It’s 10 p.m., someone is stealthily sneaking towards the refrigerator... Opening the door, he scans the contents with an inquisitive look: “Well, I guess I’ll make do with yogurt, because it’s already late... What if I can’t sleep on an empty stomach?” Maybe a little more rum baba for a bite? Yes, I think I’ll cut off a small piece, - A swarm of thoughts in my head. And you don’t have time to say to yourself “Stop!” And twenty minutes later you find yourself at a table littered with a bunch of empty packaging and dirty dishes, in which until recently there was something very high-calorie and sticky. And all this has already migrated to you know where... The feeling of guilt begins to nag from within: - Well, what are you doing again?! But the whole wardrobe is too small, you can’t fit into your pants! Many of my clients are familiar with these painful conditions. When self-flagellation over the fact that “I ate something wrong again” drives a person to despair. Let's figure it out, who in us still wants to eat? Is it real hunger, or something else? The STOMACH is the legal representative of our body, into which we carefully store food. But he has the right to demand the next portion only 2.5-3 hours after the previous meal. As Oleg Gennadyevich Torsunov says: “The most harmful thing is to eat after eating.” Have you ever noticed that you seem to have eaten and are already full, but 30 minutes later you go back and eat something? LANGUAGE - but this is one more enjoyer! He would like to amuse his receptors! When you want something tasty, you should think about whether you need to spoil it now? Sometimes it might be worth it. But how often do we follow our false desires? After all, behind the desire for something tasty, there is most often an emotional hunger that we only suppress... But we don’t understand the true reason. HEAD – and this is the “gray cardinal” who commands our nutrition. There are so many attitudes, irrational beliefs about when to eat, with whom, how much, how often, and what exactly. For example: “I ate little porridge” - what is this attitude about? That food is strength, and if you eat little, you will be a weakling. Is this so? What, really, those who eat a lot have enormous power? “The plate must be empty!” – remember about the “clean plate society”, known since Soviet times? Therefore, if I have already started eating, then I need to finish it all. Through thick and thin! And then praise yourself: “What a great guy I am, the plate even shines!” Very reminiscent of the behavior of a 4-year-old child who deserves praise from his parents. “Fat people are kind” or “There should be a lot of good people” – is this true? And the slender ones, are they all evil? “The soup must be eaten with bread!” I know people who eat everything with bread, rice and dumplings. And why? Someone in the family said that “bread is the head of everything,” that this is a great value. In my family, the parents demanded that the children eat everything with bread in order to eat (after all, it is filling), and eat less of other, more expensive food. Savings, after all! “Eating with someone for company” - I somehow literally caught myself “by the scruff of the neck” with this installation. Suddenly I realized that this is what I do: I sit down with my husband to have a snack when he wants, and not when I do. I’m going with a friend to drink tea with something tasty (well, you won’t drink empty tea?). And so on... you can continue the list yourself, looking honestly into your head. What to do about it? To begin with, increase your awareness! And maybe at the moment when your hand reaches into the refrigerator, you will already be able to ask yourself: “Who in me wants to eat now?” In continuation of this article, I will write several techniques to help pacify the demanding tongue and the all-knowing head. With love and care about you, Alexandrova Marina Family psychologist, coach, EOT therapist 8-961-994-2968 WhatsApp, Telegram Telegram channel: https://t.me/+QmpjaUNztxNiOWIy