And, apparently… eat?

Forget that you’ve just eaten dinner. And it was a good dinner. A gorgeous green salad with light dressing, a lean protein, a fiber packed grain. You eat three meals and snacks. Fruits and veggies. Drank all your water. Boy, you were good today.

So, why, oh why, oh why, is it that that little bugger of a snack craving always hits as soon as you get good and relaxed?

The Answer? One part habit, one part emotions.

How many of you can recall a time when you were a wee impressionable one and food was given to you as some sort of reward for a job well done? Whether you are six or forty-six, food as a reward for a hard day’s work is an all too common habit. No need to point fingers at the rewarder, they probably learned it from their superiors too. It’s a habit many, many people have established.

Part two is the emotional eating aspect. Emotional eating is a complex process. Emotional eating is a means of disconnecting. Store up that word – it’s one of my favorites for explaining emotional eating, and this is a topic on which we’ve got a lot of grounds to cover. What does disconnection look like?

Here’s a picture of disconnection: You, sitting on the couch, your feet up. You, the whirlwind that is on the go from 5 am to 8 pm without a breather, finally stops moving. When you stop, the brain starts. Have you ever found that if you sit still for juuuust long enough all those uncomfy thoughts start rushing in? All the things on your to do list that you didn’t tackle today that beckon tomorrow, the money or health concerns that don’t go away, your kids’ problems, how tired you are, how you should have gone to the gym… on and on and on.

Haven’t experienced this? That’s because your sneaky little brain saved you from this intense overwhelm of the thoughts many of us carry around daily. Before you have time to dwell on this onslaught of unfixable worries, your brain steps in and saves the day with a disconnection.

A disconnection is a thought that removes you from a situation (in your mind) that causes discomfort and is not easily remedied. My disconnection comes in the form of wheat thins. Or tostitos. Or rainbow sherbet. Yours?

The moment your brain serves up that snack craving, it effectively removes you from the thoughts that rush in when we slow down. Mix in years of habitually using food as a reward for a day’s hard work, and you have a recipe for a CRAVING.

If this is resonating with you, we have some work to do. Step One is not to fight it with willpower. This will only get you so far. A few days if you’re normal, a few months if you’re reallllllly lucky. This isn’t about willpower. It’s about changing the way you think about food in order to make a lifestyle change.

Step One is to identify the moment of disconnection. When that craving hits (regardless of it’s 8 pm relaxing or 3 pm at work or 10 am after putting the kids down for a nap or 5 pm when you walk in the door) and you recognize that you’re not hungry, stop and acknowledge a) that you are disconnecting from something and b) what is is your disconnecting from. Ask yourself the question “What am I disconnecting from?” Ask and answer. Ask and answer, ask and answer, ask and answer. Find the themes. As you answer your own question, start gathering the data that pinpoints the who, what, where, why and when’s of your own personal cues to disconnect.

This is Step One. Step Two is all about changing your perception of the things that are your cues to eat. But, this is turning into a novel of an entry so I’ll leave you here to practice your Step One for awhile. I’ll be back, with step two. (And it won’t take me 2 weeks this time – I promise!)

Food For Thought: If this concept of disconnection hits home, start with Step One. Keep a little journal somewhere that you can collect your data. It can be a calendar, a notebook, the back of envelope… just write it down so you can start recognizing what themes are your cues. Healing the worry means finding the worry. So let it in. Even if you go ahead and eat your craving this week, doing the Step One will pull you from a place of mindless decision making to conscious, thought driven choices. So even if you eat, it’s a conscious choice. Conscious choices are the antidote to mindless munching.