After last week’s blog, you may be thinking “Ok, so now I have this journal with everything I’ve eaten (yikes), where I ate it , when I ate it and how I was feeling when I ate it. Every time I look at it, I’m depressed….so how exactly does this help me again?”
And we wouldn’t blame you!
First and foremost, a journal of everything we eat is a reality check. It is soooo easy to eat almost unconsciously….the taste (or tastes!) we have while making dinner….the bread that the restaurant serves before the meal…the sheer volume of our portions… Often, we don’t really know how much we’re eating or how often….until we intentionally write it down. Reality can be a tough pill to swallow but it is also our friend! You can’t get from point A to point B without knowing where point A ( the starting point) is!
Think about those maps in the mall with “You are here” on them. If you are at Macy’s and want to go to Nordstrom there is a certain path you will follow. But if you think you’re at Macy’s but you’re really at Bloomingdale’s, that path will be useless and you will end up frustrated and lost!
Now we have to be a bit of a diet detective.
Look for trends and themes. Initially, we are just looking to identify them; not explain them.
Do I always have a Starbucks frappuccino at 5:30 every weekday on my way home from work?
Does the majority of my snacking happen in front of the TV?
Do I head for the cookies every time my boss calls?
Do I usually eat lunch in my car?
These what, where and when patterns are usually the easier to identify. The feelings trends can be harder.
Often the only thing we recognize is that we feel hungry!! That’s why we identify the where and when because they can give us clues to the feelings if we aren’t sure about them.
If, for example, you do head for the cookies every time your boss calls, you may be eating your anxiety. From there, you can look to see if you eat anxiety at other times. Or maybe you don’t like your job, so every time the boss calls, you feel a longing to get another job and may be eating that longing.
If you stop on the way home from work and get a frappuccino every day….are you celebrating the end of the day? Or are you drowning a stressful day? Or are you postponing going home for some reason?
As you can see, the behavior can be the same even though the underlying feelings are different. This is why we need to track the feelings patterns in addition to the when, where and what action patterns.
Note: Counseling can help you unpack this challenging part if you are getting stuck!
Once we start to know the feelings involved….and we acknowledge that the cookies, chips, or frappuccinos aren’t actually going to resolve those feelings (even though they feel pretty good in the short-term….thanks to that helpful dopamine release we mentioned last week!), then we can stop and choose to respond to those feelings in a healthier (emotionally and physically) manor.
Happy food sleuthing!
Take care of you…
