Love yourself or sweets?
Do you like sweet things? Personally, my craving for sweets appeared after I became a mother. Fighting the wish for something sweet was very hard, and it was all made worse by having no time to cook. It is very convenient to buy sweet yoghurts, croissants and biscuits and snack on them in between other things. But over time I realised that a moment’s pleasure leads to many problems: I put on weight rapidly, my teeth suffered, and I developed constant tiredness and a ferocious appetite.
I thought for a long time about what exactly, from a psychological point of view, sweets substitute for, and I came to the conclusion that first of all it is a lack of joy in life, inner emptiness, an inability to take care of yourself and a lack of love for yourself. If we genuinely love and value our body, we will find healthier snacks. If we love ourselves, we will find other ways of getting joy from life besides food.
To be honest, I only started really enjoying food after I gave up sweet things. It is such a pleasure to eat a ripe mango (recently they were on sale at Magnit for only 60 roubles each!), or to chew dark chocolate slowly with coffee with cinnamon and honey, or to eat a pie of thin unleavened dough with meat, baked in a stone oven. Or to see the rolls on your sides gradually shrinking and to have more and more strength and energy.
I talk a lot about how important it is to deal with your blocks, your beliefs and your childhood memories. But our body is an equally important component — how we move, what we eat. Only in combination can you deal with problems like depression, emotional burnout and not loving yourself. You cannot confine yourself to the realm of thoughts and feelings alone, even though everything begins there! Really loving yourself means not treating yourself to cakes every day — although some people may need a period like that too — but being healthy!
One of my substitutes for sweets at first was honey and nuts. These days I hardly eat nuts — they are a bit heavy for me — but I add honey to porridge, cottage cheese, coffee and baking. I bake rarely and mostly either with oat flour or with cottage cheese.
Cottage cheese with fruit, cinnamon and a small spoonful of honey has also become an excellent dessert for me — and at the same time a full lunch or dinner.
If you would like me to help you get rid of your dependence on sweets in 3 months, to help you love yourself and learn to take care of yourself and give yourself pleasure in other ways, and to support you personally in individual coaching over Skype or by phone from any city, fill in the questionnaire at the link
In the questionnaire describe your problem, what result you want to achieve and when it is convenient to hold a preliminary consultation, and I will contact you, tell you whether I am able to take you on for coaching and send the details for paying for the consultation. You can read details about the coaching here https://innashukshina.eu/en/coaching/
Inna Shukshina, inspiring coach and clinical psychologist
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