| You’ve heard that no one can eat only one potato chip or French fry. Let’s see if that’s true and if it is, why it is so. Go get some potato chips or French fries. Eat one. Only one. Does it taste good in your mouth? Do you want more than one? Why do you want to eat more? You don’t need the calories. You weigh 30 pounds more than you want to. The last thing in the world you need is more calories. If you eat all the chips or fries you will be eating more calories than you want to and that’s not going to help you weigh what you want to weigh. Indeed, you know that eating more chips or fries is caloric suicide. You know you don’t want those foods in your system. Why then do you want to put foods in your mouth that you know will cause you to be unhappy? You probably don’t have the same desire to eat a baked potato. Why do you want to eat more of those foods? Is the taste you feel you must have in your mouth? Is it the oil or the salt? If you’re not sure, take another chip or fry and put it on your tongue. Don’t chew it. Just let it stay on your tongue without chewing it. Was it satisfying enough just to have the food on your tongue without chewing it? While the food is on your tongue ask yourself why it was so important to eat another chip or fry. Do you really want to chew the food? Is that because you want to get the rest of the flavor? Would you feel cheated if you didn’t chew the food and get all the flavor? Do you really want the food, and the calories, in your system? Did you want to “eat” the food to get it in your mouth or in your system? While the second chip or fry was on your tongue did you feel better? If you felt better what was it that made you feel better? Did the food do something for you emotionally? What did it do? Then chew the chip or fry? Did that make you feel better than you felt before chewing it? If it did, why did it make you feel better? Would you have felt deprived if you didn’t have the second chip or fry? Why do you think that is? What did it mean to you to have the chip or fry in your mouth? Repeating this experience will enable you to get a better emotional understanding about what food means to you? These kinds of experiences will go a long way towards enabling you to eliminate your emotional need for food. |
