It is a vicious cycle – we really want that cookie, but when we eat it we feel guilty. For those of us that have been on and off diets all our lives, eating can become a guilty pleasure. It can feel like a no-win situation: we still eat the food but we can’t fully enjoy it.
Awareness is one of the best tools for developing healthy habits and right away it brings up our inner critic. We catch ourselves in the old habits (the ones we are trying to change) and it triggers us: guilt, remorse, thoughts that we just can’t do it, it’s too hard, and we’re not good enough. It is a familiar pattern and it can shut us down. It is easy to assume that the critical voice must be right. We are used to it; it seems like it is part of us. But when you really check it out, what the critical voice says is usually not true.Picture Lucy in the popular cartoon strip “Peanuts” – she is well known for her rants. Do you automatically believe everything she says? Of course not! There can truth in her words, but she also likes to shout out unrealistic demands. Sound familiar? As a comic strip character, we can laugh at her. Can you do that with your own inner critic? Can you picture it as a Lucy ranting for the pleasure of ranting?
As we become aware of our current eating habits, just paying attention is a good way to see what really works for us and what doesn’t. Think of being a neutral observer. It is not about good or bad. It is just about noticing what is happening and how it affects us. Here is an example:
Sally has the habit of eating throughout the evening. She wants to lose weight and knows that if she could stop her evening grazing she can lose weight. She helps this process by eating a little more during the day, so that she is not so hungry by dinner time (it is a common eating pattern to eat lightly during the day and then eat all evening). This helps a lot and she is no longer searching for food every evening.
However, one night she has a bad evening and is back to eating. She gets upset with herself, reminding herself that she always fails . . . (etc – you know the story!)
On the surface this can look like a failure, but it is but really just the way life is. Setting up basic patterns that support us, like eating all three meal, helps. Yet there are always going to be upsets along the way that challenge us. It is just one more thing to learn. Beating ourselves up does not help. It is not a useful tool.
A whole different approach is to stand back and just observe the whole process. What was the trigger? In Sally’s case it was her baby not being able to sleep and being demanding. What are we really feeding? For Sally it was sense of frustration and helplessness. How do we feel when we eat? Do we feel better? Usually food makes us feel better for a little while, but not for very long. What would really make us feel better?
By observing and noticing what is happening, we have new choices. For Sally, it opened up a whole range of new choices that met the needs of both herself and her child. But to get there, she needed to stay neutral and pay attention to all the clues instead of getting hooked into her critical voice. As she noticed how her environment and responses affected her, and how they felt, she could begin to experiment with other responses.
How do you unhook from the critic? Begin by making the decision to observe in a neutral way, reminding yourself that it is not about good or bad but just noticing. When the critical voice comes up, remember Lucy and remember that it is just a voice that likes to rant. Ask yourself if what it says is true or helpful. You can choose not to listen or at least not to respond. You can reframe it by stating what you are learning and moving towards.
And finally, when you do choose food, decide how much you will have and really enjoy it. Then check in with your body. Do you feel energized? Does it give you a short burst of energy and then leave you feeling tired and depleted? Does it feel heavy in your stomach? When you really pay attention to how the makes you feel, that will help your decision the next time around. If you remember how it didn’t feel very good, it will be easier to choose something else next time!
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Kathy Nichols 