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You are not hungry most of the time. You are not always hungry
when something smells good, looks good, or tastes good, whether
or not you think you are. All food is prepared to tempt your
taste buds, even though you’re not hungry.
You are also not hungry because there is stress, a deadline,
pressure, a personal or business problem, anxiety, tension,
it’s morning afternoon evening when alone with friends weekdays
weekends day time night time money problems it rained it didn’t
came with the dinner it was there . . . You are not hungry
24 hours a day, though you might think you are.
There are many daily food encounters: friends offering food,
a maitre d’ describing dessert, the smell of popcorn in a
movie theater, to name but a few. Acknowledging the visual
and emotional blitz helps interrupt the knee-jerk reaction
that causes you to eat even though you’re not hungry. Just
knowing you are not hungry most of the time is a helpful piece
of information.
You may even have pinpointed the reasons you’re thinking of
food, reasons that seem to justify your eating when you’re
not hungry. I’ve heard excuses as varied as “I got so angry
because I couldn’t get a cab” to “I got caught in a downpour
without an umbrella.” Many of these reasons might seem a valid
enough reason to make you eat. They are not.
Certainly anger might tempt you to use food as a drug to keep
the feelings down. If you eat when you’re angry, does the
anger go away? Or perhaps frustration weakens your resolve.
At which  point
is your threshold for discomfort seriously challenged? Bored?
At exactly which point does a yawn become a yen? Tired? When
does food become a replacement for sleep?
Does the emotional pain diminish when you eat? Is the celebration
any better because you come home stuffed, bloated, and full
of gas, uncomfortable and with lowered self-esteem? Is it
worth it?
Consider, if you will, that your past behavior has not worked.
A clear vision of what you’re trying to accomplish will. Most
of all, you need a mind open to the possibility of change.
One man I almost taught was so afraid to change that he was
locked into where he hung his coat, where I sat, and where
he sat. He was terrified I was going to pull off his covers
and yank away his security blanket of whatever food he was
holding onto – whichever food he thought made him comfortable.
He was so uncomfortable with even the thought of change, he
would not tell me how much he weighed, or what he wanted to
weigh.
Of course it’s possible that some discomfort might occur while
you’re changing. The very act of weighing less than you did
before is a change. And there is no change without change.
But there are ways to lessen the discomfort of the journey
from where you are to where you want to be; to offer options,
suggestions, tactics, tips, tried and true assignments that
work more and more as they are practiced. After all, you learned
to use food to calm yourself down. You can learn a new method,
a new automatic response.
Do you eat out of habit, not hunger? Identifying habits requires
guidance, introspection, and patience, but most of all honesty.
Once you acknowledge, “Yes, I do that,” you can decide you
don’t want to do that anymore and begin to do something else,
instead.
It is unrealistic and self-defeating to expect to go from
habitual, compulsive, or addictive eating behavior to a calm,
rational, in-control eating person by reading an article,
even this article. You can, however, alter automatic, learned
responses by creating new and effective alternative behaviors
that will result in permanent change. The new behavioral choices
add up to a permanent weight loss, incrementally, not rattattattat.
It’s worth repeating: Your original patterns evolved over
a lifetime. Now you can consciously plan the person you want
to be.
Food does not contain a narcotic. Food only has the power
you gave it by doing the same thing with it each time you
encountered it. Food has the power you vested in it as part
of a ritual distraction with your mind, many times since childhood,
when you might have learned how to cope with stressful situations
by using food inappropriately. It might have worked then,
but it’s not working now. Now you need to find a new way that
will work now.
I’ll show you what to do if you are not hungry but are tempted.
There are many things you can do when food is offered, baked,
cooked, prepared, and present just for you. Learn how to handle
the compelling urges at the office, in a restaurant, or at
home. Learn that an umbrella-topped pushcart, wafting a familiar
aroma, doesn’t always mean you have to eat a hot dog.
Hunger demands to be fed. An urge passes. Know the difference?
The next time you’re at home and thinking of food, and you
just ate a little while before, set a kitchen timer for 20
minutes and distract yourself with some activity. Sometimes
I set the timer, get busy with some other project, and when
the bell goes off, I not only forget I set the bell, I’m not
even sure why I set it in the first place.
One woman recalled a walk she took one summer day. She spied
a man eating an ice cream cone, (a visual stimulus). She used
the mental repatterning techniques she’d created to distract
herself. She’d practiced and repeated the words, “Alert. Alert.
Cross the street,” which she did while laughing. She reassured
herself that everything was going to be okay, and she prompted
herself to calm her breathing.“Two minutes later, I’d found
the most adorable sequined hat in a store window,” she recounted.
The moment clearly had passed.
The techniques were there in her memory bank because she had
written the specifics of her plan, reviewed it daily to remind
herself of the details, envisioned it in her mind, so that
when the ice cream cone appeared, her new automatic response
to say, “Alert. Alert. Cross the street, take a deep breath,
and keep walking,” kicked in. It is a process everyone can
learn. It begins in your mind.
If you do not eat something when you normally would have,
you might be particularly motivated to reach your goal weight
for an upcoming wedding, class reunion, or birthday celebration.
If you use will power, self-control, good intentions, and
inner resolve, you’ll find the results temporary. The next
time the same circumstances or food appear, you may be a little
less motivated or a little more angry, lonely, tired, or bored,
and you’ll probably eat the food, only to reinforce your old
eating behavior, which is what caused you to gain weight in
the first place. There is no good intention, self-control,
inner resolve or will power sharp enough to cut through the
layers and tentacles of your very practiced and polished ritualized
eating habits – habits gone haywire. If you ever had good
intention, self-control, will power or inner resolve, you
would have used it 5, 10, 20, 30, or 50 pounds ago.
If, however, you begin to change your overreaction to food
by doing something else, you might end up eating the object
of your desire, but, you’ll most likely not put as much on
your plate, you’ll eat a little less, stop a little sooner,
and eat it a little less intensely than if you had not attempted
some repatterning techniques.
The first time you do it the new way, it might feel awkward
and uncomfortable. It is different from what you’ve done in
the past. But no matter how uncomfortable you feel at the
beginning of creating a new habit, nothing is as uncomfortable
as having to choose what to wear based on how much of your
body it will cover. Nothing is as uncomfortable as selecting
what to wear based on what fits on a particular day rather
than what is appropriate for a particular occasion.
Maintain a positive, I can do it mental attitude, and positive
results happen. Avoid negative words about yourself, such
as bad or failure or I blew it. They are just words and do
not apply to anyone who continues to try. “It ain’t over until
it’s over,” Yogi Berra said. I believe that.
For best results, attempt many kinds of change in your life.
If drinking water doesn’t help by itself, perhaps the water
and deep breathing will be helpful. Sometimes water, deep
breathing, changing location and calling a friend is what
you need. It is the action of taking an action — any action
– that gets the result. It almost doesn’t matter which techniques
you use to repattern – what is important is that you take
a swift, purposeful, and immediate action. The quicker the
action, the quicker the moment of anxiety passes.
It is possible that sometimes you might try every technique
available and the moment is still difficult. It happens. But
that doesn’t mean you should stop trying. It just means your
results have not quite accumulated enough to effect a noticeable
change. It doesn’t mean nothing is happening. It just might
be too subtle for you to notice. Keep doing it anyway. It
accumulates. Continue trying, and from each seemingly failed,
imperfect human attempt, the structure of the old, destructive
habit will be eroded another little bit . . . you will be
that much closer to success which is eating only when hungry.
It took many episodes of reinforcing old behavior to create
patterns as ingrained as the ones you  are
trying to change. It takes many steps of new behavior until
you’re hooked on the new way.
Sometimes one technique works, sometimes another. Every food
encounter is different from every other one. Everyone responds
to each stimulus differently and responds to repatterning
techniques in a different way, too. A combination of several
techniques may be just the ticket when one is not enough.
Be creative.
Identify your eating patterns. Even the seemingly insignificant
ones, such as it’s only broccoli, or I only drink black coffee
add up. Do you mean an orange has the same significance as
a piece of candy? What ritual thinking is in your subconscious?
Are leftovers a problem? Does food preparation end up being
one for you and one for the pot? Does someone else serve you
your food at home, in the office, in a restaurant? Do you
finish everything served to you?
One woman I teach had the habit of eating after eating. She
battled that habit for many months. When I spoke to her last
week, however, she reported a two-week period when she did
not once eat after dinner. This lifelong pattern had finally
been laid to rest. She is 59 years old.
If you buy, prepare, serve, and accept a little less food,
you’ll eat less. Ultimately, you’ll be a little less.
If you don’t bring it into the house you won’t eat it. Out
of sight, out of mind.
If it doesn’t taste good or look good or satisfy the eye and
palate, don’t eat it. We all belong to a nation of people
who finish everything on their plate. That is not necessary.
You may leave food over. It’s okay. Food is wasted if you
put it into a body that doesn’t need it. Better to throw it
away. If you order less the next time, there will be less
to waste.
When you go off your program because you’re human, you didn’t
blow it, weren’t bad, or a failure. Don’t beat yourself up.
Simply get back on your program at the very next meal. Try
to figure out what you could do next time the same thing inevitably
happens. The quicker you’re back on your program, the more
you’ll want to stay on your program. It is becoming comfortable,
enjoyable, and preferred behavior.
Think of things you can do if you’re thinking about eating
but know you’re not hungry.
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