Tuesday 8 December 2009

Unwiring our urge to eat

We are hard-wired to eat, since if we didn't eat, we would die.


My cat is a stray and I found her when she was scavenging in my friend’s kitchen. She was skinny and scared. After coming to stay with me she became as fat as fat because food, all of a sudden, was freely available. These are the rules my cat was following, to deal with the serious risk of lack of food and starvation:

  • Always eat when food is available
  • Always eat as fast as possible
  • Always eat as much as possible
  • Always eat anything put in front of you

We are animals too, and are wired to protect ourselves from starvation, so we can end up following these rules too, even though food is easy, accessible and cheap. Do you? I know I do!


Hypnotherapy can help you by embedding suggestions in your mind, to help you overcome these hard-wired behaviours.

You can do-it-yourself of course. Here are some weight-control tips. By introducing some of the behaviours suggested below, one or two at a time, you will find that they become increasingly automatic.

1. Eat half the plate offered you, screw up your napkin and place it on top of the remaining food and push the plate away. If you are in a public place, it will be very hard for you to grab the plate back, remove the napkin and start eating again! It is using your sense of embarrassment in your own defence.

2. Before you eat anything, consult your hunger quotient. How hungry are you at the moment on a scale of 0-10? If it is less than 5, you don’t need to eat. There is always food available later. This just adds a little bit of delay to the decision to eat. You know that if you eat when you are already satisfied, then more food just makes you feel sick.

3. Eat slowly. I eat very slowly and in restaurants, my plate gets whizzed away when everyone else has finished. I feel a tinge of disappointment, but gratitude too. Research has shown that if you train yourself to eat slowly, and indeed, to decelerate your eating rate, you will eat less.

www.carolinebrowntherapy.com

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