| Today we are going to work on understanding the emotional component of your eating. In order to do that you are going to analyze the four mechanical steps of eating. When you eat you put the food in your mouth, you taste it, you chew it and you swallow it. That’s all there is to eating. If you weigh 30 pounds more than you want to you are simply putting too much food in your mouth, tasting, chewing and swallowing it. Why do you think you are doing that? Let’s analyze why you are doing that. Let’s understand the emotional reasons that are causing you to put all that food in your mouth. Take a bit of a food that you really like and chew it. What sensations are you feeling? Does the food make you feel good? Is that good feeling just in your mouth or is it more than that? Tell yourself out loud exactly how you feel when you are tasting and chewing the food. Is it just the taste? Is it the feeling you get when the food is in your mouth? Chew the food as long as you have to be sure how the food makes you feel. If you feel some emotional reaction in addition to the taste of the food you will understand why you eat more of the food than you need for nourishment. After you swallow the food how do you feel? Do you miss the taste? Do you miss the positive feeling you experienced while the food was in your mouth? Tell yourself out loud how you feel now that the food is no longer in your mouth. Do you want more of the food in your mouth? Why do you want more of the food in your mouth if you weigh 30 pounds more than you want to? Don’t take another bite of the food until you can express in words how you feel. After you do that, take another bite of the food and see how you feel. Does the feeling of having the food in your mouth feel as good as it did the first time? That feeling is why you are eating the food. It’s not the food. It’s the emotional reaction to having the food in your mouth. Keep repeating this experience until you are certain that you know why you are eating the foods you do. |
