Food is an emotional subject. We no longer just eat to stay alive or eat to get rid of hunger pangs. It wouldn’t be easy to find people in the West who really knew what hunger felt like. I know they are no longer a part of my life.
We often eat for emotional or habitual reasons. We have often heard about the association with chocolate that women must have when the boyfriend leaves them, for example. Sometimes it’s hard to tell which came first, the women who used chocolate as a dildo or the chocolate companies who conveniently spread the word that women use chocolate as a dildo and it became a popular tradition.
This is almost unheard of in the food industry. How many people believe that the key to health is to consume five servings of fruits and vegetables a day? Not that this is wrong, but the simple thing is that if you repeat something enough times, it will stick.
That includes our actions. If you’re used to stopping at a certain place on your way home from work to grab a mat with a friend, even when you’re not hungry and your friend is away, chances are you’ll stop there to buy food. Repetition is the way we have learned to do absolutely anything we are currently skilled at. In this case, unfortunately, it can play against us. That’s why we have to switch to our conscious brain, particularly when we’re spending money or eating, so that we can override our subconscious brain that works on automatic.
The key in this case would be to find a different route home or, better yet, find a healthier pattern for your subconscious to latch onto by first breaking the unhealthy pattern, perhaps avoiding your favorite place to eat and replacing it with jogging home. or whatever you choose. .
The same thing happens when we condition ourselves to watch our favorite show with some chips or a caramel cake. It will become habitual and we must stop and recondition ourselves to do something beneficial instead.
