The 5-step change model to stop compulsive food habits
There’s a lot more to overcome negative habits and compulsive behaviors than simply ‘wanting to stop’ and hoping your willpower will ‘do better next time’.
So many areas of your thinking, feelings, lifestyle, relationships, and environment are driving you to binge or eat compulsively. Essentially, your mind, body, and life are engineered to endlessly continue this behavior around food.
This is why it feels so EASY to do, and so HARD not to do.
Stopping your binge or compulsive eating is 100% possible (phew), you just need the right knowledge, tools, and methods to make your change journey as easy and effective as possible.
To STOP you have to S.T.A.R.T
S.T.A.R.T is Daily Method’s 5-step change model. If any one of these areas isn’t addressed with the fullest of your care and attention, you’ll struggle to make meaningful, long-term change.
SOURCE – Nipping it in the bud
The most powerful way to effect change is to identify the initial and ongoing source of your behavior and take action to remove, reduce, or replace it from your life.
Of course, that’s easier said than done, but it’s vital if you want to create real change.
It’s unrealistic to expect any real or long-lasting shifts to occur if you don’t know what’s causing your behavior, haven’t done anything specific to address it, or have only addressed parts of it.
The key benefit of unpacking the source of your behavior will be to reduce the number of triggers you are faced with and give you a clearer idea of the specific actions you need to focus on to overcome what had become a hardwired habit.
TRIGGERS – Getting proactive, not reactive to your triggers
Identifying all your triggers, reducing or removing them, and redesigning how you respond to them will stop your brain from being tripped up and sent down its food pathway.
Once you’re triggered, it’s usually too late, especially in the early stages of your mind ‘retraining’.
Too often people beat themselves up about being tripped up over and over by their triggers.
It’s an all too familiar story.
They get triggered, engage in binge eating, and by the time they become consciously aware of what’s happened, it’s too late.
Then the frustration and negative self-talk kicks in.
“I should’ve been able to catch this. Why can’t I stop doing this? I know it’s bad for me. Why do I have such terrible willpower?”
Blaming yourself for ‘not being better’ in these situations actually feeds the binge cycle rather than moving you closer to your goal of being a healthy eater.
Feelings of guilt and shame are very common triggers for overeaters.
Remember, the neural pathways in your brain are incredibly efficient from years of practicing this behavior, so have some healthy respect for the way your brain functions, stop beating yourself up, and start getting proactive.
Get triggers before they get you.
Once you have identified all your triggers, get to work creating a plan for how to manage, avoid or eliminate each one.
Your plan may require some very strict measures in the early days, but in time you’ll be able to dial things down once each trigger and associated behavior diminishes.
The key is to experiment with what works, and take on any ‘failure’ as ‘information for next time’.
Here’s an example of two different approaches to the grocery store trigger; which option do you think will have a better success rate?
1 – I need to go to the grocery store on my way home but I’m not going to look at the bakery section and I’ll put my head down and scoot straight past the chocolate and sweets aisle. I’ll only get what I need.
2 - I will not stop at the grocery store on my way home because I know it’s an incredibly powerful trigger and it’s been a huge problem for me in the past. I’ll plan ahead with my shopping to organize a home delivery. If it’s an emergency, I’ll get my partner to stop by the grocery store.
Real change requires shifts in lifestyle, environment, family, relationships, work, and home schedules. These shifts can take time and may feel uncomfortable at first but they will get easier.
In the Daily Method Course to Stop Binge and Compulsive Eating we dive a whole lot deeper into how habitual behaviors work in your brain and teach you the framework for managing your triggers every single day.
ACTIONS – Prepare now to perform later
Learning what actions you want to cultivate and practicing them ahead of time will help you build a new behavior control system that’s ready for action when you need it.
This gives you the power to choose an alternative behavior when a trigger arises. No more “I know what to do, I just can’t do it”, in the moment.
Try practicing breathing exercises for 5 minutes each morning so that when feelings of frustration or anger arise, you have a healthy alternative behavior you ‘prepared earlier’ ready for deployment.
Practicing your new actions ahead of time will:
- Create and strengthen the neural pathways that engage and control the healthy behaviors you want
- Prime your brain to act or respond in the way you want it to, when the need arises
- Increase your ‘trigger toolbox’ of things your brain will automatically use to meet your needs
- Make you feel more empowered and ready to face any challenges
REWARDS – Plant positivity and watch it grow
To effect both ends of a habit neural pathway, you need to game your brain’s current reward system by giving it what it needs, before it asks for it, in healthy and helpful ways.
This will not only calm and reduce cravings, but greatly improve your healthy emotional regulation, give you alternative and healthy sources of dopamine, and increase your serotonin.
The more self-care, fun, fulfillment, cup-filling, and feel-good moments you have in your day, the less likely you’ll be to seek these out using destructive food behaviors.
That sounds great in theory but how do I actually do this?
It’s personal and unique to each individual but here are some examples. Make a list of your own cup-filling, self-care activities:
- Regular catch-ups with friends
- Having a hot bath each night before bed
- Reading books
- Learning a new skill such as painting, or learning a language
- Spending time in nature and sunlight going for walks or watching sunsets
- Getting regular massages
- Playing or watching the sports you love
- Hanging out more with your family
- Dancing around to your favorite music
TIME – Giving it the time it deserves
Habit changes happen on a physical level and just like muscles, they need consistent use and time to grow and develop.
Compulsive and dopamine-seeking habits that have made their home in your brain require even more time to overcome.
Change of this type needs DAILY work and lots and lots and lots of repetitions (around 10,000 in fact) of the actions and behaviors you want to replace them with.
A few times a week will not override such ingrained and pervasive habits and compulsive behaviors.
A good way to approach this is to reframe the question from ‘How long will it take’ to ‘What will it take’.
Generally, the rewiring process can take as little as a month but more commonly several months, and in other cases it can be a much longer process. It takes as long as it takes.
Your progress won’t be linear and that’s ok. Get comfortable with a squiggly line of ups and downs. As long as it tracks in the direction you want to go then you are on the right path.
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The power of addressing each of these areas cannot be overstated. Perhaps you’ve been working really hard on one or two of these elements, but coming unstuck because another vital area was being overlooked.
Don’t worry, most people (professionals included) will overlook at least one of these areas and then wonder why their old habits keep coming back.
If you would like more support with step-by-step guidance, join the Daily Method Course to Stop Binge & Compulsive Eating and learn how to break the vicious cycle of overeating and start the process of change immediately.