3 Things You Can Do To Disarm a Food Craving

Carl Jung said: “you are what you do not what you say you’ll do.” If you want to do what you need to do to lose weight, you have to say the right things to yourself. That’s right, losing weight is not just about what you eat, it is as much about what you think or don’t think before you eat.

Experience has shown me that most people who struggle with their weight do not think, they just act or if they do think first, it’s a thought that is guaranteed to make them eat.

Here is a really helpful strategy adapted from the Four Step recovery process developed by Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz at UCLA, an American psychiatrist and researcher in the field of neuroplasticity and its application to obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).  If you are a yo-yo dieter, and can’t keep the weight off, you can relate to how food thoughts can seem obsessive and compulsive. Here is an adapted version of the process that has some similarities to meditation and mindfulness.

1. Become conscious and aware. The thought you have before you act needs to be redirected. Pay attention to the thought as it comes up. This is similar to the skill you learn when you meditate, where you become the observer of your thoughts. When you meditate you let the thoughts go, but in this case you redirect it.
2. Say to yourself: “It’s not true.” It’s not true that I need to eat because I am bored or sad. It’s not true that I need to eat when I am not hungry.
3. Acknowledge the obsession. This is just an obsession I have that I think I need to eat when I am lonely. The point of the redirect is to make the addictive urge, craving, thought disappear.

It’s important to understand that the patterns of thinking that lead to the actions you want to change do not go away overnight. They will not go away unless you stand witness to them and call them for what they are. Both the thought and the desire are wired into the pleasure reward part of the brain, thanks to the addictive nature of packaged foods. Paying attention is the first step to changing it.

The important thing is that you are not acknowledging it as a need, but a dysfunctional thought. You have to understand this is a game of persistence, it will come back. It is only because you are determined not to give into that you have a shot at rewiring your brain.

 

This is the first step in a four part process to end yo-yo dieting. The rest of the steps are outlined in the Nirvana Diet™ Home study program that you can use at home.

So remember…the key to successfully losing weight is changing the way that you think. The best way to manage your weight is to learn how to manage your mind first.