Satisfying Food Choices Are Smart FOOD CHOICES

All of us who have struggled with our relationship to food and weight have worked diligently for years to make what we call the "right" food choices to meet our weight loss goals. We know that there must be more to making the "right" choice of what to eat than simply following the nutritional information on the package, the latest fad diet, or our doctor's instructions. Time and time again we are not able to stick to those plans and we feel the shame of our failures and the frustration of knowing we are smart and capable people, yet we cannot get it right.

Margaret, a 50 year old OB/GYN nurse, had been struggling with her extra weight and her increasing health problems for many years. At the suggestion of her doctor, family and friends, and after much research on the efficacy of bariatric surgery, she chose to have lap-band surgery. Initially, as she first adapted to her new appetite control system, she found that she was not hungry all that much and ate a few basic foods each day. After about three months, she began to miss her favorite foods and realized that while the portion control tool was effective, her mental and emotional conflict over what to eat and how to make "good" choices to facilitate her health and weight loss was growing. She joined one of our tele-action groups in order to learn an effective method for changing her painful relationship to eating.

Our groups are designed to help people learn skills to make choices about when to eat, what to eat, and how to stop eating without feeling deprived by using internal cues and increased self-awareness rather than external rules. Margaret reported that she had become overwhelmed by making her daily food choices, especially considering the smaller portions she can now ingest having her Lap-Band in place. In our program, we work on the proven premise that by learning to choose what we really want to eat from inner cues, and to eat with awareness, we gain satisfaction and eat less.

After all the years of dieting and being told what to eat by experts, however, it's hard to know what you really want to eat. How can we learn to know what we really want to eat from the inside? How do we make the kind of "smart" choices that help us eat less and feel satisfied and are sustainable over time? We need to look at what influences our choices and learn to use positive influences that allow us to really connect to our inner cravings and to avoid negative influences that lead us astray.

In our groups, we ask people to think about what influences their choice of food. For example, it is extremely cold and snowy outside. You are hungry and very cold when you get home. As you start preparing something to eat, what might you choose? You might want something warm and bulky. What influenced this choice? Perhaps it was an awareness of your body temperature and a feeling of emptiness in your stomach from the "work" of fending off the weather. Food urges are a craving for a particular or specific food that you know you want to eat based on signals and data that come from checking your inner self awareness for clues and cues.

When you choose to eat a food based on an urge that has truly come from within you, you will be more satisfied with the eating experience and find it easier to stop when you've had enough. Inner choices, the choices that lead to satisfaction from eating, are based on developing an awareness of wanting the food without seeing it or having it around you. The choice comes from reading internal signals that are available to us if we pay attention and eliminate the negative influences. The urge for this food may involve awareness of yearnings from your stomach, jaw, throat, lips, or tongue. It is helpful to keep in mind that it is easier to know what we are craving when we are hungry.

There are two common negative influences on our selections of food that confuse people learning to sort out what they are really desiring to eat. One negative influence that may derail you from a satisfying choice is what we call "consumer influence." Consumer influences are created by the environment, the food looks and smells good such as when we are at the fair and all the fried dough is calling out to us. Foods are constantly being advertised to us and we are bombarded with opportunities to eat when we are not necessarily hungry and have not been craving any of these foods. Your senses come in contact with the food and you want it. You are not aware of craving or hunger. The calling for the food comes from outside you. The foods force themselves into your consciousness.

Margaret was reminded of an incident just this week in which she was standing in front of the deli counter at her local supermarket trying to figure out what to order for her lunch. This is a typical situation where whatever you choose, based on what's calling out to you, will not be satisfying. Often in restaurants, another participant noted, she would look around to see what others are eating and what "looks good." Inner choices are not just responses to what you just saw displayed on TV or on other peoples' plates. Eating foods chosen from consumer influence will be disappointing to eat. This disappointment leads to overeating in an attempt to find some satisfaction from the food you mistakenly thought you wanted.

A second negative influence on our choice of food is what we call "concept influence." Concept influences are choices created by our thoughts. You talk yourself into eating what you think you should by eating the "good" choice. Several participants in our group identified the dutiful message, "I should have low fat cottage cheese and fruit for lunch every day if I really want to lose weight." Most chronic dieters and people struggling with their weight are all too familiar with this influence. How often have you battled with yourself over the "should" foods versus what you are truly in the mood for? You want to want this food. Margaret recognized that most of the foods in her kitchen are concept foods such as non-fat yogurt, grapefruit, and salad ingredients. The calling for this food is based in your mind. We hope to avoid that gnawing feeling of guilt by choosing this food. When we eat foods that are based on concept influences, we are not satisfied by the food, we feel deprived and overeat later.

As our participants start on the path to identifying inner food urges we often hear, "I just don't know what I want to eat." We understand that if you have been depending on your thoughts (concept foods) to determine your choices when you are being "good" and indulging in junk food (consumer foods) that is all around us and advertised continually when we are being "bad", it becomes very difficult to turn off those loud messages and find your inner callings again. We find that identifying these two negative influences, consumer and concept, and watching for them as we are making our daily food choices, can help clear the path to our awareness of our body/mind signals that help us determine actual craving.

We want to be like Goldilocks and her three bears: we don't want porridge that is too hot – consumer based food choices that lead to feeling disappointed and overeating. We don't want porridge that is too cold – concept based food choices that lead to feeling deprived and overeating. We want porridge that is "just right" – from inner cravings. When we learn to choose foods from inner cravings, we become more able to stop eating when we have had enough and to not overeat in reaction to the disappointment of consumer foods and the deprivation of concept foods.

Consumer Foods
The food attracts you at a time you are uninterested in food. Creates a need in you to indulge in food by its display or presentation. The food advertises to you by looking good, smelling good, etc. The food forces itself into your consciousness. The urge for this food comes from outside you. Although it may taste good initially, you will not be satisfied by eating this food. You will be disappointed and overeat this food or overeat later.

Concept Foods
You talk yourself out of something you want or into something you don't want. You think you should eat this food. The calling for this food is based in your mind. You believe this food is a "good" food and eating it will not make you feel guilty. You want to want this food, e.g., cottage cheese, grapefruit. You will not be satisfied by eating this food. You will feel deprived and overeat later.

Choice Foods
The calling for this food comes from connecting with internal signals that are available to us if we pay attention and eliminate the negative influences. The urge for the food may involve awareness of yearnings from your stomach, jaw, throat, lips, or tongue. The choice is based on developing an inner awareness of wanting the food without seeing it or having it around you. We feel satisfied by eating this food and are thereby more able to know when we have had enough and not overeat.

Joan Swerdlow-Brandt, LICSW, a psychotherapist and coach, is a nationally recognized expert on food addiction and co- founder of the successful FACE Weight Loss Program (www.faceweightloss.com).




Robert Brandt, PhD, a psychologist and coach, is a nationally-recognized expert on food addiction and the co-founder of the successful FACE Weight Loss Program (www.faceweightloss.com).

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