Why do we eat when we are not hungry?

We can all find a little space for something particularly delicious and tempting. Our stomachs (normally the size of our fist) are very stretchy.

Maybe you remember Mr Creosote from the Monty Python sketch? He tried to squeeze in one last mint wafer.

But what is making us eat when we are not hungry. Well, there are a number of reasons. If any seem to apply to you, think about how you can avoid them.

If we regularly eat a little snack at 3.00pm, then our bodies get used to it. Even if we have had plenty to eat, our bodies cry out for the 3.00pm intake. After a couple of days however, these cravings go. When are you snacking?

Refined carbohydrates make your blood sugar peak and trough dramatically so you feel hungry soon after. This includes sugary foods, white flour, sweets, cakes and biscuits. If you don't buy them, you won't eat them. Remember, in the hand is in the mouth.

Of course, if something looks and smells delicious, our body responds positively, with lots of encouraging saliva flow, which itself makes you hungry. As for me, I can never resist a mango, but I have trained myself to resist chocolate, and now it doesn't interest me.

Alchohol lowers your general ability to resist. If you eat before you go out drinking, you will be less likely to succumb to a takeaway on the way home.


www.carolinebrowntherapy.com

The urge to gorge

Here we are in the Christmas season. Even before Christianity came to Europe, there were pagan winter feastings. In those days, food was hard to come by, and winter was a time of hunger, so a special festival like this was a major treat.

Nowadays, food is plentiful, accessible and relatively cheap. For the vast majority of us, food shortage is just not an issue. But getting fat is something that concerns an increasing number of us.

Somehow at Christmas, we permit ourselves to gorge hugely, stuffing ourselves before, during and after a meal, with calorie-stuffed fun food. So what to do?

I was in the supermarket the other day with a friend who has a problem with alcohol. He wanted to buy a bottle of each kind of spirit - vodka, whisky, gin, brandy - for the friends who would be dropping by. He did this last year, and personally consumed all the bottles by New Years Day.

So here is the tip. Don't kid yourself that all these boxes of chocolates, tins of biscuits, sacks of crisps, bags of nuts, cakes etc etc etc are for your friends and visitors. Letting rip like this will only make you feel miserable, after you have eaten the evidence.

Enjoy lots of wonderful meals with your family. Have a happy Christmas. But when you are in the supermarket, make a Christmas wish to avoid all the fun food. It will be no fun at all in the New Year, when you struggle to lose the 3 pounds that you are at risk of putting on, and keeping on.

And when I say you, of course I mean Us!

http://www.carolinebrowntherapy.com/