy and pleasure or leisure and self-care during the day, your habituated brain seeking dopamine reward will demand it at night. This is another reason why you have to rely so much on willpower to not eat the whole sleeve of cookies when you get home from a stressful day.

Side personal note: I remember wanting a “reward” type of snack after school and my Mom suggesting I have a nice apple, which caused me to rage-eat a pint of ice cream. I didn’t want the apple. I wanted the cookies and chips and ice cream and I learned to feel shame for preferring those types of foods over the ones I intellectually knew were better for me.

Can you relate?

Willing yourself to not eat HPF’s and sugary foods may work in the short term but will fail spectacularly in the long run. Some of you reading this know exactly what I mean because you’ve lived it. Trying to cut down or reduce the occurrences of eating sugar may also work but with your habituated dopamine searching brain on the lookout for reward, you may find that it’s not a reliable tool if you’re stressed, overwhelmed or tired.

Be careful about going the route of artificial or non-nutritive sweeteners as a way to manage your cravings. Some studies have suggested that artificial sweeteners do not activate the reward circuitry in the brain even while the tongue detects sweetness. So you may continue to crave sugar in spite of consuming the sugar-free option.

Other things that exasperate food cravings:

Dehydration

Stress (internal or external)

Nutritional Deficiencies, specifically zinc, chromium, iron, calcium, and magnesium that may lead to sugar cravings

Dieting or intentional calorie restriction

Imbalance blood sugars

Decision Fatigue

Lack of sleep or quality of sleep

Wouldn’t it be absolutely game-changing if you didn’t have to ever rely on will power again?

Want more will power? Check out this PDF checklist I made for you that pinpoints will power drainers and will power enhancers. Grab it for free below!

Things that actually help reduce food and sugar cravings:

Learning your body’s love language and speaking it.

Being able to understand what your body communicates to you and how your body gives you signals and clues on how to care for it can create trust and open up channels of inquiry about what you need, without judgment. For example, feeling like you “should” run to burn calories but what you actually need is a restorative yoga class and you honor that.

Learning nervous system calming techniques

Along with learning your body’s love language you can also get to know your unique nervous system and what activates stress wiring vs. the parasympathetic or rest and digest wiring for you. As you listen and learn you can implement techniques to help regulate and calm and balance your stress response and get back to neutral ground where you are in the best position to make rational and good long-term decisions.

Take a to-do approach rather than a not-to-do approach

I’m not a big fan of black & white thinking, all-or-nothing mindset and detoxing from sugar because while it can work, it’s an extreme way of ridding yourself of something you currently depend on. I’d start first with to-do’s. Add more veggies, more fiber, more fat and protein, more self-care work. These strategies will make it less likely for you to force yourself to stop eating sugar and have it occur more intentionally and with ease.

Exercise & Movement

There are studies around how short bouts of exercise can be effective in reducing sugar cravings. Next time you feel a craving or food urge arising, try taking a 10 minute walk first before making any food decisions. In addition to it helping to balance your blood sugars, movement also beefs up your prefrontal cortex responsible for you making informed rational decisions and reduces cortisol that is released when you’re stressed.

Timing and planning meals

There are going to be days or weeks where the likelihood of sugar or cravings for HPF’s are greater than others. If you’re about to get your period, for one. On more busy or stressful days and even at different times of day. (the 2-4pm slump for example where your body craves quick energy and thus naturally turns to glucose for energy which again is found abundantly in your office vending machine or any street corner CVS.) Knowing your own cycles and patterns can help you plan better so that you take steps to prevent skipping meals or let yourself get too hungry.

Gently creating more friction between you and the HPF’s

There was a term we used to use when I worked at a health and weight management company for over a decade before starting my business. “If it’s there, you’ll eat it.” There is science and data to back that up. Apparently, just having food within eyesight is enough for us to eat more of it. There are also studies that show that people will eat more of an unwrapped candy within reach versus a wrapped candy. Just the added step of unwrapping the candy created enough “friction” to slow down or dissuade them from eating more mindlessly.

Practice mindful and slow eating

Your brain needs to be aware of any pleasure you derive from eating in order to produce and send signals back to your body to stop eating based on fullness, satiety or taste satiety. When you eat slowly and intentionally, you taste every bite and you can get a better sense of what the flavors actually taste like and when you’ve had enough of it. Much of the time when we eat fast or mindlessly, we lose part of our interception skills (which is the ability to hear and understand body cues like hunger and fullness) and if we’re not fully present while eating, you’re brain partially offline too and can lead to mindless overeating.

Eating more protein, omega 3 &6 foods and fiber which help mitigate food cravings

Berries - high antioxidant content, low-glycemic, sweet but without raising blood sugar

Avocado - good quality fats help initiate pleasure and satiety while lowering cravings

Nuts and seeds - are high in protein, satisfying and good source of fat and fiber

Oats - soluble fiber, staves off hunger, blood-sugar balancing

Cruciferous veggies - high fiber allows you to digest it more slowly and limits big blood sugar

spikes which can cause cravings

Beans and Legumes - excellent source of fiber and protein creating satiety and slowing down digestion.

Intentionally planning for your unique physical, emotional make-up and lifestyle circumstances can support a way of nourishing yourself that naturally reduces sugar and food cravings.