what is the balance between awareness and discipline when it comes to overeating

[levani]

i've watched the awareness alone is curative video and I do not understand... If i want to stop overeating, do i ...

 

a. observe myself being hungry / wanting to eat bad food

b. surrender to eating food and being just aware of it and hoping that would work for me eventually in order to not overeat ?

c. trying to change my behaviour by disciplining myself and forcing myself to not eat.

[PurpleTree]

b.

but you have to very aware while doing it, not watching tv etc. being present, feeling all those feelings, feeling the food go into your stomach etc.

 

not sure it works, but definitely worth a try

[levani]

@PurpleTree but in the video he never says how it will work, be just says i am the one who is creating my food hunger ∴ I need to be aware of how i create it <-but when/if i figure this out isn't this all in order to Δ my behaviour in the end ?

 

he says change only comes awareness but i don't see it ... i know in the past when i set myself a goal and resisted bad food (suffered)  it always got me back to where i started but i don't understand how I can lose weight by just being aware of it, i see awareness as a limited thing for weight loss .. (i know i am wrong, but i am just trying to understand)

 

i am AWARE that when I am active I am not hungry. I am aware also that my goal is to get to 8-10% bodyfat. But i don't see how awareness alone will reduce the addiction I have

[PurpleTree]

i mean a. and b.

both

well maybe it won't work for you, maybe you're too addicted etc.

but many people do things without being aware of them, eating in front of the tv, or youtube and getting fatter and fatter and then asking themselves how it happened. screaming at somebody without seeing where the anger comes from etc.

so when you're aware of it or try to be aware of it, you at least see how the desire builds in your body and then how the eating feels, maybe guilt etc. and then maybe you can let it go sometime

 

i think that's the theory

Edited November 16, 2020 by PurpleTree

[Average Investor]

9 hours ago, levani said:

a. observe myself being hungry / wanting to eat bad food

b. surrender to eating food and being just aware of it and hoping that would work for me eventually in order to not overeat ?

This will work well. However, you need to work on applying it continuously. Try to find what emotion is underlying your desire to eat. Just the discovery of that could change your entire perspective of the eating. Does that emotion come from wanting approval, security, or control? If you can break it down that far it could help you release this desire and unwanted emotions. 

This will be a bit more for you to work on, but I assure you that this process is absolutely amazing as well. However, I would focus mostly on building the awareness around the habit. You could in the future be able to let go of the urge as well. I can assure you it is possible and it is amazing. 

Love and acceptance of yourself will get you a lot further than hard discipline. Discipline can take you only so far with things. It is a good quality to have in some respect, but it can go to far. A healthy balance of it is good. Not you bringing negative emotions on yourself if you don't nail down everything you think you should. 

Something to consider is if you are eating more unhealthy food it is actually causing you to be more hungry because it lacks nutrients. The healthier food you eat you will get more nutrients. If you can apply yourself to studying food you will find out a lot of things that actually taste amazing and are still healthy. I love making stuff like smoothies that are really filling and healthy. 

Also, if you feel a big part of the problem is that you are just not full, then try adding some high volume foods. An example of a high volume food would be water melon. It is really low in calories, but allows you to get full from eating it. I love eating a personal sized watermelon to myself and I am definitely not hungry for quite awhile after. The smoothie has a similar effect as well. Also, that spaghetti squash has a similar effect that I showed you as well. 

I highly recommend the book The 150 Healthiest Foods On Earth by Jonny Bowden. It isn't a heavy read and you can skip around and find awesome tasting and unique foods to add to your diet. This has been an awesome tool for me over the last few years for building a diet.

Also, keep in mind that even 1% progress a day is still a lot. You don't have to eat the cleanest diet in the world or break out of an old pattern immediately. You want to make the change, so you can do it. You just have to apply yourself consistently and find the best tools to aid you. 

Edited November 16, 2020 by Average Investor

[levani]

@Average Investor so today, i woke up and i fasted till 6pm

at 6 i ate 200g of salmon, 400g sweet potato, 240g of tofu and 300g of broccoli with carrots and 1 banana.

then at 11 i got hungry and basically whenever i go to the kitchen, (i;m living with my parents atm due to covid) - my family has a cupboard with all the toxic fast food snacks, so i went down to make meal #2 which is 50g gluten free oats + 150g unsweetened almond milk with 1 banana and something pulled me to the peanut butter and honey and cookies and muffins, etc

i applied awareness to why i was eating it and this is the following:

i was tempted to eat the bad food ∵ it tastes good and ∵ it's just there and my body just automatically goes to it

other than boredom and lack of purpose ( for now ) and lack of exercise and not direction in life in general ( all for now, i'm working on this) i think i just wanted to fill my stomach up and overeat

i've also realised SOMETIMES if i just leave it for 5-10 minutes and just sit there and not eat, sometimes this feeling of hunger goes away.

i still ate the junk food and i still want to afterwards now ∵ i kind of feel myself salivating for it (sorry for the visuals), ∴ i kind of don't see how this awareness thing is working/gonna work.

I will watch the first video you sent me again but this is what it is far

[levani]

i also feel this strange "reward" sensation and satisfaction after i eat it

i am so f****** addicted it's not even funny.

i went 1 month without any bad food and just 1,500 kcal a few months ago but this just yo-yod back to me being slightly overweight

i am 101kg, 191cm - 20% bodyfat i'm guessing, i look fit ∵ i got some decent size and strength on me (which i have no problem disciplining with) but the diet is a real b**** for me

[Average Investor]

29 minutes ago, levani said:

so today, i woke up and i fasted till 6pm

Do you typically fast? I use to do a one 2 meals per day and I found it really ineffective for me. I can see benefits of fasting, but it could be worth trying to just build a better diet vs. fasting for now. However, it is totally up to you. If the fasting works for you, then continue with it. It just sounds like it is causing you to eat really late into the day. It could also be distracting you from being able to build the diet you want. If you ate those higher volume foods for example they will not go well with a fasting diet like that. 

29 minutes ago, levani said:

at 6 i ate 200g of salmon, 400g sweet potato, 240g of tofu and 300g of broccoli with carrots and 1 banana.

Awesome, so you made progress towards eating healthier. I would suggest building out one really healthy meal, then moving to the next. You are making great progress. 

29 minutes ago, levani said:

i applied awareness to why i was eating it and this is the following:

Notice the awareness while you are eating those foods. What is the underlying emotion in those moments? 

29 minutes ago, levani said:

other than boredom and lack of purpose ( for now ) and lack of exercise and not direction in life in general ( all for now, i'm working on this) i think i just wanted to fill my stomach up and overeat

I hate to overload you with suggestions, but I have recently tried having a dream board in my room. It is a big whiteboard where I write out all of the things I want to add to my life/awareness. Honestly, I can see it working well for me, so I think it would be worth a shot for you too. 

Long thread, but this is where I got the inspiration from. It is totally worth the read, when you get the chance. In the mean time you could consider getting a white board and trying that. Writing out aspirations that come to mind and reflecting on them daily. 

 

29 minutes ago, levani said:

I will watch the first video you sent me again but this is what it is far

Take some time to work on it. You can make a playlist of those videos.

Take the time to apply the practice more consistently. I know it might not seem as effective from one use, but after repeated use I think you can get some results. 

 

20 minutes ago, levani said:

i also feel this strange "reward" sensation and satisfaction after i eat it

Sounds like one of the causes for the action. Might be a good piece to introspect on if that sensation is worth continuing the habit? 

20 minutes ago, levani said:

i went 1 month without any bad food and just 1,500 kcal a few months ago but this just yo-yod back to me being slightly overweight

That is called "ego backlash". Your body is trying to keep you in homeostasis, so it wants to go back to what is comfortable and works. The cool thing with this is you could set the standard with healthy food. I would continue your efforts, but figure out the middle ground of going too far out of the comfort zone, but not too light either. If you can figure out when it is best to apply more effort vs less. Maybe if you are having a had day, then not going full force on all clean eating etc. Also, this is why I suggest changing mostly one meal at a time. Building out a structure or routine with your eating. 

Edited November 17, 2020 by Average Investor

[levani]

@Average Investor i feel you and i am working on my vision board now, gonna print it tomorrow. HOWEVER, i just still don't see how "awareness" will magically one day get me to stop eating the junk food i love eating. is there any way you can maybe explain in detail how this awareness thing works? Also i really appreciate your time and effort you've put into helping me, i wish i could offer something in return, this means a lot bro

[Average Investor]

@levani Just you putting in the effort is plenty for me. I am glad to help.

58 minutes ago, levani said:

HOWEVER, i just still don't see how "awareness" will magically one day get me to stop eating the junk food i love eating

It's like how Leo says in the video that no habit can remain that is in your awareness. With myself I had struggled a lot with OCD. Doing compulsive things. Really what was happening is I was going into a lower state of awareness. When you are acting upon something from a lower conscious state it is very hard to resist urges to do something. So when you practice putting the unwanted behaviors in the lime light it makes it hard for them to last. 

For myself I had a difficult time rapidly stroking my hair in the shower. This would be common for someone to act this out who had this sort of issue. I would get deeply wrapped in thought. Usually, about things that were running rampant in my mind. Things like video games, stocks, etc. However, if I am at full awareness in the shower this simply cannot happen. I would not knowingly want to enter that state. It makes me feel bad after the fact. 

When I was quitting nicotine, I had done it for 5 years. A lot of the time it was not really a thought for me to vape. I would just do the behavior. With the device I had I actually would get burned really bad on the lip sometimes. Happened maybe a few times during the 5 years, but it was really unpleasant. My hands  would always have the eliquid all over them and I hated it. I did not like how it really made me feel. It hurt my relationships with people. I had times where I was consuming extremely high amounts of nicotine. I had even got nicotine poisoning. What I did was apply that awareness to all of those things. I would really feel the entire experience of vaping each time I did. Where as before I would just unconsciously do it. It also took some will power to quite as well. I was trying to avoid a feeling of just being by doing it. I could not handle just being in the moment. I would feel how negative my lungs would feel. I would feel how gross my hands would feel. How burnt my lip had been (actually happened right before I quit lol.) I would notice that I was really not getting anything good at all from this experience. It was actually so negative that there was not a positive in it. Before, I would just sweep these thoughts under the rug about how it was not helping me. I would come up with ways to even justify doing it. 

Most recently I had quit playing video games for about a year and was playing them again. I was playing them a bit, then I decided to do one day. I noticed during that one day it was hard for me to stop playing. I thought that really I was having fun playing the games. I even shrugged off it being addictive again. I had been thinking a bit though how it sucked to miss out on that day of the week.  I wasn't reading as much as I was before and I loved that. It was getting a bit in the way of my habits. I decided to really see what emotion was below my desire to play this "fun" game so much. It was sadness. I felt mostly sad or lonely playing the game. I noticed I was having issues with other behaviors in terms of how much I was thinking about the games too.  It was hard for me to justify playing it after becoming aware of that. I went ahead and uninstalled the games. Now I have trained and practiced this stuff quite a bit now, but that is how powerful that can be. I feel much better now being able to just uninstall something that I have been addicted to most of my life. Not to say I won't play a game again. I don't want to play a game if it makes me sad, unhappy, or unfulfilled. 

 

 

 

[levani]

@Average Investor i feel you, some things i don't even care like i was smoking socially for 3-4 years and I just have no problem giving it up forever. Eating is a big one for me or at least I think it is.

 

Anyway i watched Leo's addiction video and he contradicted himself in that one vs the awareness video, in the addiction video he said to sit there and not move and just observe your hunger / adiction but in the awareness video he said to nit change the system

 

these are clearly contradictions so which advise do I follow ?

[Average Investor]

@levani I would just test them both and really see what will work for you. Also, I think you could probably do one, then the other. Feeling the urge fully before going and doing it. 

Out of curiosity do you have any trauma around food or body weight? 

Edited November 18, 2020 by Average Investor

[levani]

not really man, i neve have been able to see my abs but like i'm slim and i don't have complexes taking off my t shirt or something like this, i used to breathe not properly before ∵ i wanted to always have the appearance of a slim waste/stomach but i'm over that now (ish) i still have to remind myself when i am in pubic to breathe through my stomach, i'm 100kg and i got some size on me, but my discipline with cutting calories is absolute gobshite

one of my teenage inspiration models was zyzz and the hodgetwins, matt ogus as well i used to always watch them and lift as a lifestlye so i got a good foundation but what's the point if i can't see the muscle properly aka lose the bodyfat

[levani]

@Average Investor i'm 194cm as well just fyi and around 18/19% bf

[Average Investor]

1 hour ago, levani said:

not really man, i neve have been able to see my abs but like i'm slim and i don't have complexes taking off my t shirt or something like this, i used to breathe not properly before ∵ i wanted to always have the appearance of a slim waste/stomach but i'm over that now (ish) i still have to remind myself when i am in pubic to breathe through my stomach, i'm 100kg and i got some size on me, but my discipline with cutting calories is absolute gobshite

one of my teenage inspiration models was zyzz and the hodgetwins, matt ogus as well i used to always watch them and lift as a lifestlye so i got a good foundation but what's the point if i can't see the muscle properly aka lose the bodyfat

Honestly, for your size, weight, and body fat that does not sound bad at all. That sounds like a good starting point if you do want to be more lean. 

I would set a goal for where you want to be and visualize it every day. Place it at the center of the dream board. Think of how life would feel having the body you want. 

I would also try not to weigh yourself very often. Maybe once a month. I weigh myself every few months now. Work on building up the practices that would get you towards the goal you want. Invest a lot of time into researching the optimal diet for you. Try out some different stuff too. Everyone is different in what will get them results.

That and building up a good exercise routine.  I would do it on whatever you enjoy the most. You might be surprised that things like tennis, bowling, etc could give you that and be a lot of fun. I like to hike myself and that makes a solid workout. I do a lot of jogging and walking. Walking was actually what propelled me into having massive personal development growth. I would listen to Leo all the time on what build up to 2 hour walks. It helped me shred a ton of weight. Cardio in general is excellent for burning fat if that is what you want. 

 

[Origins]

@levani I simply recall negative emotions in various ways and associate that with any behaviour I don't wish to do, i.e. but not limited to: say at this particular time its unhealthy for me to eat a doughnut, I simply remember the last time it was unhealthy for me to eat a doughnut and then associate the negative emotions I felt in that experience with visualising the experience of either actually eating the doughnut not eating it or both.

This is what I refer to as leveraging autobiographical emotional memory with visualisation (the latter employed as needed), which in this case, is being applied to the destruction of a behaviour or even habit, thus the inverse is also true in that it can be applied dot the generation of a behaviour and even habit. Sometimes you can just skip the visualisation if you're deprived of energy if you have enough skill.

Albeit a double edged sword used with skill it can be highly advantageous to be able to use the imagination to trick your mind into nearly anything and learning to combine that with lived experience (i.e. autobiographical memory) can bring about really powerful results.

You can also apply this to the positive end, say remember the positive emotions you experienced the last time you were able to demonstrate self control and apply them to the present experience of either moving towards a behaviour or away from a behaviour.

Edited November 19, 2020 by Origins

[levani]

@Average Investor

do i always be aware - every time i think about food or do I just when I am eating ? like past present future or just whilst eating food ?

is awareness basically the same as focus ? "focos on everything about the food whilst eating it"

is awareness the same as measuring the food, making mental note of what colour it is and counting how many pieces of rice, etc, asking myself qualitative and quantitative questions about it, how it tastes, ∴ is awareness thinking ∵ i am thinking when I am measuring the food that I put the food in my mouth ?