Why (Good) Habits Beat Willpower: The Habits of a 'Foodist'

I've had at least a couple of conversations recently about the mindfulness (or rather, the risks of the mindlessness) of eating. It seems that when the daily routines and stresses of our lives - and the need to be distracted from and escape them - accumulate and frustrate us, many of us tend to fall into a pattern of mindless eating. It may seem negligible - an afternoon cookie treat never killed anyone. But too often, when stress and a sense of mental or emotional discomfort persists beyond a few days, mindless eating becomes a pattern. You may develop the craving for something sweet every afternoon around 3pm. Fruit might be replaced by a cookie. And too many late nights at work might elevate from a fling to mercurial relationship in the always-receptive web of Seamless (or takeout) - all accompanied by 3 glasses of Malbec. Eat your feelings, much?

Some of you may have heard me rave about Summertomato before, as a smart resource for practical food + nutrition information, and a no-b.s. whole foods philosophy. So it felt like a moment of serendipity when I stumbled on Darya Rose's post yesterday, Focus More On Your Mind and Less On Your Diet If You're Serious About Losing Weight. While I encourage you to read the piece and take from it what you will, I was left mulling over three key ideas:

1. Stress doesn't always have to lead to mindless eating: Mindless eating is rarely about hunger, and more often about the need to satiate a higher-order need. If you're reaching for the delivery menu and a keypad stroke away from eating your feelings, what need are you looking to fill? 
2. Mindless eating (stress) is stronger than willpower: I understand that answering the aforementioned question (what emotion am I eating?) requires some self-reflection that will most often require some time. But the awareness of that question may make the difference between fried rice with orange chicken and, say - a sushi roll and a seaweed salad.
3. But good habits trump all:  Develop beneficial habits that produce a compelling reward (personally, compliments or fitting into an old high-school dress work for me. Vanity, thy name is Paloma...), and you'll stick to them. Find healthy foods you enjoy eating, find a workout you thoroughly enjoy and make them more readily available to you. Pack your lunch. Find a home workout for when you can't get to the gym. Start by identifying those desired actions (and eventual habits) that feel good for you to do. Give yourself - at the very least - 2 weeks for consistent actions to become a habit.

On that note, I realize 'healthy' food has become something like the word 'engagement' in my industry (digital marketing): overused, lacking definition and unnecessarily meaningless. What is 'healthy' when packaged food labels scream 'low-GI', 'natural', 'organic' or what be it - and, despite eating your weight's worth in them - you're still not losing weight (hence the problem)? Enter the whole foods philosophy of Darya Rose (and encouraged by others).

Darya recently published Foodist: Using Real Food and Real Science to Lose Weight Without Trying. At the expense of oversimplifying, it's a practical guide to identifying whole, real foods (read: most of them won't come with an ingredients label) that you LOVE, and building a practical, sustainable food-style around them. While cooking your own food is a large part of maintaining good habits (and why I started this blog), she recognizes you WILL and should enjoy restaurants, as well - and will identify how you can navigate restaurant selections to your benefit. Lastly, it's all grounded in science - she's a neuroscientist.

This will be my nightly reading for the next few days. In the spirit of sharing what's on my radar and guiding my decisions, thought I'd make you aware of it, as well.

- P