Allowing for the urge to eat something to exist and not answering it, is a the weight loss super power.
If you can nail this skill – you’re golden.
(Yes, it’s a skill, you can develop it!)
We feel out of control around food because we see things or think about them and we have to have them. We see them, desire them, feel the urge and have to solve that problem.
Or, so we think.
The problem is not that you need to have that thing. The problem is that you want the urgent feeling to go away. The fastest way to get an urge to go away – do what it wants!
CHIPS! Yes, that WILL make it better. So you eat them. Ah… Urge subsides, everything is okay…
Except for the part where you told yourself you wouldn’t eat chips, or they weren’t on your plan, or they always give you a stomach ache…
That’s the important part to see here. There is the urge, which is very in your face and, urgent! Then there are your plans, hopes, and the results that you are committed to creating.
In the moment the urge feels more powerful, bigger, and stronger than you – it’s uncomfortable, distracting. In a word, URGENT!
Here is the secret about urges. They get stronger when you answer them.
Think about a toddler in the checkout line. The more times they scream to get the candy and get the candy – the stronger that reward loop gets. They’ll get louder and louder until you give in – or they learn the new way in the world. (Only after lots of effort, and maybe some embarrassment, on your part!)
Your urge for chips at lunch, wine after work, or an M&M every time you pass by the HR ladies desk, are practiced. Ingrained. Strong.
You’re stronger.
Decide who’s in charge and follow through. Teach the urge that you are the boss. It can cry all it wants to. You don’t care. You’ve got a plan!
Look at you! Get on with your bad self!
Caryn