Eat Out Eat Well

What Do Eating And Crossing The Street And Have in Common?

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Do You Look Both Ways?

Didn’t your parents teach you to look both ways before you cross the street?  The very act of looking and analyzing the situation before you step off the curb means that you are being mindful of your surroundings and aware of potential problems – like a car or bike speeding toward you.

What’s That Got To Do With Eating?

The same process – analyzing the environment and being mindful and aware of your situation — should be true with eating.

Before you pop food into your mouth do you check in with yourself and figure out if you’re really hungry?   Is your stomach growling and are you queasy and having trouble concentrating because you haven’t eaten in a long time and your blood sugar is low? Or is your desire to eat being triggered by the wafting smell of the freshly baked bread coming from the open door of a bakery or the sight of just out of the oven chocolate chip cookies?

Those are the kind of triggers that can create an irresistible urge to eat  – even if you’ve just had a good sized and satisfying meal.

What’s The Issue?

There are many situations — like the bakery trigger — when you eat in response to external cues (what you see, hear, smell, or even think) rather than mindfully checking in with your body and determining if you’re actually hungry. It’ sort of like looking both ways before you cross the street and then making your choice to cross or not to cross, isn’t it?

Check It Out And Then Make Your Decision

Let your body talk to you – and then listen to it.  Before food starts traveling the path to your mouth, stop and ask yourself if you’re really hungry or if you have head hunger  — the urge rather than the need to eat because your emotions and external cues are telling you that you should. Do you really need to eat or are your emotions sending you “feed me” messages?

Stop for a moment and look both ways before you decide to take the eating path — and then step off the curb into the street if you deem it safe and decide that’s what you want to do.

Kids Need To Learn About Food

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by FoodRevolution. Browse more data visualizations.
Food Revolution Day on the 19th of May is a chance for people who love food to come together to share information, talents and resources and to pass on their knowledge and highlight the world’s food issues. All around the globe people will work together to make a difference. Food Revolution Day is about connecting with your community through events at schools, restaurants, local businesses, dinner parties and farmers’ markets. The intent is to inspire change in people’s food habits and to promote the mission for better food and education for everyone.

 

Are You Really Hungry Or Is It All In Your Head?

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Argument.  Stress. Overwhelm. Fatigue.

Cookies in the shopping cart.  Candy bar from the gas station.  Chips from the vending machine.  Raiding the refrigerator for leftovers followed by ice cream.

Sound familiar?

You could be stuffed to the gills but all you can think about is getting that cookie, candy bar, chips, or leftovers and chowing down – even though you’re not hungry and probably won’t enjoy what you’re about to eat.

There’s Real Hunger And There’s Head Hunger

Real hunger or physiological hunger is your body’s way of telling you that it’s time to eat food because your body needs nourishment.  It’s when you have that empty, rumbling feeling in your stomach, a headache, maybe some lightheadedness and difficulty concentrating.  It usually starts around four hours (plus or minus) after your last meal.

Head hunger or psychological hunger doesn’t really have physical symptoms and can happen at any time. It can be triggered by emotional situations, habits you associate with food or eating (like watching TV, working on the computer or driving in the car), by food cravings, or can be a form of procrastination.   Whatever triggers your head hunger can make you think you’re hungry when you’re really not.

Emotions:  Common Triggers For Eating

Emotions are common triggers for eating. Head hunger is a form of emotional eating that is usually in response to stress, sadness, loneliness, anger, fear, fatigue, overwhelm, or boredom.

Head hunger also serves as a distraction because the eating it provokes can be a way to distract yourself from difficult situations, projects, and encounters.

The feelings and situations that create head hunger are a part of your life.  Eating won’t make them go away.  Eating in response to head hunger often keeps you from figuring out what’s causing the feeling in the first place.

“I want chocolate” might really mean “I need comfort” or “I worked my tail off and I really need to be recognized for it.” Those trips back and forth to the fridge or the vending machine might be the ultimate form of procrastination – is there a project that needs to get done that you’re struggling with?

What To Do

Wouldn’t it be great if it was as simple as figuring out what’s causing your head hunger and dealing with it.  Actually, that’s the answer. Eating can’t really satisfy your emotional needs.  Left unmet, those needs will trigger your head hunger over and over.  So, you overeat, you mentally beat yourself up, you feel awful, and the whole process is triggered all over again.

To break the pattern, first stop beating yourself up when you do eat in response to head hunger (as opposed to eating because you’re starving and your stomach is growling like crazy).

Devise a plan to figure out what caused you to eat in the first place.  Try keeping a written record of what happened and how you felt before your head hunger took control. Looking back at a series of entries might give you a clue.  Once you get a handle on your triggers, come up with a plan to deal with them and make a “go-to” list of ways to reward, calm, comfort, and/or distract yourself without resorting to eating when you’re not actually physically hungry.

Allow yourself to figure out what “real” hunger actually feels like and the feelings that accompany true hunger.

Do You Eat To Procrastinate?

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Procrastinate:  to delay or postpone action; to put off doing something.

Do you find yourself wandering to the refrigerator/vending machine/food truck/coffee shop . . . when you have something to do that you really don’t want to tackle?

Email viewers — you might have to go to the web to view the video.  Just click on the MyFoodMAPs link.

When Is The Perfect Time To Start Your Diet?

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Do the stars, moon, sun, and all of the planets need to be in alignment for you to start your diet?

Diet, not a word I usually use, generally implies deprivation and a way of life that is not easy, comforting, and fun.  So no wonder there are tons of excuses and reasons not to start.  Who wants to be deprived of food – especially favorite food?

Does This Sound Like You?

You’ve decided that you want to lose weight.  Do any of these thoughts and actions seem familiar?

  • “I’ll wait until Monday to start” – and then you eat enough through the week and over the weekend to gain more weight.
  • “Wow, it’s Monday, but it’s so and so’s birthday on Wednesday and we’re going out to dinner and then we’ll have cake – so I might as well wait until after Wednesday to start.”  And then it’s Thursday and you go back to “I’ll wait until Monday.”
  • “I don’t have the right kind of food in the house and it’s raining outside and I can’t get to the gym – so I might as well chow down today and wait until I can stock up on the right stuff” (and when is that?).
  • “I was so ‘good’ all week and then on Friday I went out and had drinks and dessert and a ton of bread.  So I figured I ‘blew it’ and might as well eat what I want all weekend.  I can start again on Monday.”  Of course Monday comes along and another verse is added to this tune.

There’s Always A Reason — Or An Excuse – Not To Start 

You get the idea.  You can always find a reason not to start your new healthy eating plan.  How about listing the compelling reasons to want to start.

Just Start

Diets don’t work.  Maybe they do for the short-term for some of you, but it’s rare to have long lasting weight loss from a restrictive diet mentality.

Try a different approach.  Healthy eating habits are the key to success.  Finding what works for the long term may require some out of the box thinking and creative solutions.  Go for it and give it time.  Just start.

Have you ever watched an athlete look for an opening through a crowded field of players obstruct his or her way?  The athlete just keeps looking for an opening – an opportunity.  The ultimate choice might be unconventional and require lateral movement or some pulling back before surging forward, but without making some kind of move nothing’s going to happen  — no momentum will be gained.

Look for your opening and take it – stop waiting for that elusive perfect moment or the perfect time to work on changing your eating habits.  You can keep telling yourself that you’ll start tomorrow — but will your “habit changing tomorrow” ever come if you don’t take some positive action to make it happen?