How Big Are Your Appetites?

When Amy was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2024, she began the keto diet with combined intermittent fasting for a while, and I decided to try it with her.

The keto diet involves replacing carbs with fat for for the body to burn for energy.

I’m pretty good at going for most of the day without food, so my biggest challenge was dramatically reducing the amount of carbs and sugar when I was eating. Before that, I regularly had a late-night sugar craving. Somewhere between dinner and bedtime, my body seemed to announce, It’s time for something sweet! And that’s when I’d go in search of some ice cream, chocolate, or candy.

But something interesting happened when I stopped eating so much sugar, my appetite for it began to disappear.

The less carbs I ate, the less my body desired them. I began to realize that my late night sugar craving wasn’t my body telling me what I needed, but instead it was what I was regularly feeding myself that was creating my appetite for it.

That got me thinking about other things we regularly feed ourselves and our appetites for them.

Media outlets give us a news feed. Dramatic headlines, breaking-news banners, and constant updates compete for our attention and keep us coming back to find out the latest.

Social media gives us personalized feeds based on what we’ve clicked on, watched, or lingered over before. Watch one video on cats and more appear. Then before you know it, you’ve been scrolling for 45 minutes.

Why do our appetites increase?

Because it’s not just physical, it’s neurological.

Renowned attachment expert and psychiatrist, Dr. Dan Seigel says, “Wherever attention goes, neural firing flows, and connection grows.”

If you continually feed your appetite for work, you might find yourself thinking about work even when your with your family.

If you constantly consume political commentary or news, you may begin checking for updates every spare moment you have.

If you spend hours following your favorite sports team, is can gradually become the primary object of your affection and passion.

If you regularly look at pornography or sexualized content, your desire for novelty grows and your attraction and satisfaction for your spouse will diminish.

The reality is that we all have appetites, and any appetite can become unhealthy when we continually feed it without limits.

And here’s where I think this insight becomes especially important in our closest relationships.

We can feed our appetite for disappointment by continually focusing on all the ways our spouse fails to meet our expectations.

We can feed our appetite for criticism by continually noticing what we don’t like about our spouse.

We can feed our appetite for resentment by repeatedly ruminating on how our spouse has hurt us.

We can feed our appetite for distance by avoiding difficult conversations.

This tendency is not all bad news though. We can also develop healthier appetites.

You can intentionally look for what you appreciate about others and feed your appetite for gratitude.

You can put your phone down or turn the TV off when your around your family and feed your appetite for connection.

You can spend time really listening to your spouse and sharing your heart and feed your appetite for emotional intimacy.

You can spend time in prayer and reading scripture and feed your appetite for knowing God.

We often assume that if we don’t feel like connecting with our spouse, spending time with our family, praying, reading scripture, or doing something healthy, we simply don’t have the appetite for it.

Maybe we need to change what we’re practicing or stop what we’re consuming before we can expect our appetite to change.

This week, take an honest inventory of your attention.

What are you continually clicking, watching, reading, rehearsing, or fantasizing about?

What are you looking at when no one else is watching?

What do you reach for the moment you have five minutes of downtime?

What do you think about when your mind is free to wander?

Are you giving your work the best of you while your family gets what’s left over?

Consider deleting that app, turning off certain notifications, setting a fixed “off work” time, beginning a fast from certain media, attending a recovery meeting, getting an accountability partner, or changing your routine.

Practice intentionally redirecting your attention toward something healthier and see what happens to your appetites.

Remember: Whatever you feed grows.

So choose carefully.