Anyone else prone to mindless eating? You know, you’re sitting at home or in the office, and you’re either bored or stress or thinking about a delicious food item (or both), and even though you’re not hungry, before you know it you’re standing with the fridge door open, or you’re looking into the display case at the local cupcakery.

I’m a believer that mindless eating is a big, big, big contributor to the North American waistline expansion. There are definitely people who only eat when they are hungry, and stop eating when they are full, but I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that they are not overweight. This post is not for those people. For the rest of us…

Do you ever stop yourself when you’re about to go get some food even though you’re not hungry? Ever think that maybe there’s another solution to your boredom, stress, or desire for that rewarding feeling you get from eating something delicious?

This is really another look into my new found fascination with habits and behaviour, which I also wrote about last month in the post, should you eat when you’re not hungry?. In this post, I suggested a couple of options for self-rewards that I found effective. I suspect those might be a bit flighty for some, so I thought I’d offer up some more alternatives to mindless eating.

Did you know that the brain’s reward system is actually based on food and sex? It makes sense if  you think about it. We are wired to encourage survival, which requires us to eat and have sex. So is it any surprise that we yearn for delicious food?

I think this is an interesting consideration when we look at mindless eating. I’m not suggesting that we should give up on resisting the temptation of delicious foods at all hours of the day – that would be a health nightmare! I am suggesting that we should recognize it; acknowledge it; and then come up with strategies to address it. And by “it”, I mean the notion that food is a reward.

If each bout of mindless eating is a yearning for a reward, then couldn’t we come up with alternative rewards? Ones that don’t contribute to weight gain?

Next time you find your feet taking you for a walk to the fridge, take a look at this list and see if there’s something here you can do instead of eating that will feel rewarding:

1. phone a friend
2. go for a walk
3. have sex
4. do some push ups (from the knees or to the counter instead of the floor counts)
5. listen to your favourite song
6. draw
7. read a few pages of a great book
8. play with your kids
9. take care of an item on your ‘to do’ list
10. masturbate
11. hug your partner
12. go for a bike ride
13. fly a kite
14. write a thank you note to someone important to you
15. pet your cat
16. go outside and admire your garden
17. dance to whatever song is playing
18. play fetch with your dog
19. go outside and talk to your neighbour
20. donate ten bucks to your favourite charity

Twenty things you can do that will give you as much or more of a rewarding feeling than any cookie or bag of chips could. I just avoided a handful of chocolate chips by being aware of what I was doing and choosing to call one of my best friends instead. Much more satisfying!

Have you ever tried this approach to avoiding mindless eating? Do you have any suggestions to add to the list?

Elsbeth Vaino, B.Sc., CSCS, is a personal trainer in Ottawa who is fascinated by human behaviour.

I noticed several people sharing stories on Facebook over the last day with the title, “Processed Meats Declared Too Dangerous for Human Consumption”. I was intrigued right from the first one, but when I saw that the url was institutefornaturalhealing.com, I moved on. It’s not that I have anything against that site, but I do know that there are a lot of fringe sites on the interweb that tend to publish unsubstantiated items. I had no idea if that site was one of them, but I do know that a story of that magnitude would make it to the mainstream media if it was true. Today, after seeing the title for the 4th time, I decided to bite, and headed to dreamhealer.wordpress.com for the details.

The article was compelling, and even sounded reasonable, but I knew immediately that it wasn’t true.  How? No references. The article mentions references, including the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF), and includes specific numerical data in their statements. I can certainly understand why people would read that and be convinced. But all I could think was: if this is true, why not reference the source?

So I decided to verify it myself, and Googled World Cancer Research Fund. They are, after all, the primary source for this “news”. It took less than a minute from the time I opted to do my own due diligence to the time I found this on the WCRF website (note that I am actually including a link to the site I am quoting):

“We are aware of a story circulating social media and blog sites claiming to represent World Cancer Research Fund International’s position on processed meat. We had no involvement in the production of this article.”

Bingo.

Now, this isn’t to say that we should assume processed meats are good for us, or that the WCRF is in favour of eating processed meats (they aren’t). In fact please do yourself a favour and read the full WCRF stance on processed meats (it’s not long).

But please, everyone who shared or retweeted this “story”: be aware of the signs that an article is false and do your own due diligence before you share misinformation. Choose your own standard for when due diligence is needed, or feel free to borrow mine (which is really as simple as what I noted above); and remember that it usually doesn’t take long. I found out the truth in less than 1 minute.

The internet provides the amazing opportunity for everyone to have a soapbox, and for everyone to be part of the media. Please remember that by becoming our own publishers (blogging or even sharing), we take on a responsibility to try to ensure we are only spreading truth.

Any other “cool but not actually true” stories that went around the webs?

Elsbeth Vaino, B.Sc., CSCS, is an engineer turned personal trainer who doesn’t care for the spreading of misinformation

How exciting is that? We’re filming a documentary in Hintonburg! Live Fit Docs is the production company, and I’ll be the personal trainer. We’ll be interviewing potential candidates Saturday and Monday. If you or someone you know think you’d be interested in being one of our trainees, then read on!

We’re looking for 1 man and 1 woman who are ready to commit to a healthy lifestyle and work directly with me for 6 months. There is a requirement that you are in the Ottawa area and over 21 years of age.

This is an incredible opportunity to not only take control of your health but to also be an inspiration for anyone who watches this film. We’re expecting a lot of interest and we’re anxious to get started with production. Send your submission in by end of day Thursday (May 23rd).

Thinking it sounds good, but you’re not quite sure or have questions? There’s an app for that! Okay, not really. There’s no app. But there is a contact form. Shoot us an email if you’ve got qs!

The New York Times just published a “Scientific 7-minute workout” claims:

“In 12 exercises deploying only body weight, a chair and a wall, it fulfills the latest mandates for high-intensity effort, which essentially combines a long run and a visit to the weight room into about seven minutes of steady discomfort — all of it based on science.”

“Based on science” is a great term, isn’t it? A bit like the “based on a true story” claim we see in many blockbuster movies.  When you read this piece please remember the notion that “based on a true story” and “true story” are very different.

In fact, the reader were to follow the link to the article in the American College of Sports Medicine’s Health & Fitness Journal, they would see this caution about the program:

“Because of the elevated demand for exercise intensity in HICT protocols, caution should be taken when prescribing this protocol to individuals who are overweight/obese, detrained, previously injured, or elderly or for individuals with comorbidities. For individuals with hypertension or heart disease, the isometric exercises (wall sit, plank, and side plank) are not recommended. The isometric exercises can be substituted with dynamic exercises. For all individuals, the Valsalva maneuver should be avoided, particularly for the isometric exercises. Proper execution requires a willing and able participant who can handle a great degree of discomfort for a relatively short duration. It is also essential that participants in an HICT understand proper exercise form and technique. As with all exercise programs, prior medical clearance from a physician is recommended.

Although HICT can be an efficient means by which to improve health and decrease body fat, it may be inferior to creating absolute strength and power, specific endurance, and other specific performance variables (³). If these are the goals of a program, as with competitive athletes, traditional programs may elicit greater absolute gains.”

This program is supposed to be for “high-performing professionals from a variety of industries“. If we are to assume those professionals are CEOs, then there are some interesting statistics[2] to consider:

• 82% of CEOs are overweight
• 69% are in poor physical fitness condition
• 58% have high cardiac risk

So given the cautions outlined within the published journal article itself, is this really an appropriate protocol?

Beyond the cautions that the creators of the protocol posted (please take these seriously if you’re considering this!), there is another aspect of this workout that I don’t care for: the exercise selection itself. In an ideal world, your workout would include a balance of exercises that will help to keep your body…balanced. I won’t even claim that to be “based on science” because it’s just sensible. Although it is also “based on science”. In fact I would even go as far as to say it is science.

What does it mean to have balance of exercises? There are many ways to look at this, but my preference is to approach it with movement-based exercise selection instead of muscle-based. I wish I could remember which great trainer I learned this concept from, but basically the notion is: If you train muscles, you’ll probably forget some; if you train movement, you’ll be covered.

What does a balanced movement-based workout include? You can actually get it down to 7 exercises:

1. Hip dominant: Something where the hips are the driver, and that primarily works your backside, often with a focus on glutes. This is also sometimes called a lower body pull. A deadlift is a great example.
2. Knee dominant: This time the knees are the drivers, and it primarily works the front side, often focused on quads. Sometimes referred to as a lower body push. Squats are knee dominant.
3. Upper body push: I think you see where I’m going with this approach. In this case, you’re pushing something with the upper body. There are two subcategories of this movement: the vertical and horizontal pushes. It typically works the front side of your upper body, and includes exercises like push-ups and bench press.
4. Upper body pull: This exercise also tends to have two subcategories: vertical and horizontal. It typically works the backside of your upper body, and includes exercises like pull-ups and rows.
5. Anti-extension and flexion core: This is the most popular variety of core muscle, working the muscles that help you to flex and that help you to prevent extension. They work the front side of the core, or the “six-pack muscles”. People love working these! Anterior core exercises typically include planks and crunches, although I’ll note a big caution about crunches if you have any back issues.
6. Lateral or rotary core: I call these the smarter but less popular sibling of the anti-extension core exercises. They have a lot of value, but are often overlooked. These exercises are critical to sports performance, and low back pain reduction. They work the muscles along the side of your core, and include exercises like side planks and cable chops and lifts.
7. Extension and anti-flexion core: Glutes are all the rage these days, which has helped this category gain popularity. This category of exercise work the glute family as well as the spinal stabilizers, and are as important as the lateral core exercises for both sports performance and low back health. This category includes bird dogs, band hip extensions, and glute bridges.

I think as you read through that, you’ll be thinking “yup, that includes about everything”. Now take a look at the 12 exercises in the original workout. How balanced is it?

By my calculations, it includes:

• 5 Knee dominant: Wall sit, step up, squat, high  knees running in place, lunge
• 0 hip dominant:
• 3 upper pushes: Push-up, triceps dip, Push-up and rotation
• 0 upper pulls:
• 2 anti-extension/flexion core: abdominal crunch, plank
• 2 lateral core: push-up and rotation, side plank
• 0 extension/anti-flexion

I didn’t put the jumping jacks anywhere, but would argue it would also belong in the knee dominant category.

Clearly not a balanced program! Now here’s the real zinger: of all the exercise categories, which do you think are most important for “high-performing professionals from a variety of industries“?

If you said hip dominant, upper pulls and extension core, give  yourself an imaginary prize! Most executives spend way too much time sitting, be it at a desk, or on a plane, train, or automobile.  Sitting tends to tighten our front side muscles, and stretch our backside muscles. In order to help overcome these work postural habits, we need extra strength work for our backside.

Most top trainers and strength coaches aim to have at least as many upper pulls as pushes, and at least as many hip dominant exercises as knee dominant for our clients, and many of us aim for twice as many pulls as pushes and twice as many hip dominant as knee dominant for our desk sitting clients. I’ve never met a quality trainer who would recommend 5:0 knee dominant to hip dominant, or 3:0 upper push to upper pull.

Considering all of that, does anybody else think that this program is maybe not a great idea?

Elsbeth Vaino, B.Sc., CSCS, is an engineer turned personal trainer in Ottawa, Canada.

References:

[1]“HIGH-INTENSITY CIRCUIT TRAINING USING BODY WEIGHT: Maximum Results With Minimal Investment”, ACSM Health & Fitness Journal, May/June 2013 – Volume 17 – Issue 3 – p 8–13.

[2] CEO Health & Wellness Survey, Apollo Life

Now for something completely different! I sent this email to my friend Sam today. She said yes!

“Hey Sam,

I decided about a month ago that I am going to hire a stylist. I’m finally coming out and accepting that I do not know style. There are too many days when I look at my hair, or my clothes and think “I could look so much better than this”. But I just don’t have a good sense of what to buy, what and when to wear it, how best to do my hair, what jewelry to wear, and even – crazy as this is going to sound – whether maybe it’s time to add, wait for it…make-up to my world!

So I googled ottawa stylist to find someone, but in the back of my mind, I was thinking I would hire you if you lived here. I still think the clothes I bought when I shopped with you that one time way back when are the best clothes I’ve bought in a long time. You seem to have the ability to match style with the person, which is what I want. I’m not necessarily looking for a complete transformation, because let’s face it, I’m still me. But I do want to style-it-up and sexy-it-up.

This is partly for my social life, but also my business life. I think my brand is on the verge of growing significantly, and as I’m presenting at seminars and have another cool and visible project  on the horizon, I want to be stylin’!

So what do you think about me hiring you to be my stylist from a distance? Do you think that would work? I should actually be down in San Diego in June, and could head to LA for a day. Maybe start as a shopping spree, and then get you to send some hair cut/style suggestions along with a stylist suggestion? I expect to pay for your services, as this is a real skill you have, and I know I will benefit from it.

Let me know! I am in need here!

Els”

This may not seem like a big deal, but it is to me. I’ve always been about substance over style, but secretly, I’ve wished for more style. I’ve tried to make some changes myself, but the fact is, I’m not good at it. Yet. I don’t say any of this to be self-deprecating. I remain comfortable and confident with who I am. In fact I think this is a sign that I’m finally confident enough in myself to ask for this help.

To say that Sam said yes, is actually a gross understatement. In fact this is the first sentence of her reply:

“THIS MAKES ME SO HAPPY!! For so many reasons. I HAVE SO MANY IDEAS – and it’s all simple. Hang on, I’m still a little too excited to put a full sentence together.“

Sam has already sent me a recommendation for a great local hairstylist, and I’ll be calling her early next week. Now it’s time to find me a flight to San Diego for a combined family visit plus wardrobe transformation. Stay tuned!

Elsbeth Vaino is a personal trainer in Ottawa, Canada who is not on the verge of a new career in fashion, but may soon look like it.

I’ll venture to guess that some of you are reading this without a clue what an “internet trainer” is, or why anyone cares about whether its okay to be one; others are probably wondering how much of a can of worms I’m about to open. For the former – honestly, you might just want to skip this post, because basically I’m about to delve into some politicking of the fitness industry.

I will start by saying that I consider myself incredibly lucky to have accidentally come across a couple of phenomenal internet sites, one of which has literally been a life-changer, and continues to be a source of immense learning, and incredible networking for me. I’m referring to Strength Coach.com. As the name implies, it is a site for strength coaches,  that also attracts personal trainers, and manual therapists. It is full of great content, with a continual stream of new and interesting articles and videos. But the main event is really the forum. This is where I started as a voracious reader and over several years evolved into a (hopefully) valued contributor. I remain amazed that for $10/month (or so), I get to ask questions and engage in training discussions with phenomenal professionals, some of whom are rock stars of the training world.  I couldn’t possibly quantify how much I have learned from this site and from these great people. The other thing I love about this site is that Michael Boyle does a great job of keeping discussions civil. Those of you who have, or currently do, take part in internet forum discussions know how unpleasant some of them are when people are allowed to act like, well, jerks. Coach Boyle doesn’t tolerate this, which I love. The basic rule is that disagreement is fine; disrespect is not.

Over the past year or so, I have, however, noticed the odd comment on the site that didn’t sit well with me. A drop in the bucket compared to how great the site is overall, but there nonetheless. I also noticed them on Facebook. It’s almost always a comment about “internet trainers”. When I first started seeing these comments, I realized I was clearly not as in as I thought I was, because I had no idea who these “internet trainers” were, even though apparently everyone else did.

Over time, I think I’ve come to understand what this is about. There are some trainers who feel that trainers need to pay their dues before they have the right to market themselves over the internet, and that unless you are a veteran in the field, you’re not allowed to stop training people in favour of writing or developing products.  In fact it seems that your’e not even allowed to cut back on your in-gym time in favour of more writing and product development.

Maybe understand is the wrong word. Because I don’t understand. I don’t understand why anyone feels it’s okay to judge another person’s career path. I don’t understand why it is not okay for someone who loves writing, is interested in research, or who really digs marketing, to spend less time training clients and more time writing, researching, or marketing. But according to some trainers, these things are wrong, and those who do them are to be frowned upon and given the label “internet trainer”.

Here’s my take on the “internet trainers”:

1. It’s your career; whatever portion of your time you want to spend on the internet or in the gym is your business.
2. My preference is that you won’t call yourself an expert unless you actually are, and that you will maintain a sense of integrity in regard to what you publish. If you  don’t, that’s still your business, but I may call you out on it – respectfully.
3. If you consistently put out great information, I will consistently look forward to reading and maybe even buying it.
4. I have a hype-to-quality comfort zone, as I suspect most people do. I have watched with interest as I see some people slide a bit too far into hype territory for my liking. I urge you to ask yourself from time to time if your online presence is something you are proud of. If the answer ever approaches no, then it’s probably time to step back and reconsider.

NOTE: The links above (and to the right) to strengthcoach.com are affiliate links. I hope this doesn’t bother anyone. I want to be open about it, but I truly have no qualms about it. I have only ever recommended products and services that I believe in, and will continue to do so. If the product or service I want to recommend happens to have an affiliate program (meaning I get paid if you buy), then I will use it, but will let you know. Also please note that I will not let existence of an affiliate program dictate whether or not I mention, review, or promote something. Also note that the reason the paragraph about strengthcoach.com is so over the top, is because that’s a very accurate reflection of how I feel about it. I’m pretty sure that if I reviewed 100 fitness related products and services, that strengthcoach.com would rank #1. Maybe I need to put that to the test!

What’s The Core is the Core 30 day challenge? It’s all right here (don’t worry – it’s pretty brief). If you prefer the super brief version, here goes:

Every day for 30 days, do the following:

• 1 anterior (front) core exercise
• 1 lateral/rotary (side) core exercise
• 1 posterior core (glutes!) exercise
• 1 combo core exercise (something that involves a lot of core but isn’t strictly a core exercise)
• If what you’re doing is painful, stop.

Easy! Barely takes any time (so far for me it’s been in the 4 to 6 minutes range). And it’s a balanced approach, because let’s face it, the core is a cylinder around your midsection.

Wondering if you should? Thinking you want to, but not really sure?

DO IT! Seriously, it’s easy. Just remember to measure yourself against your ability, not someone else’s.

In case anyone’s looking for ideas or wants someone to follow along with, here’s my 30 days:

Day 1 – Apr 27:

Enough! I’ve been the temporary replacement for Custom Strength’s great Customer and Business Support staff for the past 2 months, and my combined workload is turning my mind to mush and my social life to…(no words – evidence of mush brain?).

It’s hiring time!

Part time Customer, business and sales support

10 – 15 hours per week
- Primarily work out of your own home, with 2-3 hours at the office every 2nd week.
- Client and prospect correspondence
- Answer/reply to emails and phone calls about training with custom strength
- Facilitate schedule changes for clients (in conjunction with online system)
- Assistance with Custom Strength projects
- Helping with creation of company manual, client handouts, and other initiatives
- Creation of presentation and some marketing material
- Social media assistance
- Option for the right person: twitter and facebook updates, forum posting, putting up blog posts, uploading youtube videos
- A bunch of other stuff that I can’t think of right now

The candidate:
- Must have strong communication and organization skills
- Must haves: Experience in MS Office applications (Word, Excel, and powerpoint), and be comfortable enough with software tools that you could learn our new scheduling tool, and things like mailchimp and google calendar
- Nice to haves: Experience with wordpress and some sort of video editor (nothing fancy)
- Must be enthusiastic, personable and nice.
- Must laugh at all of my jokes.
- Ideal but not necessary: ability to recognize sarcasm.

If interested, I invite you to come to Custom Strength on Thursday May 9th at 11am for an open house. Please RSVP by emailing me through the contact form by Wednesday May 8th.

This will give us a chance to get a feel for each other, and for you to get a feel for what Custom Strength and this position is about. At that point, if you are interested, please submit a resume by end of day on May 10th. I will hold interviews with the top 3 candidates the following week and will decide by Friday May 17th, with an anticipated started date of May 21st.

Here’s the contact form:

Remember the 100 push-ups a day challenge that you saw some of your friends post about everyday on Facebook? Or the 100 days of running? Or the 30 day plank challenge? I just saw something about the latter yesterday for the first time. Googling it lead me to this post about it: http://www.seattlewolf.com/pages/8937449.php?contentType=31&contentId=2294&pid=308093. The goal is to build up to a 5 minute plank. Planks are a great exercise, without question. But is a 5 minute plank really a good thing? It definitely isn’t if you’re doing it with the form shown in the poster. Um, a plank is supposed to be about stabilizing your core, not letting your core hang limply off your back! I bet her back gets sore within about 30 seconds of planking. And let’s not forget that the plank only addresses one aspect of the core.

The 100 push-ups and 100 days of running challenges always bothered me. I love push-ups, but a focus solely on push ups – an exercise that works primarily your front side, without also doing an equivalent exercise to work your backside, is not ideal in a society where most of us already spend far too much time with shortened pecs pulling our shoulders forward. I could get behind a 100 rows challenge, but I guess that’s not as sexy. Although it really is – strengthen your back and your posture will improve, allowing you to show off your boobs or your manly pecs.

A couple years ago I listened to a friend complaining about the hip pain she was enduring, but she refused to take a day off from running because she was doing the 100 days of running challenge. Really? So you’re going to further damage your body because you’re committed to a random challenge? The problem with 100 days of running, is that most people shouldn’t run for 100 days in a row. But I guess the “Run 80 days out of 100″ is less cool sounding.

Enter the 30 day The Core is the Core(TM) challenge!

If you are up for it, the challenge is as follows:

Every day for the next 30 days, you will do 4 exercises, one each for:

1. Anterior (front) core
2. Lateral/rotary (side) core
3. Posterior (butt!) core
4. Core plus – an exercise that is big on core but also works something else

Anyone see what I did there? Balance! When I think of core, I think of the many great trainers and educators whom I have learned from over the years. Virtually all of them advocate a strong core, but their definition of core goes far beyond “the six pack muscles”. We got obliques, we got transverse abdominus, we got glutes, we got multifidus, we got QL…There’s a whole lotta muscles in your core, and all are important in maintaining a happy, healthy, and high-performing body.

What are the challenge specifics?

• Rule #1: Pick an exercise from each category every day.
• Rule #2: You don’t have to pick the same exercise every day, but you can.
• Rule #3: If something hurts, stop doing it. If you finish the exercise even though it was painful, that’s an automatic disqualification from the challenge. Take that! Now keep in mind, “pushing through while the muscles feel like they are working” does not constitute pain. But things like pain in the shoulder joint while side-planking, or pain in the low back while planking do count as pain. If you find the exercise you’ve chosen causes pain, pick another one instead (also consider seeing your doctor or manual therapist, especially if it’s a recurring thing)! Hopefully you can find another exercise in that category that doesn’t hurt. If you can’t skip that category for the day.
• Rule #4: You get 4 passes, meaning if you missed completing 4 exercises over the 3o days (either spread over a few days or all of the exercises one day), you can still claim victory.
• Rule #5: Be your awesome self. This means that if your best side plank is 30 seconds, then be proud of the 30 second planks that you do. Aim to increase it over the 30 days, but remember that you don’t have to increase it every day, and if you aren’t able to increase it, but you still do it, and feel your core working while you do, then that’s worthy of celebration. You rock because you’re doing this, not because of the numbers you reach.

Starting…Now!

It should only take about 5 minutes a day. And you don’t have to do it all together, although you may find that works. Just get ‘er done. I’ll start you off with some suggestions for each of the categories, and will be adding more to them over the next month. I’ll also try to add videos for the exercises you may not be familiar with. In fact I’ll probably add videos for the ones you are familiar with as well so that you don’t end up with a droopy plank.

Anterior (front) core

• Plank (time is dependent on your ability. Set the standard on day 1)
• Bench plank
• McGill curl-ups (not to be confused with crunches, which I don’t encourage)
• Leg lowering progression
• Stability ball roll out
• Ab wheel roll out

Lateral/rotary (side) core

• Side plank
• Bird dog
• Stir the pot
• Shoulder taps
• Half-kneeling kettlebell halo
• Bench side plank

Posterior (butt!) core

• Glute bridges (try it with a hold)
• Single leg glute bridges (also try it with a hold – don’t let the other hip drop!)
• Band hip extensions and abductions
• Sidelying clams
• Shoulder elevated hip lifts (1 or 2 legs)
• Shoulder and feet elevated hip lifts (1 or 2 legs)

Core plus

• Push-ups
• Pull-ups
• Squats
• Deadlifts
• Single leg Romanian deadlift (hold the weight on the opposite side to the stance leg)
• One arm DB row

Dr. Yoni Freedhoff suggests that you should in his article, Worst Diet Advice: ‘Only Eat When Hungry’. His advice is to eat at regular intervals throughout the day so that you can avoid situations where you are truly hungry which can lead to poor eating decisions, like unhealthy afternoon snacks.

Contrary to this, I believe that some people miss their weight loss or maintenance goals because they eat when they not hungry. For some people, the afternoon or late night indulgence is not the result of residual hunger, it’s just something they do. It is a habit that will occur regardless of hunger levels.

Am I contradicting Dr. Freedhoff?

Yes and no. Really what I am suggesting is that we need to ask the question: Are you having that afternoon chocolate because you’re hungry? Or are you having it because it’s 3pm and that’s what you do at 3pm?

If the answer really is that you are hungry, then it is a hunger induced poor decision, and I completely agree with Dr. Freedhoff that eating more earlier in the day is a great solution. But if the answer is that it is not hunger, but habit that spawns the snack, then eating more earlier in the day is just going to mean that person will eat even more.

What should you do? There are lots of options. Since reading the fascinating book, The Power of Habit (Big thanks to www.phdinpatenting.com for sharing it with me), I have been looking at habits as a cycle of a cue, an action, and a reward. To change a habit, you have to change one of those three parts of the habit cycle.

Dr. Freedhoff’s suggested approach also fits into this concept. If hunger is the reason someone is snacking, then eating more earlier will remove the hunger cue, thus averting the action (eating the snack).

If the cue is “it’s 3pm” instead of “I’m hungry“, then changing the cue isn’t a viable option. At least not for us mortals who have yet to discover time travel. Until then, we need to look at changing the action or the reward. An example of changing the action would be to have healthy snacks available and not keeping money handy so that you reach for veggies and hummus instead of going to buy chocolate.

Personally I have been experimenting with changing the reward: I am replacing the delicious food reward signal with a smiley face reward. No, really. For the past week, every time I have had an urge to snack when I’m not hungry, I have thought about adding a smiley face to the note app on my phone. It turns out I like pats on the back, even when they come from me. Amazingly I like them more than I like the post-meal (minutes after the meal) and late night snacks that I have enjoyed almost daily for years.

These are only a couple of examples, but they illustrate a point, that sometimes addressing food challenges is not really about the food. How can you tell? When you catch yourself eating something you know you’ll later wish you hadn’t, ask yourself the question: “Am I eating this because I’m hungry?”

Anyone else have examples of changing either cue, action, or reward to help overcome a challenging eating habit?

Elsbeth Vaino, CSCS, is an Ottawa-based personal trainer who is fascinated by the challenge that weight loss provides and the many “one true diets” available.

Interested in the concept of a weight loss program that combines customized nutritional guidance and exercise, then check out our Get Lean 2013 program. Currently only available in Ottawa, but sign up here to get notified when we launch our online nutrition program toward the end of 2013.