Katy Harvey

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From here on out, you'll still get my same weekly posts filled with insights, tips, information, and random musings....just head to www.katyharvey.net to check it out!

The Halo Effect

Studies show that when you label a food as "good" or "healthy" you'll often eat more of it. This has been coined the "Halo Effect" with food.

And you'll do the same thing when you label foods as "bad" or "unhealthy." 

When you initially start allowing yourself to eat what sounds good, you will probably find that you want the foods you’ve previously labeled as “bad” or off-limits.  This is normal.  Sometimes the pendulum must swing the other way before it settles in the middle. 

If you keep listening to your body, eventually you truly will crave the entire spectrum of food.  Don’t bail on the process just because you only wanted “unhealthy” foods for several days or weeks!  Your body needs to trust that it truly, unconditionally, can have what it wants.  That trust takes time to establish, especially after years of distrust. 

 

“Shifting away from labeling foods as good and bad was really hard for me.  It still is.  I’ve done it for so long that it’s hard to think any other way.  But I have noticed that I am starting to think differently about some of the foods I used to call bad, and that’s a really big deal for me because I don’t always feel guilty after I eat anymore.” -- Former client

Eat when you are hungry

Ask a room full of people to describe what hunger feels like and you’ll get answers like, “When my stomach growls,” or, “Lightheaded or shakiness,” or, “When I’m cranky or hangry.”  These are signs of extreme hunger and maybe even hypoglycemia. 

There were more subtle signs of hunger that you drove by before you reached that destination of desperation for food.  Your gas tank got to E.  It’s more ideal to eat when you are moderately hungry while you can still think clearly and don’t have a biological drive to eat that is so strong you are driven to overeat.  We all know the feeling of ravenous eating, and it tends to land us in Stuffed City. Practice checking in with your body often enough that you are noticing the subtle signs of hunger and can identify moderate hunger.  Each person’s experience of this feels different, so you’ll have to discover it for yourself. 

And no worries if you miss the mark and end up eating even though you weren’t really hungry.  Sometimes we confuse other signals, such as thirst or fatigue, with hunger.  Make note of this when it happens so that you’ll be able to tell the difference in the future. 

You can also trust that your body will let you know if you missed the subtle signals and have become extremely hungry.  The signs of hunger become more physical and more intense as your hunger gets stronger.  It’s your body yelling louder, “FEED ME!”  Which makes sense, because you can die immediately of severe hypoglycemia (low blood sugar), so your body is going to do everything it can to prevent you from getting to that point.  It's pretty cool how your body protects you, huh?