You know the drill. You promise yourself that today is the day. You’re going to ditch the midafternoon chocolate & the evening crisps (and the secret stash of biscuits).
You get off to a great start. But the afternoon comes & it’s yet another birthday party with your toddler. The cake comes out. And your will-power slowly trickles away…
And then the guilt kicks in. You’ve broken your promise to yourself – again. Your energy crashes & now you’ve started eating, you might as well keep going. Right?
Seriously – you are SO not alone!
What if I said it’s not entirely your fault? That in actual fact, you’re being set up to fail by the $2trillion processed food industry?
They know all the right buttons to press. Sugar? Tick. Salt? Tick. Fats? Tick.
I’ll let you into a secret of the junk food world. It’s called ‘food stacking’.
Billions of dollars are being spent RIGHT NOW, engineering all that calorie-rich food so it hits as many of your pleasure centres as possible.
Food stacking is about combining sugar, salt & fat together, to make junk food super hard to resist.
French fries are a top example. Take a humble potato (such a source of goodness!) & deep-fry or bake it in fat. Add a ton of salt. And then dip it in some sugary ketchup (or BBQ sauce – your choice!).
For bonus points, make it as quick as possible to consume. Make it fast to chew – so your unwitting buyers get their pleasure fix even faster.
It is C-R-A-Z-Y.
And then (I’m not done yet!) – the marketing kicks in. And those $2billion boys sure have some cash to spend! Ever chosen ‘organic’? ‘Vegan’? ‘Low-fat’? ‘High Fibre’? In the hope of making a healthier choice – only to discover the benefits are tiny? That there’s no fewer calories? And feel completely fooled by it?
Me too!
Those pesky food marketers just love using self-care statements to make you feel good. “Have a break, have a KitKat”. Go on, you deserve it. You’ve had a hard day. Sneaky – right?!
So why I am telling you this?
Because I want you to understand that you’re NOT just battling your own will-power – but the powerful forces of the $multi-billion food industry.
But you CAN do this.
Here’s three simple first steps YOU can take right now…
1) Get curious. Notice + name.
What happens when you eat different types of food? Don’t just assume here – but experiment (writing this stuff down really helps!).
- Compare processed foods to whole foods.
- How long do they take you to eat?
- How satisfied do you feel?
- How much did you WANT to eat?
- How much did you actually eat?
- How did you feel afterwards? Emotionally and physically?
2) Get aware of what the Food Industry is telling you.
What messages are you seeing from the food industry? Just being aware of their marketing efforts is a powerful thing!
Like when you go shopping. Did you know supermarkets put the fruit & veg at the start of the shop – because you’re more likely to buy more processed stuff AFTER you’ve filled your trolley with kale & carrots?
Just look around & get aware of all the tactics they’re using on you, to get you to buy.
How does that make you feel?
3) Understand your own Habit Loops.
Never heard of Habit Loops before?
Well – every habit has 3 main parts:
- Cue
- Behaviour
- Reward.
Cues are things like time of day; stuff that happens; place; feelings; and thoughts.
Behaviour is the thing you do or what you eat.
And reward is the need you are trying to fill.
This is important. Because once you know the cue & the reward, you can change the behaviour.
Let’s take an example:
- Cue – it’s 3pm.
- Behaviour – eat half a pack of biscuits in the canteen.
- Reward (any of these could apply) – boredom; sugar craving; energy boost; social interaction; escaping work / children (you know which is true for you!).
Sure, it’ll take some thinking for you to fit together your own cues + behaviours.
But when you crack this, it’s SO empowering. Because then you can get to work on new habits that serve you, instead of working against you!