The Mood of Habits & Food

Your eating habits are simply a dynamic pattern of foods, behaviors, and situations that trigger you. Many people are unaware of how all these things: habits, food, and mood mix together in their daily life. Recognizing your mood and or habits is one of the single most powerful tools you can use to gain control of your overall health.
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Why is it important to understand your habits and your mood?

• Looks at behaviors in advance with any food you have eaten in your life.​
• Identify the time of day when you are most likely to be vulnerable in eating.​
• It predicts the types of situations that are most associated with losses of control.​
• It helps you evaluate food in a new way – not just in terms of counting calories but also in how certain foods affect your behavior, appetite, and success at weight control.​
• It helps you set boundaries that come out of your own unique life history and break through the feelings of deprivation.​
• It shifts your thinking from being “good” or “bad” to thinking in terms of what works and what doesn’t.​

Homework
​Keep a log for about a week and track the following questions. Another great tool we use with many of our clients is an app called ATE. It's a free photo food journal that you simply snap a photo of your food and you can log all of these questions when eating!

1. Identify your mood prior to eating. ​
2. List the types of foods you are eating. ​
3. Where were you and what time of day was it? ​
4. Were you alone, in a group, or who was with you? ​
5. Describe how you felt before, during, and after eating.
6. Can you identify if there was a trigger to cause/influence what you ate?
7. Think and create a solution for you will handle a similar situation in the future.

​Assessment
Awareness is the first step in making the changes you need. Once you know your "bad" habits, mood and food triggers, you can now work to overcome and put in place small changes to make your decisions match your long term goals.

What's a great way to help mitigate the stress around eating? Meal planning. Simply think about looking 1-2 days in advance and having what you need on hand. It can be overwhelming to try to build out the whole week.

Having things you enjoy already built into your plan, will make it much easier to stick to eating healthier and staying on track of your overall health goals.  
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