The Life Ledger

Fitness is a way of life.

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...

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.

Thank you for visiting The Life Ledger. If you enjoyed this article, check out the related posts below and subscribe to our feed.

Related posts:

1. 197
2. The Point of Awareness
3. 5 Tips: How I battle emotional eating - and win
4. Current weight: 196.5