How not to eat when you’re bored
When working from home, the chances of you eating out of sheer boredom are very high.
Maybe you often find yourself opening the refrigerator door and rewarding yourself with a little tasty treat just because you felt the need for a break.
Or maybe you accidentally realized that you started nibbling on something without even consciously thinking about it.
You have nothing to worry about. This is perfectly normal.
After all, food is the most convenient way to reward yourself in various situations.
However, if you feel this habit impacting your weight loss process, then I advise you to read on.
✅ THE BRAIN
All actions and behaviors are given by two distinct entities of the brain:
THE REPTILAN BRAIN - responsible for any instinctive activity that you were born with in order to survive
THE RATIONAL BRAIN - the promoter of deliberate and learned actions and behaviors
Most problems you experience when you want to lose weight (and not only those) come from an apparent internal conflict between these two entities.
If you want to be successful, you need to keep the reptilian brain in a relative state of numbness.
Don’t provoke it. That's when you will activate it and lose control.
So how do you keep that ancestral brain calm?
✅ EAT UNTIL YOU’RE FULL
To reduce the chances of having an unplanned snack, eat every time you get hungry and eat until you're full.
Satiety will, to some extent, take your attention away from food when you get bored.
If you already know our recommendations, I am convinced that you know what you need to eat in order to get full quickly, stay satiated for a longer time within a little number of calories.
👉 Until then, you can consult our official guide here: CLICK.
✅ KEEP YOUR HOUSE AND YOUR OFFICE CLEAN
A very good idea would be to not have ultra-caloric foods in your house that are very easy to consume in large quantities.
Those are extremely tasty and can upset the plans you made to keep yourself on track.
Keeping a bowl of fruit on the dining room table will only be an invitation for the reptilian brain to act and urge you to take action immediately.
It will say: “Who knows when you will have something like this again, right? Take what is in front of you, you never know”.
If you have fruit or any delicious food in your house, at least do not keep it in sight.
Under no circumstances should you buy a box of peanuts to have on your desk. It will become empty by the end of the day.
Just imagine that a 200g bag of peanuts has 1,200 calories.
If you are a woman, you will need 6 hours of walking in order to "burn" those calories so that they don’t get deposited in your body...
The next time you visit a new place, try to be aware of the first thing you do when you enter a room.
You will unconsciously scan for any existing source of food. It's a completely normal survival mechanism, and the ancestral brain is the one that orchestrates it.
Don't give it any reasons to act.
Hide anything tasty you have in your house and office or, ideally, get rid of that stuff altogether. Otherwise, you will sooner or later become their victim.
✅ GIVE YOURSELF A TREAT FROM TIME TO TIME
To avoid being tempted to bring various things that can significantly impact your progress at home or in the office, it wouldn't be a bad idea to occasionally allow yourself a genuine treat, like a scoop of ice cream.
As long as it's an event in itself, and not something eaten at home or in the office, a scoop of ice cream or any other dessert with minimal impact can "calm" the ancestral brain's desire for access to tasty things.
In the end, if you walk long enough to the ice cream parlor, that scoop of ice cream will surely be worth it and will have minimal impact on your weight and figure.
Be careful not to create a habit, though.
There is a very high chance that you will end up eating ice cream almost every day, without even realizing it.
This can undo many of your efforts taken towards losing weight.
The craving for sweets is maintained by constant feeding. And that is exactly what you DO NOT want.
✅ PREPARE A “CRISIS PACKAGE”
Most of the time, the battle against the reptilian brain can be easily lost, no matter how much effort you invest in preventing it from happening.
That’s why it would be advisable to have an appropriate "reward" at hand.
It is the same like when training your dog. Make sure you have a bowl of cucumbers, bell peppers, some cherry tomatoes or any other vegetable that you can nibble on with pleasure at hand.
The idea is to bring a minimal caloric impact, but to satisfy the ancestral brain's crazy desire to receive a reward when stimulated.
Any other "snack" that is low in calories can be used.
✅ IDEAS
If you haven't visited the Body Engineering Instagram page yet, maybe it's time.
You'll find some interesting recipes that can be used successfully in such moments.
👉 See here, for example, the already "legendary" Slim Cake recipe: CLICK.
What I also find very useful as a solution for the crisis package is chewing gum or sugar-free mints.
The reptilian brain will thank you. It will not realize that it's actually being tricked.
It will take its pillow and go back to sleep, satisfied. At least temporarily.
There are studies indicating that simply rinsing your mouth with a sweet drink is enough to satisfy the brain's desire for pleasure.
I'm not suggesting you do this now.
Just be aware that only if you turn to drinks with very few or even zero calories such as tea or coffee can you calm down, at least for the moment.
✅ EAT CONSCIOUSLY
In order to limit the damage during the battle, it is very important to only consume the crisis package when you are fully aware and alerted of what you are about to do.
Do not eat in front of your laptop, TV, tablet, phone or while doing any other activity in parallel.
By eating consciously, you provide the appropriate signals to the brain to receive the desired reward.
Otherwise, you risk exhausting the “package” and having to resort to unplanned things, which will obviously contribute negatively to your weight loss process.
✅ FIND YOURSELF ANOTHER SOURCE OF PLEASURE
In fact, the brain is in constant search for quick rewards.
The problem is that food or drink are the most accessible reward items.
However, if you invest a little effort, you will be able to find other ways to reward yourself when you are stressed, tired, bored or simply mentally exhausted.
The danger comes especially when you do repetitive and/or unpleasant activities.
There are alternatives that you can use to give yourself some pleasure:
take a nap around noon – a power nap, if you will (no longer than 20 minutes);
take a short walk;
find a few minutes for relaxation (you can stare at a fixed point without actually thinking about anything);
play a video game;
watch an episode of the series you are watching on Netflix;
read a few pages from your favorite book you are reading;
take a cold shower;
do 15 minutes of physical exercise;
take an imaginary break somewhere you cannot get to quickly (you can imagine that you are walking in a forest and hear the water of a spring along with the rustling of leaves and the singing of birds).
Every person is different and has individual preferences, so think about what alternatives you could apply in order to give yourself instant pleasure and get out of that dreaded state of "boredom".
✅ STAY AWAY FROM STRESS
Actually, you can apply the same solutions to stay away from stress.
In addition, you can alternate repetitive and/or unpleasant activities with activities that you have to do, but enjoy.
This way you will manage to maintain balance and reduce mental exhaustion, boredom and stress.
I don't think you want to go to the party you were invited to after a hard day’s work and eat all the plates of goodies just because you are mentally exhausted.
You don’t want to get in a state when any decision that requires self-control is made by the reptilian brain.
In that state, the reptilian brain is ready for action and is more eager than ever to recover lost time.
You should never end up in such a situation. However, this requires great attention.
It is much better to resort to the crisis "package" than to completely lose control.
✅ DISTRACT YOURSELF
If you want to chase away the thoughts that send you to the fridge when you're bored, try to think about something positive (other than food).
This is exactly the method that children who successfully passed the famous Marshmallow Test applied.
Those who managed not to eat the marshmallow left on the table received an extra one.
They just covered their eyes, so as not to see the marshmallow on the table, and thought about other beautiful things.
I know you're not part of a social experiment, but often our brains can be so fascinating and complex.
Our brains are sometimes also very easy to fool.
✅ CONCLUSION
Eating out of sheer boredom is absolutely normal because you're not a robot.
All you can do is reduce the impact that this behavior has on your weight loss process.
Don't delude yourself into thinking that you'll be able to control it.
You will not be able to control yourself in 100% of situations and in 100% of contexts.
Your brain has its own agenda that is influenced by many factors.
However, it is very effective to control your environment whenever possible.
You can resort to certain tricks through which you can temporarily change the direction of things.
This information is just one of the many tools that can be used so that most situations evolve to your advantage during the weight loss process.
Good luck going forward.
Don't forget that we are here for you!