On managing cravings

I've quit a lot of things in my life - drinking caffeine (three months ago), drinking alcohol (slowly over years, still have sips now and then), eating most added sugar (was prediabetic, now I'm not, still have small amounts at times).

All of the things I quit, I actually love - I love artisanal coffee; I love the taste of a good cocktail and good beer; and for most of my life I said I had a second stomach for dessert.

And yet now it feels pretty much normal that I don't consume these things.

Over the years I feel like I've learned a lot about managing cravings without going crazy that I feel could be helpful for others, so I'd like to share a few thoughts.

There's no need to shut down the craving

My natural impulse when I'm trying to restrict something, e.g. eating added sugar, is when the craving for that thing arises, to really shove it down and try to ignore it. Over the years I've found this just makes me feel bad. Now, I just let myself feel the craving fully, and still just decide not to engage in it.

There's no such thing as falling off the wagon

For most of my life, I would try to form a new habit, and when I inevitably broke the habit, would feel like I had failed entirely or fallen off the wagon, and was back at 0. This kind of thinking is totally mistaken. If I decide not to eat added sugar, but then eat a cookie one day, all I've done is eat a cookie once. I haven't reset to 0. I'm always at 0, making each decision independently from every other one. Getting rid of all or nothing thinking makes it a lot easier to occasionally indulge without feeling bad about it, and to continue with my desired behavior afterward.

Some things do require cold turkey

That said, for some things, like eating sugar, it's much easier to break the habit by going cold turkey because there's actually a biological mechanism that reinforces the craving when you continue to indulge in it. For the first few weeks or month of going without sugar, it felt like having sugar would reset the craving (even without an all or nothing mindset - I'd just start wanting it more). So it's easier to go with 0 added sugar for a month and then after that you just crave it way less. Now if I take a bite of something really sweet I'll often feel like it's too sweet, when in the past I'd have devoured it. But I can still occasionally enjoy a dessert.

"Only if I really want to"

I decided to dial back my alcohol consumption years ago after a friend stayed with me for a few weeks doing "no alcohol August" and I joined him, and I realized I was way more clear-headed without it. I didn't drink that much, but even a beer with dinner would affect how I felt the next day. I decided I'd let myself still drink, but only if I "really really wanted to". This led me to check in before drinking and assess whether it was really something I wanted or if I was doing it just to do it. Over time I found I "really really wanted to" less and less. This felt like a really healthy and natural way to change a behavior. Now I can have just a few sips for the taste without drinking any more. Every few months I might have a full drink. (Granted, for some, alcohol may fall more in the cold turkey camp, it just happened not to be the case with me.)

So... am I happy? Honestly, I wish I could drink as much cold brew as I wanted, have cocktails whenever I wanted, and eat as much dessert as I wanted. That would be pretty damned pleasurable. And maybe someday I'll relax a bit more and won't mind some of the negative side effects of cold brew or cocktails. But for now it pretty much just feels normal, and even though it may sound like I'm a Puritan, I don't feel internally like I'm being incredibly restrictive or harsh with myself. These changes happened slowly over time and since I allow myself to feel whatever I'm feeling instead of fighting or negotiating with the craving, I don't feel repressed because of it. And I no longer have prediabetes, which is cool. And I still sometimes get to eat McFlurry's. 😇