Do you ever wonder why you just can’t keep your hand out of the chip bag or chocolate almonds or peanut butter, even when you’ve had plenty of food? It’s as if there’s an external force making you move and eat. We call those unbridled, unwanted habits, “cravings” in the coaching world and there’s always a lot of strategies focused on how to outsmart them. The problem with the idea of “beating” the craving, is that you’re still having to use your will power, which is extremely finite and subject to daily power outages. Instead, how about you come to terms with your cravings and never be driven by them again?

Dr. Jade Teta (@jadeteta), a physician/author/educator, prescribes to a method of craving elimination by exposure. Like an inoculation, we expose ourselves to the desired food repeatedly, in small doses, and thereby reduce it’s constant attraction. This process blows in the face of most conventional, short-term, instant results because it takes time and effort. But like all good things, time and effort always produce unbreakable outcomes.

If the way out of cravings is through exposure instead of elimination, what’s to be done about the all-or-nothing approach? How do we keep ourselves from not eating all of everything if it’s available to us whenever we want it?

It’s precisely this absence of urgency and shortage that we use to remove the unquenchable drive to eat it all.

This may sound like a sales pitch for a pyramid scheme to keep you paying for months in an accountability program. All you think you need to do is be more disciplined, throw the junk food in the trash and never, ever eat it again. Right? Try again…Cleaning out your pantry of junk food isn’t a bad idea, but if it worked to eliminate the craving for foods, even when they aren’t available, wouldn’t the cravings be gone?

The exposure approach may feel risky because you still have to be responsible instead of treated like a child or a prisoner who’s unable to “make good choices”. But, after all, you are probably an adult, capable of doing a lot of challenging things, much more difficult than facing a craving. So, why not try exposing yourself to small doses of your craving thing, and see how it goes? You’ll probably eat more than you should the first or first several times you “get to have it”. But, without fail, you will gradually and increasingly break the pull of a craving as you allow yourself small amounts of your favorite treat. And when you blow it, welcome to the club of millions of adults who are trying to do our best to be healthy. We’re not driven to perfection, only progress.