http://bendoeslife.tumblr.com/post/11367519390/a-constant-struggle-and-a-breakthrough
Anybody out there who has never tiptoed into the kitchen after the house was dark, or during a commercial break, to steal "just one more" chip or M&M or Oreo? Anybody? ...
... [crickets]
I do it, Ben does it, and I bet a lot of you out there do it too. Going for that extra bite, or that extra slice. Finishing the package because "there's only a little bit left."
Getting a candy bar out of the vending machine, or a pastry with our coffee, because it's our workday and our partner can't see us do it so it's like it never happened.
I had one brief period of life in which the occasional genuine food binge happened. And by "binge" I mean gross overeating, not just six Oreos instead of four - I mean, eating an entire half-gallon of ice cream in one sitting. It hardly even seems possible to me now, but it happened. Not often, and not for very long, but I've been there. So I get it.
It's been more than twenty years since that seemed like a remotely desirable thing to do, but I still sneak some food now and then. In part it's because I am pretty good most of the time. In fact, in the relative view, I have stellar nutritional habits. And sometimes I just get tired of it!
I want to be evil!
I always pull myself back because I know how quickly a habit of self-indulgence can become self-destructive.
Also because a healthy body has ways of letting you know it is not happy with the unhealthy crap you just put into it.
And also because I write about health and fitness, and I represent myself in my community as a fit and healthy person. I completely reject the "do as I say, not as I do" mode of teaching, and I won't allow myself to be or do less than I would counsel anyone else to be or do.
So my counsel to those of us who get those cravings is to employ a version of the drill-down: Why am I craving this? What do I really want right now? Why do I want it? What could serve the need as well as food?
The answer to the last question may well be "nothing." You may actually be hungry. But if you take the time to ask yourself why you have the craving, you may well discover that some other need is driving that craving.
And from my own experience, I'll add: you may not immediately discover what that other need is. I didn't. It took me years to figure out where my basic discontent was coming from. But realizing that I wasn't truly hungry, it was something else making me pick up that spoon, was crucially important to managing the behavior.
I dropped the hammer on the bingeing out of vanity, not self-knowledge. It served the same purpose in the short term, but over the long term it's really important to understand why you do things. So don't stop looking for the why. Have a cup of peppermint tea while you think about it, and most of the time you'll distract yourself so well that you'll forget all about the craving. It's worth a try, anyway.
Just don't kid yourself. If you're having a craving, go ahead and say to yourself: I AM HAVING A CRAVING. Once you put it into words - once you're honest with yourself - you might feel a wonderful sense of control.
Because HAVING A CRAVING is not at all the same thing as STARVING. Starving is a real, physical need. Having a craving is just a feeling. It's just an emotional urge.
And while we should always act on real, physical needs, we should almost always address emotional urges first not by doing the first thing that comes to mind (for many of us, in this context, eating), but by thinking past that.
It's not easy to do. Millions of people fail at this, every day, week, month, and year. However, just because something is difficult doesn't mean it's impossible. Addressing this stuff - or not - is a choice. Nobody but you is holding that spoon.
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