What I want to eat: is this craving the brain tricking me?

Reading a message from a Mindful Eating participant today was again very enlightening.

The context of the statement was that I woke up in the morning would like to eat, but after looking at my tongue, which was yellowed on both sides, and feeling my body, I suddenly didn't want to eat, while having a sudden feeling that the appetite I just had was being tricked by my brain.

I, too, many years ago, considered the brain to be a trickster. Especially when I was trying to lose weight by extreme means.

Whenever the brain created an appetite, I told the brain, no, you don't actually want to eat. Or I told the brain, this thing you want to eat is actually poor in nutrients, don't have any desire for it.

Nowadays, I see this message and have an entirely different feeling, and I respond to it like this:

Actually, I found this quote particularly interesting. It may not necessarily be that the brain is tricking you, but that there are so many voices in the brain that you can't hear the individual voices very well.

For example, one voice says, I shouldn't eat right now, one voice says, but I really want to eat. Another voice says, I'm a little worried about what I'll do if I eat too much, another voice says, I'm a little unwell. And yet another voice says, hurry! I've got a lot of work to do next, so don't think about it so much and decide... ...

Eventually, with so many voices, you're forced to have a more automated response. It appears that grabbing food and eating it will solve all these problems.

This is because it is more comfortable for the body to get energy while eating, plus it makes us more relaxed.

If you mechanically automate your response and cannot distinguish between the various sounds: that is to say, there are really only one or two of these that are related to hunger, you counteract all these sounds with food.

The method I use a lot, myself, is to let go of judgement. That is, I just say to myself, don't judge!

And then I immediately feel better. Much better, mainly because I'm not scared at all, and then I can distinguish the voices in my head.

Don't judge.

This was the value that guided my thoughts 5 years ago when I first created MINDFUL EATING.

All of these outer techniques are rooted in that value. When you let go of judgement of yourself, your world becomes very gentle and calm all at once, and it's only in this state of mind that our decisions are rational and in our best interest.

Highlights from filming the program in 2019. At that time, I ate very little and basically didn't touch carbs, to stay in shape.