Tucson Personal Trainer...What reasons are you eating for?

by Mark Saunders, The Tucson Personal Trainer

As the Tucson Personal Trainer I understand what reasons we are eating. Do we eat because we are hungry, nervous, angry, happy, lonely, tired, bored or simply because it is a habit? Food and the habit of food can be a real comfort.

One of the best things you can do is confront your cravings head on. The next time you find yourself going for the cookie, pause and ask yourself, am I really hungry or what is happening at that moment to lead you to eat, and what you do to resolve it.

You also need to be able to distinguish the difference between real hunger pangs and appetite. Appetite is just a desire to eat, and that doesn’t always mean your body needs more calories.

Distinguishing between hunger and appetite won’t necessarily be easy. You have probably done it so many times and in so many different places, you may be getting hunger triggers. An example of a trigger is walking into the kitchen and your body automatically feels hungry because you are so used to eating when you walk into the kitchen. Remember the story of Pavlov’s dogs experiment. He fed the dogs at a specific time of day and after time the dogs were so conditioned to eating at that time, they began to salivate when it was close to the scheduled time to eat.

For most of us, walking in the kitchen, sitting in front of the TV or feeling lonely, etc. can be our triggers. Take it from the Tucson Personal Trainer, you need to deprogram yourself by only eating in certain places like the kitchen and restricting others like the car, the office desk, on the couch in front of the TV, the easy chair in the living room and in bed watching Letterman. Click here for food choice options.

SBI!