BREAK THE HUNGER HABIT
Simple strategies can help you conquer mindless eating
Next time you reach for a sweet or a snack, ask yourself these questions: Am I really hungry or just having a craving? Am I bored or sad? How will eating that food make me feel?
Judson Brewer, a psychiatrist, neuroscientist and director of research and innovation at Brown University's Mindfulness Center, offers this guidance as part of a 21day strategy to conquer habitual eating and instead learn to listen to your body's cues.
We recently spoke with Brewer about his new book, The Hunger Habit: Why We Eat When We're Not Hungry, and How to Stop. He explained how his plan can help with habits like stress and binge eating. Here's what he said.
WHAT ROLE DOES WILLPOWER PLAY IN CHANGING EATING HABITS?
“From a neuroscience standpoint, willpower is not even part of the equation when it comes to behaviour change,” said Brewer.
“The dominant paradigm is that people feel like they just need more willpower,” he said. “And so every six months, there's a new theme, whether it's a new diet or a new plan or a new this or that that requires willpower. People feel ashamed of themselves because they feel like there's something wrong with them.”
Brewer says that we already know our bodies thrive on fresh, minimally processed foods and regular exercise, yet many continue to struggle. “The knowing is not enough because that's not where behaviour change happens,” Brewer said. “The feeling is where behaviour change happens and so we have to actually get reacquainted with — I would say, reconnected with — our bodies and then start listening to them.”
HOW CAN MINDFULNESS HELP?
Mindfulness means bringing awareness to the present moment without judgment.
“I would start with the why,” said Brewer. “Why am I reaching for food? Am I actually hungry or is it something else? And if it's not hungry, it's indicating some type of a habit that we can then delve into.”
A study of 104 overweight and obese adult women showed a 40 per cent decrease in craving-related eating among those who followed his month-long, mindfulness-based program on their smartphones.
Among those who completed the program in three months, fewer cravings resulted in weight loss. The study was small and far from conclusive.
Still, Brewer says that some people find mindfulness enormously helpful in coping with cravings and changing unhealthy habits.
“I had a patient who used to eat an entire bag of potato chips every night,” Brewer said. “And so I had her pay attention. I said, `just pay attention as you eat and see how many potato chips are enough.' She stopped at two. I was blown away.”
HOW CAN WE CHANGE OUR EATING HABITS?
Brewer calls part of the brain's reward system — notably, the workings of a region called the orbitofrontal cortex — “the decider.” If you feel bad, the brain can remind us that eating can feel good, and blot out bad feelings, if only temporarily.
But Brewer says we can change our habits by changing their position in the reward hierarchy. His plan involves three steps:
Map out your eating patterns
■ and habit loops.
Change the “reward value” of
■ eating behaviour in our brains.
Find more rewarding behaviours
■ that will make the body feel content.
HOW DO YOU CHANGE THE REWARD VALUE OF FOOD?
Pause and ask yourself: What happened the last time I ate the pint of ice cream, the whole pizza or chocolate cake? Remembering, in detail, the visceral unpleasantness will help develop a sense of disenchantment.
“It only takes 10 to 15 times of doing that for us to build up enough of a database to remember that for the next time,” Brewer said. “After becoming disenchanted with a certain food or pattern of behaviour, the brain is ready for a change.”
HOW DO YOU COPE WITH FOOD CRAVINGS?
Brewer says you can learn to ride cravings out. He developed a practice known by its acronym, RAIN:
Recognize and relax into the
■ cravings.
Accept and allow those feelings
■ to be there.
Investigate your physical sensations,
■ emotions and thoughts with curiosity and kindness.
Note what is going on in each
■ moment.
He says the longest craving anyone has reported was 12 minutes.
HOW DOES USING CURIOSITY HELP?
People typically beat themselves up after binge or stress eating, and frame it as a screw-up. Brewer suggests embracing a growth mindset. “Instead of saying, `Oh, no, I screwed up.' I go, `Oh, well, that didn't work.'”
Curiosity then creates space to learn from the experience, he says. “Often we learn more from tripping up than when things go well, and so we can actually shift our mindset to like, `I'm going to learn from everything, no matter what.'”
WHAT ROLE CAN MINDFULNESS PLAY WHEN USING A WEIGHT-LOSS DRUG?
Brewer's book doesn't discuss the new GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro and Zepbound, which can drastically suppress food cravings and drive dramatic weight loss. But, he says, his mindfulness-based approach can be used in conjunction with medication if needed.
“What I would say with the GLP-1 drugs is the jury is still out in terms of long-term effects,” he said. “What the jury is not out on is how our brains learn. So regardless of whatever the GLP-1 or the next generation of drugs are going to be, we still have to know how our brains work, and we still have to learn to work with our brains.”