What after-dinner snacking is really about
After a particularly tiring or challenging day, I can find myself sat on the sofa after supper thinking “what can I have?”.
My eyes gaze over to the pantry and fridge. Crackers? Greek yoghurt? A bit of chocolate? Some granola? I ask myself “what wouldn’t be too bad?”.
In those moments, I’m never physically hungry but I’m always unsatisfied in some way.
I’m emotionally hungry.
There’s a gap somewhere in me, a hole that I want to fill. A need that wants to be met. A feeling I don’t want to feel anymore (even if that’s as simple as tired, restless or bored).
It makes sense because I’ve learnt from a relatively young age that food can fill those gaps which isn’t about the food at all. Quickly. Easily. And it doesn’t put up a fight.
And the more I’ve done this, the more I’ve strengthened the association between an emotional state and food which leads to automatic cravings in the face of any emotion over time.
And the more I’ve dieted, the more I’ve strengthened the belief that food is complicated and tricky for me.
And I know you know this, but when we eat food in those moments where we’re not physically hungry, we stop ourselves from doing three things:
Understanding what we actually need in those moments. What is the actual problem? What are we unsatisfied with? What do we feel that we don’t want to feel? How could we meet our needs in real and genuinely supportive ways?
Believing we can handle however we feel, no matter how confronting or uncomfortable. It means we will always buffer and numb our emotions when we don’t like them, and have automatic and strong desire for food when similar emotions present themselves (which they’ll keep doing because we haven’t addressed the actual problems we’re facing in our lives).
Weighing our natural weight. If we eat when we’re not hungry, no matter how carefully we check the calories, there’s going to be a compound effect of that over time because we’re stopping the body from working as it’s meant to.
Wanting things to be different to this requires you to be attracted to the growth that’s available to you when you stop relying on food as comfort.
It requires you to be willing to think differently about the circumstances in your life, as well as be willing to change them if it ultimately feels right to you.
And it requires you to challenge yourself every day to not buffer your emotions away or listen to your primal brain’s desire for quick dopamine.
But the pay off of your effort and perseverance is worth it.
With commitment and self-belief, and a supportive process that helps you teach your brain a new way of eating when you’re physically hungry, you’ll eventually create a new normal where you eat for hunger, stop at enough and feel empowered about all of your food choices.
Your body will thank you for respecting it. Food will become joyful again.
And you’ll be free to confidently get on with other things in your life that require your full attention, energy and care, knowing that you’re capable of handling whatever comes your way.