Understanding Your Relationship with Food

by Nutritionist Fiona Hunter 

Before we can begin to understand the complex relationship that most of us have with food, we need to understand that we all eat for a variety of reasons — very often out of habit or to satisfy emotional needs rather than hunger…

We use food to celebrate, to relieve boredom, to make us feel better when we're unhappy or lonely. Certain people, places, moods and situations can also prompt us to eat. Sometimes we eat to satisfy hunger, but often it's to satisfy a psychological need rather than a physiological need. Often we're unaware of the psychological cues that cause us to eat when we're not really hungry. 

Identify Your Triggers

Keeping a food diary will help you to identify the triggers that make you want to eat when you are not physically hungry. Buy a notebook and divide the pages into columns with the following headings:
 

Keep A Record

Keep a record of everything you eat and drink and how you feel for a month. At the end of the month review your diary and make a list of all the triggers that prompt you to eat when you're not really hungry.
 

Identify Your Triggers

Once you've identified these trigger factors you can start to think about solutions and ways to avoid those situations in future. Using a technique that psychologists call behaviour modification you can work out strategies that will help avoid or change the way you behave when faced with these triggers.

If, for instance, you find that when you get home after work you're so hungry that you end up eating a family sized pack of cheesy snacks whilst preparing the evening meal — plan ahead — have a healthy snack such as a banana or yoghurt before you leave the office so you won't be so hungry when you get home.

If your diary reveals that you use food as a way of making yourself feel better when you're unhappy or depressed make a list of non-food related activities that will help lift your spirits when you're feeling low: rent a video; have a manicure; take a a long leisurely bath rather than reaching for a chocolate bar.

Avoid Eating When You're Not Really Hungry

We all know, that when it comes to losing weight, there are no easy answers or quick fix cures. Old habits are hard to break and changing ingrained behavioural patterns is not something you can achieve overnight but by using behaviour modification techniques you can teach your body to respond differently to external cues. Here's some tips to help you get started:

How to Avoid Eating (when you're not really hungry)