This is really simple, but so often we forget…

That’s it’s not about the food. 

Most of my clients come to me with one real problem: they can’t stop thinking about food and weight.

They’re always thinking about what they “should be” doing with food that they’re not, what they did with food an hour ago that was “so bad,”

they spend an inordinate amount of time googling “health and nutrition” trends,

and daydreaming about what life will be like when their thin.

They spend more time thinking about food and weight than they probably think about much else. It’s an energy drain — one that keeps us from being productive or present in countless other areas (like, spending time with loved ones, or getting things done at work) and one that is more utterly exhausting than just about any other tab on our to-do list.

Compulsive thinking about food and weight is the real problem — in addition to being the source of compulsive eating, restricting, or even “excess” weight itself.

When I was in college, I committed myself to combatting the thinking, rather than the food or the weight and probably learned more about myself during that period than any other time in my lifespan. I spent six straight months doing one thing and one thing only around food:

Every time I caught myself daydreaming about food or dieting or my weight or anything remotely related to “food noise,” I would pause and ask myself:

“You’re not hungry, why are you thinking about food?” 

There was ALWAYS, without exception, a reason.

“I’m bored,”

“I don’t want to go to work,”

“I don’t want to leave my bed,”

“I don’t feel cute enough,”

“I’m tired,”

“I’m cold,”

“I’m really nervous,”

“I’m really excited,”

“I think I’m in love,”

“I think I hate my job,”

“My leg itches,”

“My stomach hurts,”

“What if I have cancer?”

“I shouldn’t have done that,”

“I should do work, but I don’t want to,”

“Facebook sucks,”

“I feel anxious,”

“I’m pissed at you,”

“I want to have sex,”

“I don’t want to have sex,”

“What if I’m pregnant?”

“I hate that you’re so far away,”

“My head hurts,”

“I hate this song,”

“I want to go home now,”

and the list goes on and on and on.

Now step two after “identifying what’s going on,” is of course, doing something about it.

But nailing down step one is really important — don’t underestimate its power. Even if you’re not ready to “do something” about the fact that you hate your job, identifying the true “culprit” takes power away from the food, and puts it where it belongs: in your real life.

Food noise is a distraction from what’s really going on. (Tweet it).  

Or potentially, from what could be going on. Imagine what would be possible, if you weren’t spending all of your time thinking about food? Would you read more? Would you start a blog? Would you learn Spanish? Would you get really good at chess? (I’m doing that now). What would you do?

If you weren’t thinking about food all day long, what would you be thinking about? 

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