Interesting point to ponder (from "Made to Crave"). This can, of course, be true both physically and spiritually.
Physically, I'm finding that as I cut out high sugar items from my diet as I have done for the past month, that I'm beginning to adjust and be satisfied with fruit items to sweeten things up a bit for my taste buds. Especially bananas! I'm LOOOOVING bananas:-) They are finally getting used up before they turn black:-) The same can be said for salty items. If I just keep those chips away I'm okay with lower salt options...with less crunch. But when the chips are around and I really get into them.....well, needless to say, it's hard to stay self controlled....and I keep craving them and craving them! So I have to be careful what I fuel my body with. Because I want it to crave the good stuff:-) Not the treat stuff. The sweet & salty items can really act as triggers for me down the slippery slope to junky cravings....at least for this phase of my journey.
Spiritually, this definitely goes to the heart of the matter. The more we eat up God's truth, the more we will crave Him. The more I fill up on junky or fluff stuff to fill those spiritually or emotionally void places, the more I'll crave the junk and fluff. TV would be a good example for me. I definitely CRAVE some veg. time in front of the TV each evening. I'm not sure how to really turn the switch around to primarily crave time with God in those relaxation, veg. moments. I guess it may be similar to my battle with sugar. Gotta just carve out new habits to make way for new cravings? Fuel my spiritual cravings with Truth?
Oh Christina.. yes, self control in eating can be so hard, especially when we are eating for emotional reasons, and for me there seems to be this uncontrollable surge sometimes, seems hormonal? During the summer I ate Paleo style (absolutely no grains of any kind) with my only sugar sources being fruit and honey. I Felt great! I love bananas. Something that I have been doing for a while, is eating/drinking smoothies. They are a great substitution for sweet junk foods. I often have a green smoothie every morning for breakfast. I wait until the bananas get really brown (healthier that way, less starch, more converted natural sugar), and then slice them up into coins and lay them on a cookie sheet in the freezer until they get a little frozen then scoop them up and place them in ziplock bags to keep in the freezer. Those are my smoothie "base". My typical smoothie is, frozen bananas, fresh or frozen strawberries, a handful of spinach or a leaf of kale, and just some water to get the consistency of a smoothie. Sometimes I will throw in a whole orange, or some fresh sliced pineapple. So good! You can also do banana, peanut butter and milk or milk alternative (I do soy or almond), hey and throw in a little bit of cocoa powder and some honey for a chocolate taste, semi sweet chocolate chips are wonderful too. You could do: frozen banana, strawberry, milk and chocolate chips. Oh I ramble! There are so many variations. Sometimes I even throw in a small handful of almonds for some extra protein. I also make ice cream out of the frozen bananas, just throw them in my blender or food processor frozen, can even add in some frozen strawberries and you've got ice cream once they blend.. so good!
ReplyDeleteYum, that last idea in particular struck me as delicious:-) Make frozen fruit into the consistency of ice cream. I'm a real ice cream fan...so that touched a chord:-)
ReplyDeleteThanks for all your ideas:-) And thanks for stopping by:-)