New Ways of Thinking - 6. Managing Conditioned Eating

How do we manage this ‘Wanting’ to eat?

There can be every day events that make it difficult to manage your eating, like a particular time of day or event, like watching TV.  Some events happen less often, like eating at a restaurant or going to a social event.  Identifying trouble spots can help us recognize where we need to concentrate our efforts.  Once you identify the high danger times, you can me more aware.

For me, my ‘danger’ times are munching after work and late evening.  My danger situations are parties and pot luck events.

There are some tools that can help us manage conditioned eating:

1.  S.T.O.P.P

See the choice point.  Recognize there is a choice to be made instead of going to the default behavior.

Take a breath.  Counting to 5 can help you settle into this point in time.

Observe your experience.  What emotions/ feelings/ triggers are you feeling?

Play the film to the end.  Try taking a look at how ‘giving in’ will impact you afterwards.  If you indulge now will you feel uncomfortably full, have trouble sleeping, or feel bad about yourself later?

Plan an alternative.  Take a moment to plan out at least 1 alternate behavior.  Maybe just sitting with the ‘wanting’ for 20 minutes, or maybe going for a walk or a bath.

2. Try a Competing Behavior.

Find some activities that you enjoy.  Plan to switch out the conditioned eating with one of these enjoyable activities when you feel like you ‘want’ to eat.  A few of my activities: play guitar, work in workshop, write in journal.

3.  Acceptance.  Distraction or ‘fighting’ a craving can make the craving more intense.  Acceptance is the willingness to experience the wanting to eat without acting on it.  A craving increases in intensity rapidly for about 5 minutes, then levels off.  At about 8 minutes, the intensity starts to decrease and at about 15 minutes the craving will be gone.  Plan to accept the ‘wanting’ for a little longer – about 20 minutes – and the craving will be gone.

It often works best to combine #3 and #4 for best results.  Remind yourself that the new activity is more in line with your values.

4.  Smart Plan.  Make a plan for changing a pattern of behavior.  Picturing yourself doing it beforehand can help you avoid falling back into old habits during a Choice Point.

Example:

What I want to do: stop snacking in the evening while watching TV

Why it’s important: I want to be a role model for my grandchildren

My plan: “I will go for a 15 minute walk when I start to feel a craving every day this week.” (remember SMART – specific, measurable, action, realistic, time-based)

My back-up plan: “I will play the film to the end when a craving hits and remind myself of my ‘why’”

Think of 1 possible barrier that could hold you back from your goal and at least 1 solution to the barrier.

Remember that a ‘slip’ is a first attempt in learning, not a failure.  Slips are an important part of the learning process.