How often do you hear yourself saying “from tomorrow, I’m not going to eat any more …….?” or “I’m going stop eating ……. and start eating …….”? Now ask yourself, how many times have you ‘fallen off the wagon’ with a new diet, only to beat yourself up with guilt, anger and frustration?
These might be some of the patterns you experience when trying to make a dietary change. If you can relate to any of these questions, you are definitely not alone. So why do we find it so difficult to stop eating something when we know it doesn’t do our body any favors? Your mind knows that you should stop eating pasta because feel bloated and uncomfortable every time you eat it. But before you know it, you’re having it again a few days later!
I want to share with you a powerful tool, something to keep in mind when you are ready to take action and make a change. Because lets face it – change is hard, and it’s even harder when we live in a world where food is so readily available. So what is this big secret weapon that is going to help transform your eating habits for good?
The Brain.
The brain decides how you react to a situation. If you can recognize this, you can discover other alternatives to help break those old habits.
Brain Fact #1: Your brain is made up of billions of nerve cells called neurons. Learning happens when neurons connect with each other to form a pathway through which electrical signals flow. These pathways are strengthened through repetition, the more times that signal flows between a set of neurons, the more reinforced and automatic it becomes (Eg. driving a car).
Each highly used pathway will eventually become the ‘preferred or familiar’ path. This is how a habit is formed. The less often a pathway is used, the weaker it becomes. We can develop or un-develop pathways at any stage, with a little help of self-awareness.
This explains why changing a diet is difficult. Our eating habits are a reflection of the different neural connections reinforced in the brain, connections that are ‘familiar’. Your brain cannot distinguish what is good and what is harmful – it only knows what has been reinforced. Therefore, new pathways must be created and strengthened for any change to take place. Think of it like putting the brain through training, the more you choose the new pathway (eating habit), the stronger it becomes. So don’t give up just because you’ve slipped up here and there, change takes time. Be patient.
Brain Fact #2 Working in conjunction with these neural pathways, are chemicals. The brain brews a lovely bunch of chemicals that are released each time a thought takes action. They act like messengers, telling the body what to do (eat, drink, sleep etc.), in turn creating an emotional response.
You can become addicted to your brains chemicals, just like you can become addicted to external factors. Once these emotions are triggered numerous times, the body will begin to crave a hit over and over again. This can be linked to bread cravings for example. It’s not the bread itself the body is wanting, it’s the feeling associated with eating the bread that satisfies it.
Now here’s what you can do to make change possible. Your thoughts hold extreme power in developing habits. Therefore it is important to become aware of your brain, take note of your thoughts, and see if you can connect this concept to any habits your trying to break at the moment. A good place to start is tuning into your body when you’re eating, take note of the sensation and feeling your body is experiencing. Can you associate certain feelings with certain foods?
By practicing this tool of awareness, you have the ability to recognize what is really getting in the way of breaking eating habits, transforming them for good!