What Are You Hungry For? (3 page)

1. You’re hungry and need to eat.

2. You’re trying to fill a hole, and food has become the quickest way to do that.

Modern medicine has quite a lot of knowledge about the “triggers” that set off the impulse to eat. Your body secretes hormones and enzymes connecting the hunger center in your brain with the stomach and digestive tract. When you were a baby, this was the only kind of trigger you responded to. You cried because you were hungry. Now the reverse might be true: When you feel like crying, you get hungry.

Over a lifetime, we create new triggers that a baby could never anticipate. Depression is a well-known trigger for overeating. So are stress, sudden loss, grief, repressed anger—and there are many others. Which ones are you most vulnerable to? You probably have only a vague idea. Most people are unaware when their eating behavior is being triggered, because triggers are often unconscious—that’s what makes them so powerful. You respond automatically without thinking.

The most common triggers for overeating appear in the following checklists. Some are easier to overcome than others. Look at the lists and check the most common causes that make you eat
even when you’re not hungry.
Mark as many items as you feel apply to you.

Group A:
I tend to overeat if

___ I’m busy or distracted at work.

___ I’m rushed and on the go.

___ I’m tired. I haven’t had enough sleep.

___ I’m with other people who are eating.

___ I’m out at a restaurant.

___ I’m in front of the TV or computer and need something to do with my hands.

___ I have a plate of food in front of me, and I feel I must clean my plate.

Group B:
I tend to overeat if

___ I’m depressed.

___ I’m lonely.

___ I’m feeling unattractive.

___ I’m feeling anxious or worried.

___ I’m having negative thoughts about my body.

___ I’m under stress.

___ I want to be comforted.

Rating Yourself

If all or most of the items you checked come from Group A, your triggers are the easiest to overcome. You need to pay more attention to your eating habits, but that should be relatively easy. You can catch
yourself eating when you’re not hungry because your main problem is distraction. Once you focus on one thing at a time—the meal in front of you—you will bring inattentive eating under control.

If all or most of the items you checked come from Group B, you are hungry for something else besides food, and paying attention to those things will be your best way to lose weight. One important thing is not going on a diet. Your pathway isn’t deprivation; it’s to find satisfaction in things other than eating.

Now that you know your triggers, you can monitor them. You don’t have to fight against your hunger, just give your brain enough time to make a choice. Instead of robotically reaching for food, which is a reaction that comes automatically, let yourself find a way to choose what you really want. At first, this involves a simple moment of mindfulness, or self-awareness, as follows:

Any time you are about to eat outside mealtime, go through the following simple steps:

1. Pause and take a deep breath.

2. Ask yourself if your hunger is being triggered by a familiar pattern, such as feeling bored, restless, or sad, or wanting a distraction. You now know some of your most common triggers, so see if any of them are involved.

3. Once you’ve identified a trigger, ask yourself if you really need to eat. Maybe you can find an alternative activity, one that simply postpones reacting to your trigger, such as:

Doing a household chore.

Calling a friend.

Checking your e-mails and answering some saved ones.

Reading a book.

Drinking a glass of water.

Any harmless diversion will do. Your goal is to insert a pause before you automatically react to a trigger. If you still feel hungry, go ahead and eat. But get in the habit of noticing your triggers this way—it’s a basic step toward overcoming them and giving yourself more freedom to choose.

I promised myself one thing before addressing the problem of overeating: The solution should work
here and now.
A great fault in dieting is that you make yourself unhappy today on the promise that you will be happier tomorrow. But desire doesn’t work that way. “What am I hungry for?” exists in the present moment. The impulse you feel can be simplified into a few basic categories:

You’re hungry for food.

You want to fill an emotional hole.

You want to fill a hole in your mind
(such as low self-esteem, bad body image, or a sense of failure and frustration).

To these I would add a fourth impulse, which is spiritual.
You want to fill a hole in your soul.

These are strong motivations, fueled by desire. Once you turn desire in the right direction, real transformation can take place. We all follow the path of desire every day. The impulse to get more out of life is natural and deep-seated. In this book we’ll find out exactly what you’re hungry for. Once you know, you will have a clear path that makes total sense in terms of mind, body, and spirit. Here’s how you’ll be transformed:

You will eat only when you are hungry for food.

You won’t eat when what you’re hungry for is emotional, in terms of comfort, security, love, bonding with others, or a feeling of joy.

You won’t eat when what you are hungry for is a life that is relevant and meaningful, where you have a purpose and can meet your goals. These are needs of the mind.

You won’t eat when what you’re hungry for is spiritual, such as lightness of being or a higher vision of the soul.

Some readers will say to themselves, “This all sounds well and good, but frankly, I just want to know what to eat and what not to eat.” I know exactly how that goes. Crash diets offer the ultimate temptation, a quick fix. But look at what really happens:

Karen is an attractive middle-aged woman who stands in front of her mirror, frowning at what she sees. She wants to lose 10 pounds before her daughter’s wedding, which is two weeks away, but Karen isn’t discouraged. When she was twenty, she could lose 5 pounds over the weekend by going on a juice fast. If it worked then, it will work now.

And it does, almost. On her daughter’s wedding day Karen has lost 7 pounds. She nearly starved to get there, but now she can celebrate. What she doesn’t realize is that she’s fallen into a trap. Her old eating habits will return soon, and so will the extra pounds. You can see her standing at the fridge the next day, as the following telegrams arrive at the mind-body connection:

Thank goodness the wedding’s over. I can relax.

I worked hard. I deserve to treat myself.

Look at all the leftovers.

I can’t starve myself forever.

I can’t let this good food go to waste.

There is little chance, with these messages urging her on, that Karen will hold back from a nice big chunk of leftover wedding cake. Excuses come to mind every time you decide to overeat. The fact that Karen lost weight in a two-week sprint to the finish line means little compared to a lifetime of eating habits that keep adding extra pounds.

America is crazed over dieting. We’d all like to find a magic bullet that will solve years of bad habits. This has led to a bipolar condition in this country. At one extreme, McDonald’s is the epitome of fatty, calorie-laden fast food, with 11 percent of all meals being eaten at chain restaurants, while at the other extreme most of the country is either on a diet or cheating on one. Crash dieting involves a voluntary form of amnesia. You forget what didn’t work yesterday to plunge into the next gimmicky fad.

When you stand back, it’s quite strange that people do exactly the opposite of what they know is good for them. But you can see it happening all around. Someone might say, “I’m trying to lose ten pounds,” but then an hour later they reach for bread and butter in a restaurant as soon as they sit down and then end the meal with a warm brownie à la mode “just this once.” A report from the Centers for Disease Control in 2013 found a small cutback in calories among schoolchildren—between 4 and 7 percent—but no weight loss, which was explained by a decrease in physical activity. Although American consumption of fast food fell by about 2 percent in the past decade, the people who were ranked as obese actually gained weight over the same period. One large online support group for people who have lost a large amount of weight takes the same “monkey on your back” approach as Alcoholics Anonymous. Overeating is a disorder that always
threatens to return. Once you know that you are an overeater, you are resigned to living with cravings and must keep constant vigilance to avoid succumbing. Thus every calorie must be counted every day, and relapses are omens of impending loss of control. I am not judging this approach, but my intention is to find an alternative to the “monkey on your back.”

What has worked for me is steady focus: I kept my eye on what I really wanted. First and foremost, I wanted to get back to normal, healthy eating—
and never slip again.
We all know that the second part is the real issue. Doctors call it noncompliance. The patient is told the right thing to do—eat a balanced diet with lots of fruits and vegetables, cut back on red meat, exercise regularly, give up smoking and excessive alcohol—but after a few days, weeks, or months, old habits are back in the saddle. Good advice about weight loss is everywhere, yet 70 percent of the adult population is either overweight or obese.

People aren’t deliberately self-destructive. We don’t follow good advice because, frankly, overeating makes us feel better than depriving ourselves or engaging in strenuous activity. A bucket of buttered popcorn triggers powerful, primitive brain mechanisms; the prospect of jogging three miles doesn’t. Sharing dessert with your friends at a cozy restaurant feels convivial and comforting; running on a treadmill by yourself at the gym doesn’t.

Dieters keep doing more of what never worked in the first place.

The slogan “Diets don’t work” has been with us for decades, and it’s absolutely true. Every long-term study has shown that less than 2 percent of dieters manage to lose a significant amount of weight (20 pounds or more) and keep it off for two years. We aren’t a nation that totally lacks willpower. Failure is built into the whole diet scheme. What is a typical dieter’s first impulse? To deprive themselves. They
drastically cut their calorie intake. They fight against their cravings and vow to subsist on something like wheatgrass juice for a week. But all that deprivation creates another hole. Instead of feeling sad or lonely or unloved, you feel sad, lonely, unloved
and starving at the same time.

I fully understand why people deprive themselves. A physical problem must require a physical solution. The extra pounds are visible every time you look in the mirror. The invisible holes aren’t. Also, if overeating stands for lack of self-control, depriving yourself is a burst of super self-control. “I hate eating broccoli with lemon juice, but I’m forcing myself to.” But added misery only compounds the problem. Keep in mind the classic moment in the movie
The Producers
when Zero Mostel can’t calm down a gasping, panicky Gene Wilder.

“I’m hysterical! Once this starts I can’t stop!” Wilder cries.

Not knowing what to do, Mostel throws a glass of water in his face. Wilder freezes in place.

“I’m hysterical! And now I’m wet!” he shrieks.

Still not knowing what to do, Mostel slaps him in the face.

Wilder wails, “I’m in pain! I’m wet! And I’m still hysterical!” A good reminder that making yourself feel worse never works. So pursue the next fad diet if you want to—you can even pursue it while you read this book, because once you see that fulfillment is better than depriving yourself, crash dieting will no longer be a temptation. The fact that weight loss can be connected with increasing happiness is the secret to why my approach works.

To find out what you’re hungry for, you must reconnect mind and body, looking beyond the simple circuitry we talked about before, which controls the basic hunger impulse through the hypothalamus. Because you can override simple signals from your body, even something as basic as hunger becomes involved in the whole brain. Not everybody has interfered with the natural setup that regulates appetite. We all know someone whose weight has never fluctuated since their late teens. They say things like the following:

My body tells me what it wants.

I feel uncomfortable if I gain 2 pounds.

I exercise because it feels so good.

These are statements rooted in the mind-body connection when it is working properly. Unfortunately, when it isn’t working correctly, the mind-body connection short-circuits and bad habits tell the body what to do. The wrong signals are sent, and as the body reacts by getting fatter, more imbalanced, and ultimately sick, the mind ignores these signs of distress. Let’s see why this happens.

Imagine that three telephone conversations converge at one
junction, which in reality is the meeting of three basic regions of the brain. Each region has something to tell you; each is sending neural messages to you at once. Each is seeking a different kind of satisfaction. The
lower brain
is satisfied when you feel good physically. The
limbic system
is satisfied when you feel good emotionally. The
higher brain
is satisfied when you are making good decisions for yourself.

The miracle of the human brain is that all three lines can merge and cooperate. The lower brain can send the message “I’m hungry,” which the emotional brain accepts, because “Eating puts me in a good mood,” so the higher brain can say, “Let’s stop for a meal.” This balancing act is natural, and it works to the benefit of all three regions of the brain. None of them must force its message through, trying to get heard by pushing the others out of the way.