It’s all about language.
Before I began Optifast, I over-ate a lot. I loved food, I loved the taste of food, I got a lot of emotional satisfaction out of food. I ate to celebrate, I ate to gain energy, I ate to rise out of depression, I ate when I was lonely or bored. The only time I didn’t eat is when I was hungry, because I never was. I had completely co-opted my body’s mechanisms for signalling phyiscal hunger, replacing them with my emotional needs. Feeling good? I’m hungry! Feeling depressed? I’m hungry. Feeling bored or lonely? I need to eat.
Right before starting Optifast, I began to notice I ate when I wasn’t actually hungry, and I would eat way more than I needed to. I didn’t have the words to describe it at the time, but I could identify the behavior. For instance, when I ate Indian food, my stomach would be full but I would take 5 more bites because I craved the taste. Or if I was having a bad day at work, I would take a magazine with me and have a burger and fries at Applebee’s and call it “me time.”
Now I have the words to describe that behavior – emotional eating.
I also have developed the words to stop the behavior. My first attempts to stop over-eating were unsuccessful – I would say to myself “I need to stop eating.” Then I would take just one more bite, because it tasted so good, or there wasn’t that much left. I would be left with an over-full stomach and an empty plate. Other attempts were just as unsuccessful – “I’m full now”, “my stomach is full”, “I’m emotionally eating now.” No matter what I tried, I always found a reason to eat just a little more. Then I hit on it -
“Put the fork down.”
Why did this work? My previous attempts were either overbroad and unactionable (“I need to stop eating.”) or a weather-report of my current behavior. I needed a physical, immediate action to stop the eating. There was no emotion attached to putting my fork down, no judgment of how fat I was and how I was just making things worse, no craving to satisfy – that simple action severed my emotional ties.
So, if you need somewhere to start, just a little pebble to get your avalanche rolling, try putting your fork down.
I know this is a few days old, but wanted to comment. Today at lunch I had to follow the “put down the fork”.
I’ve got a test for my next belt in Karate tommorrow, so I’m carbo-loading. Best place around for good pasta is a buffet. I’ve sworn off of those for a number of years, but thought I would try to control myself.
And succeeded. I got 1 slice of veggie pizza but was able to stayed at 2 small plates of pasta and sauce. And then put down the fork. I wanted more. Almost craved it. But force of will kept me in my seat.