Breaking a bad habit for good means fighting two battles, and when you’re struggling long-term, it’s because you only fought one. Today’s episode shares the example of quitting sugar, what it can teach us about the two types of cravings we experience when trying to break bad habits, and what’s needed for long-term change.

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Recently, my friend asked me if the Momentum Formula could help her

break her sugar habit. She could tell that it was impacting her

health and she wanted to make changes, but she was feeling really stuck, like she

could not seem to quit sugar and just eating sugar

regularly. Now, I have spent more time than most people

thinking about this because I actually used to practice nutrition and I

worked with clients on this very issue, and I've

also dealt with it myself. And so today I'm sharing the answer

I told her about breaking the sugar habit But

the answer is relevant to most bad

habits that you wanna break. And I'm gonna talk about bad in a moment.

There is a chance that you have broken a bad habit in the past only

to find yourself right back again, maybe weeks or months later

and wondering what happened there? Why didn't it last? And

what's going on is that you only fought one battle when

really there were two at play. So that's what we're gonna get into today

is understanding the two different battles when we have

something that we are, that has an addictive quality to

it, what's going on there and how can we

take this away into anything that we're trying to quit? Now

I mentioned bad habits, so let's actually just take a quick

moment for me to address the idea of the term bad. I actually don't

like the term bad for bad habit. I'm referring

to a habit with a negative consequence. So it is

impacting some of your life, whether that is preventing you from doing

something you want. Maybe it's derailing you from progress that's really important

to you. It might be impacting your relationships or how you

feel. I don't love the word bad because it does seem to imply

judgment or suggest that you are bad for having

that habit. And I actually don't believe that, but I'm

realistic that most of us know when we say bad habit that we are talking

about a habit that is negative and it has consequences, and it's so

much easier to say break a bad habit instead of saying break a

habit with negative consequences in your life. So I am gonna use the term, but

I want you to know that this is not implying judgment, and it's really just

a way for us to differentiate between a good habit and a bad habit. Does

it add to our life or does it take away? So on that note,

what can kicking sugar teach us about

making lasting changes? And this is to look at

it through the lens of two types of cravings that are going on,

a biological craving. And a psychological

craving. You could also think about this as desire. Let's

start with biological. Now, with sugar in particular,

your body starts to get used to a certain

level of sugar in your system. And if you have

ever quit sugar for any amount of time, you will notice

that, well, one, there's an adjustment period and a withdrawal period where

you might find that you have headaches. You might find you're constantly

thinking about sugar or that you're actually starting to crave it

more. Maybe after dinner you just feel like, I just really

want some sugar right now. At least I know I have. But

eventually after that adjustment period, whether it takes days or

maybe a few weeks, you will start to notice some things like

if you have fresh fruit, it tastes sweeter and you're actually

enjoying it more. And then maybe later after you've been kind of off

sugar, and when I say sugar, I'm talking about refined sugar. Processed,

you know, desserts, all of that. I'm not talking about things that in nature, like

fruit. But later, let's say you are

at a celebration and someone offers you a cupcake or

donut or something, and you eat it and you realize this is

so much sweeter than I remember. Your body has adjusted to the point

where now when you have something really refined and processed, it

just hits and you might even feel sick. You might feel like this

tastes so sweet, I can't even finish this. And you

start to just, you, you could, you notice a huge difference because you have cut

it out. Your body has actually adjusted to the levels of sugar in your system.

And so you respond differently to something that maybe before you wouldn't have.

Now, what often happens for people is that they slowly

slide back. This can happen over weeks. It can

sometimes, it can happen over days, but people will slip back into it.

And then when they have that cupcake or that donut that at first made them

feel so sick and felt so sweet, But now it doesn't, doesn't feel that

way again. They're sort of sliding back into that because the body is

readjusting in the other direction. And what's

going on here is that you've had this example of

you've, you've cut it biologically where you made that adjustment, but you

didn't address the psychological cravings. And

this is where you have this desire for sweets, even

when on a physical level, your body has readjusted. You're not

craving the sweets as much as you were, and you notice

a shift, but you still feel like you are missing out. And

that's the big part, is that the desire for them never left

because you didn't actually tackle that part. You tackled the biological part

and you quit it biologically, but you didn't necessarily quit

the fact that you want it. So if you feel like you've been sacrificing, you

feel like you are missing out, then you've only adjusted one thing.

You've only fought one battle, and there's a second one at play, and often

it is, it is kind of beneath surface, what's going on here

is that you made a commitment to

eat healthier foods and to have less sugar, and you probably also start to

feel better and you've got the benefits. You might feel more energized, you might

have steadier energy throughout the day, you might even sleep better. However,

at the same time that you've made this commitment to these positive changes,

you psychologically have this hidden commitment to

avoid experiencing negative consequences. Like

maybe feeling like you're missing out on celebrations or family

traditions, or you feel like you are offending a loved one if you

decline dessert when you're out together or at a meal that they created.

Maybe you feel like you are losing a way to comfort

yourself when you are feeling down or celebrating

something really amazing. All of a sudden this thing is gone.

You also might feel restricted or constrained or feel like

you're being controlled by these arbitrary rules that say you cannot have it.

And as long as you believe, even subconsciously, that

these negative outcomes are possible, then you are likely to

sabotage your progress. So you might accept

the dessert from a loved one, even though you've been feeling pretty good without

so many sweets, or you tell yourself you deserve a treat

when you're feeling down or when you have something big to, to celebrate.

And slowly you start to find yourself back there again. You're

making all these exceptions, and even though

you have made physical adjustments, if you don't adjust your

mindset— and even in some cases, you might

even make the appeal for sugar more because

it's forbidden. It's this psychological pull or

craving. It's not a physical one, it's a psychological one.

Now let's compare that to a person who has actually worked

on not just their biology, but their mindset about sugar.

So someone who doesn't feel like they actually are missing out,

that they feel just as content skipping dessert as they do when they

have it, and they don't feel like not eating sugar

is— it's not a restriction for them. It's just, it's a choice.

They've chosen it. They don't feel like they're restricted because

it's something that they made consciously and they feel okay with that. And maybe

someone who just genuinely believes that sugar doesn't actually provide any form of

comfort. And it doesn't necessarily make a celebration

any better. So they have all these different perspectives and they see the world

differently than a person who feels like I'm missing out, I'm

being restricted, I'm holding back. Those people are white-knuckling it. They

have to use willpower because they're trying to overcome these

psychological cravings, even when they've calmed down the physical

cravings. So people who have tackled the mindset, they don't feel like they're

missing out and they, they actually don't desire it. Now,

this example is about sugar, but this applies to

any addictive habit because addictive habits

are ones that impact our brain's reward center. It,

it lights up our brain to say, oh, we wanna repeat this action. We

wanna repeat this because we're going to get something good out of it. We start

to desire things. We anticipate rewards. This

is connected to dopamine. Dopamine. It makes us Crave

things because we have realized, oh, when I do this, this good thing happens. I

feel good, or I feel better. And so we start to associate it

and we anticipate. So this can happen with even just scrolling on your

phone. We know that the designers of so many of the

apps designed it to make it addictive for our brains so that we're

constantly picking up our phone. And I use this example

because if you've ever taken a break from social media or tried to use

your phone less, You might notice in the first few days you are

constantly still reaching for your phone because you've been, you've kind of wired

in this habit. And over time, as you start to break

it, you notice that, okay, maybe I'm noticing my

mood's improving. I'm not reaching for my phone as

often. I'm spending time on other things. Maybe I'm having real

conversations, reading a book, or getting back into a hobby.

But if you still believe

that you are missing out, you are going to feel a pull

towards it. You might've changed the, the, the chemistry

in your brain, so you're not reaching as much, et cetera, but there might still

be this desire to be a part of it.

And it's, in other words, you haven't challenged your mindset,

so your brain is still thinking, you know what, it's still worth it.

I still want this thing, even if I have broken this habit.

And then you can slowly slip back into it. Now, if this

feels familiar to you, or there's any kind of bad

habit that you seem to break short-term but not long-term,

this is first about being kind to yourself. That

a lot of these products and addictions,

there are very powerful, powerful forces with lots of money

who are invested in you having these habits. Whether that is people on social

media who want you to constantly be on your phone, or whether it's food

industries that are making you constantly think about these foods.

And they're also framing them as if they are part of celebration and

that they are a regular part of our traditions. So you are

constantly being bombarded with these messages, and there are people who are

profiting off the fact that you have these. So let's just put that out there.

So be kind to yourself. The second thing is I want you to get

curious about why you have this desire for something that

has negative consequences. So what are you gaining from

it, or what do you believe you are gaining from it? And if you

start to just be really honest of why do I

want this, why do I feel like I am missing out, or why do I

feel like even if I know there's harm, I still—

I'm getting— you're getting something out of it. So what are you getting out of

it? And then question if one, are you actually getting

that thing out of it, or are you just attributing? Sometimes we just

falsely attribute what we're getting with something when

it's actually not. Like the idea of a celebration

does maybe feels like a real celebration as long as there's cake,

but in actual fact, you can celebrate something and not have any dessert

and it's still a celebration. But in our mind, we might associate those things

so we can falsely associate. You could falsely feel like you are connected to

people. Through social media when in actual fact there are other ways for you

to feel connected, and it might be a false sense of connectivity.

So just asking, what do you feel like you're getting out of it? And then

we want to explore shifting your perspective. And with

this, I do like to start simple by thinking about how do

other people see the— see this, especially people

who have tackled it. If you are someone with the sugar example, you might

know someone in your life who just goes to a celebration,

a party, dinner, and they just don't seem to care about

dessert. Now, we don't know someone who doesn't order

dessert. They could actually be white-knuckling it. They could be using a ton of willpower.

They could actually still be craving it. But I'm sure you've met people in your

life who just genuinely don't believe they're missing out and they don't crave it.

So what do they see differently than you? And also

talking to people openly. I know people who have quit social media

and I haven't fully quit social media, and I wonder Okay,

what do they see and how do they think differently? And just

get those perspectives. But finally, the most

important thing is that if you really want to shift

your mindset, the best way to do that is to back

up challenging your current perspectives through

real experience by testing it out and actually

seeing what happens. Can I celebrate without

cake? Can I comfort myself without snacks? Can I feel connected

to people without seeing what they've posted recently?

We're trying to actually get real lived experience. And

for this, I know I've talked about this before, but I wanna use a, a

restaurant analogy that I learned actually at a

meditation retreat, but it has stayed with me for many, many years.

And it's this idea of an understanding versus really knowing

something. So let's imagine you are at a restaurant.

You're looking at a menu and you see a meal that when you read

the meal description, you think, yeah, that will probably taste

good. You understand that these flavor combinations go together well. Maybe

you have some past experience, but you've never had it at this restaurant.

So you do have an understanding, but you can't be sure yet.

Then maybe a server walks past and they've got that

meal on the plate, bringing it to someone else's table. Now you've seen it and

you've smelled it. And you have a bit of a deeper sense of,

okay, I think I'm going to enjoy this meal.

But ultimately you can't know for sure until you

taste the meal. That's when you will really know if this is

something that you like, because you're

not just using logic to figure it out. You're actually experiencing it

firsthand. And then you can say with certainty, yes, I enjoyed this and

yes, I didn't. The same thing happens with beliefs where we can

use logic and say, a celebration is a celebration,

even if I don't have a piece of cake, or I can comfort my— myself

other ways. But until you experience it for yourself, that's

when you really believe it deep down. And that's when you start to really

shift your brain because suddenly you're not

just thinking about how things are different. You're actually experiencing how they're different

and you are still okay. And then you start to separate

yourself from this desire to have a thing because

you no longer feel that desire. You don't— doesn't have that same control

and you become released from it. And that is best done

through experience, but you need to tackle both at the

same time. So if you are trying to quit something that has this

addictive nature that's impacting your brain's reward

pathways and saying, keep doing this, this is good, I want this, I want

the benefits of this. We want to tackle it

biologically, get away from it, and that might, might be a little

uncomfortable at first, and we might actually just need to use some, some straight up

willpower in those early days. But we also have to tackle

that second battle, which is addressing our mindset

to break away from that psychological craving or

that desire. Cuz as long as we still want it, we

will feel like we're missing out and that pull will still be there.

Even if we've tackled it biologically and we'll just find ourselves back there. So to

have that lasting change, you need to tackle both. It's biology

and psychology at the same time. So

hopefully this has given you some perspective on maybe a habit that

you are trying to break. How do you tackle both? Maybe you just start with

one, but if you want it to last, you have to break free from

that desire and that psychological craving. And that

is when you can really find and keep your momentum.