Do I feed the beast or starve it?

December 22, 2010 4:14 PM

Keeping the weight off: how to quell the lizard brain?

I hit my goal weight! Woo! Now I just need my weight to stay put for a while. Until death, I suppose.

Fighting me every step of the way is my lizard brain. It works very much as described in this blog post. Mine does not understand the idea that uneaten cookies may remain so or that there is an appropriate portion size for chocolate.

While dieting I was able to keep these thoughts at bay mostly by yelling at them. Getting mad kept me on track, but at the same time it was somehow draining. And of course it just comes back. It only seems to have worsened since I reached my goal.

So... what tricks do you employ to keep your lizard brain at bay?

Level of difficulty: Said yummy-yums cannot be completely excised from the house; the family eats out 1-2x weekly; no artificial sweeteners.

posted by rouftop to Health & Fitness (29 answers total)

I keep a block of bittersweet chocolate and some almonds in my desk. Craving? Gnaw on chocolate, eat an almond= voila!

Also, eating fatty snacks like coconut, Tanka bars, and nuts keep me satiated.

Spicy food and soup also quell appetite in my experience
posted by melissam at 4:16 PM on December 22, 2010

Put cookies in the freezer. When you want cookies, take out an appropriate portion and either thaw over hours (ha!) or reheat on a sheetpan so that you have perfect fresh-out-of-the-oven cookies.

I find this works very well for awesome homemade baked goods, which I love making but can't eat in a timely fashion without gorging on them. Also, I avoid buying baked goods, so that having them (or having them be not-cold) always takes at least some time and effort.
posted by deludingmyself at 4:21 PM on December 22, 2010

Apples.

For me, part of food craving isn't the food or the taste, it's the physical sensation. Chewing something sweet or crunchy. Apples are sweet and crunchy.

Mmm, honeycrisp.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 4:35 PM on December 22, 2010

I don't know if it's going to work or not, but I'm trying this mindfulness thing to try to get control of my eating and drinking this lovely holiday season. The idea is that if I'm going to eat or drink whatever, I am going to devote my complete attention to it, really savor every sip or bite, and then I might be more satisfied and not succumb to the desire to unhinge my jaw and eat the entire cake/drink four bottles of wine/nosh down the whole bag of cheez snax.

Disclaimer: Obviously, I think there's some merit to this approach or I wouldn't bother trying, but I really don't know if it's really likely to be successful for me, much less you.
posted by gingerest at 4:35 PM on December 22, 2010

I dunno about the above answers. This doesn't seem to be an appetite thing. OP seems to be saying that if they were to take cookies out of the freezer they would take all of them, thaw all of them, and then eat all of them.
If they didn't do this they have some uncontrollable portion of their brain that beckons them to do the opposite of what they really want to do.

Lizard brain seems to be a funny way of explaining\excusing away poor willpower?

The best way would be to stop eating sweets all together and then you won't crave them. I used to eat bags and bags of candy. After I stopped completely I didn't even care about watching people eat anything in front of me, much less want any.

The alternative to eating no sweets would be having a rule where only someone else can get a select portion for you and then you eating no more than that.

The best mind "trick" is to ask yourself before eating something, "Is this bringing me closer to X goal?" and proceeding from there. Maybe whatever portion of the brain that answers that question will be stronger than your lizard.
posted by zephyr_words at 4:36 PM on December 22, 2010 [1 favorite]

Delay is your friend. I.e., when the madness strikes:

1. Do something else -- first. (Drink a full glass of water or cup of decaf/herbal tea, brush your teeth, take a walk.)

2. Ask yourself if you are actually hungry. Answer the question -- first.

3. If you are hungry, eat a healthy snack (1 oz cheese and a half apple, for example) -- first. Wait 20 minutes. Do you still feel the urge?

4. If you simply must eat the thing, eat it very slowly. Do nothing else. Savor each bite. This technique can reduce a binge to a nibble.
posted by bearwife at 4:43 PM on December 22, 2010 [5 favorites]

my way of eating portions (and tricking my brain into thinking I've eaten *all* of the cookies) is to take all of the cookies/candy/chocolate and divide them into portion sized servings - snack bags are great for this. Then I put the snack bags in a container and when I'm craving sweets, I reach in and grab *one* snack bag. Since I cannot see all of the cookies/candy/chocolate my brain thinks that's all that's available.

I've kept my weight off (nearly 100 pounds) for over five years, so it works for me.
posted by patheral at 4:46 PM on December 22, 2010 [4 favorites]

I really, really don't mean this to be snarky, but: stop. looking. for. tricks. As a former overeater and smoker, IMHO there's only one thing that really "works" long term, and that is to just stop the bad behavior. "Tricks" are a problem because they play on the "lizard brain's" home turf. A lot of people profit from selling you "tricks" because they know you will have to keep coming back for more.

You have done an awesome thing. Own it.
posted by quarterframer at 4:55 PM on December 22, 2010 [1 favorite]

Sorry for all the " ".
posted by quarterframer at 4:55 PM on December 22, 2010

"Do I feed the beast or starve it?"

Heh. Great question.

What I did was get my lizard brain a buddy, in the form of a 60 pound, solid black 1/2 chow + 1/2 lab four footed barking silly boy. Rain or shine, or state of my lizard brain, he's a high energy, excited, happy call to get off my butt and move, a couple times a day. And a couple times a day, he's also a high energy, excited, happy reminder to eat, but eat right, as I don't want him getting fat or sloppy, any more than he'd be happy being overweight.

He's also the house alarm system, visitor security check, and part time volunteer food taster/leftover recycling system. One reason I never need post "Can I eat this?" type questions around here.

So my recommendation, if it is appropriate to your circumstances, is to get your lizard brain a little bit more evolved buddy, and feed the beast, properly and well, as the external trigger to do the same, on a long term basis, for yourself.
posted by paulsc at 5:13 PM on December 22, 2010 [3 favorites]

Something I read somewhere once (I think it was Lifehacker) suggested brushing your teeth as a way to help fend off sugar cravings. Seems to help me.
posted by 4ster at 5:13 PM on December 22, 2010 [2 favorites]

Best answer: A research-based technique applicable cross addictions is "urge surfing." The idea is to recognize that urges have a wave like form, they rise and fall, even if you don't yield. In fact, especially if you don't yield because the more you yield, the more you reinforce the habit. Your brain looks for shortcuts and automates things that are repeated— this is part of why change is so hard.

Short circuit the automation by recognizing that an urge is just an emotional thought, not a command Watch it. Observe its tricks. See what happens when you don't give in. Recall that the next time. Over time, it gets easier.

Also, avoid cues that push you to eat (ie, don't leave tempting things in sight, etc.) when possible, and don't expect to be perfect. Don't let a little slip become a major one (ie, I already screwed up, may as well really go for it).
posted by Maias at 5:16 PM on December 22, 2010 [8 favorites]

So your question is basically how to stop at just one? I have this issue so for me, I just don't buy them. There's no snacks in our house and hasn't been for years and I don't miss them. I understand that you can't do that but maybe you can take the snacks you do have as soon as you bring them home and divide them into portions for the rest of the family, omitting yourself. That way when you feel like a snack, your only option would be to steal another person's labelled food, and what kind of person would do that? If there's none for, you can't eat it. Problem solved. You don't need willpower, you just need to not be a thief.

And as an aside, I kinda agree, to label it "lizard brain" as if it's another part of you that is out if your control, is really you abdicating yourself of any responsibility. As soon as you own your own actions instead of pretending you don't have a choice, you'll get further in your goal. Good luck.
posted by Jubey at 5:18 PM on December 22, 2010

If other people in the house insist on having sweet treat food around the house, make them own it. If Bob must have cookies, then they live in Bob's cookie jar. They are not your cookies, and you may not have one without asking Bob first.

I am practising intermittent fasting on the Leangains template, ie eating as much as I want, but only between 11 am and 8 pm, fasting the remaining 15 hours of the day. I find it no problem to skip breakfast and I am not conscious of being deprived. I am the leanest I have been in years.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 5:26 PM on December 22, 2010 [1 favorite]

I'm unclear on why you need to keep junk food in the house.

I grew up in a home where we did not have cookies, soda, chips, candy, etc, except for special occasions (holidays and birthdays, basically). Nobody died. Nobody felt deprived. My siblings and I all lived through it, and most of us have a very healthy approach to willpower because of it.

I highly recommend this approach.
posted by Sara C. at 5:29 PM on December 22, 2010

Mine does not understand the idea that uneaten cookies may remain so or that there is an appropriate portion size for chocolate.

This is because you're trying to use "willpower" to try to control your eating. This is doomed to fail. Far, far more effective is to control your environment. This is backed by scientific research which I am too lazy to cite but which you can find pretty easily. You need to start doing the stuff you mentioned in your blog post again, namely, simply not to have this stuff in your house.
posted by unannihilated at 5:37 PM on December 22, 2010 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Willpower is only as strong as your own will. If you believe that the lizard brain is the dominant one, you do not really have willpower. Here is a story about willpower from my main role models: frog and toad.

So realistically, you are smarter than your lizard brain, can you find ways to thwart or distract it. They say, with people quitting smoking, that if you can put off the craving for five minutes [do something else, squelch it, whatever] that it will ease off.

So things I have done: drank a glass of water first, eaten an apple first, had a cough drop, kept the snackamos in the freezer so I had to thaw them first, eated something tasty but much lower calorie [a marshmallow instead of a piece of chocolate]. Honestly for me the thing that worked was getting on the scale every day and seeing that I made better progress when I wasn't snacking and getting snacks out of the house or replacing them with "good enough" snacks that may not have been what I really wanted.
posted by jessamyn at 6:04 PM on December 22, 2010 [1 favorite]

My thing has always been snacking late at night, when I'm just too tired to care. So after a certain time at night when I get a craving I drink seltzer over ice with lemon juice (maybe about 2 tablespoons?) mixed in. Not because lemon water has any magical diet properties but it's filling, it has a pleasant taste, and it kills the cravings.
posted by contessa at 6:05 PM on December 22, 2010

Use a timer and make a bargain with yourself. If I still want it in 20 minutes, then I can have it. Define "it" as a sane and healthy and diet-appropriate portion, of course.

Though of course, in that 20 minutes, you climb the stairs five times, you brush your teeth, you have a big tall glass of cold water, and you distract yourself so that when the timer goes off you will hopefully not remember what it was even set for.

I understand what the people are saying when they say not to rely on tricks, but you're still building those good habits now, and I don't think having little crutches to keep you going til you get stronger is a bad thing.

and hey, good for you for the changes you've made and continue to keep working on. :)
posted by lemniskate at 6:23 PM on December 22, 2010 [1 favorite]

Put cookies in the freezer. When you want cookies, take out an appropriate portion and either thaw over hours...

Does this work? Am I the only person here who would just eat them frozen, standing in front of the fridge? Okay then.

When I have a strong craving for sugary/carby treats, I think about the HALTS list. That stands for asking yourself am I hungry, angry, lonely, tired, or sad? My list wouldn't make such a cute acronym because I actually have the strong cravings when I am bored, anxious or angry.

So my first question is, am I actually hungry? If so, I think whether I need to eat a meal, or if it's not meal time, a snack of fruit.

If I'm not hungry, then what am I feeling emotionally? Once I realize I really fucking want a big cookie because I'm pissed at the idiots at work, I'm already making inroads into blunting the craving. Making myself fat because I work with jerks is really dumb, and yay! Apples are yummy.
posted by Squeak Attack at 7:37 PM on December 22, 2010 [1 favorite]

Squeak, to be fair, I'm the kind of person who will completely ignore an office candy jar or store-bought cookies, because they're not exactly what I want right now. However, homemade cookies are exactly what I want on a semi-regular basis, and this has worked for me in that regard. I try to hack the "not exactly what I want" line of thinking plus being a bit of a foodie to avoid pointless calories. For instance, I never buy ice cream in the store, but if I really feel a craving, I'll consider driving across the city to the Completely Awesome Ice Cream place, because that's 150% Worth It. But most of the time, that's too much effort, and so it's better to just make some tea.

On that note I also recommend picking up a tea habit. With no cream or sugar, obviously.
posted by deludingmyself at 8:06 PM on December 22, 2010

So far for me what's working, although not easy, is really just keeping things out of the house. I find it's much, much easier to practice self control just while I'm at the grocery store, rather than every time I walk past the cupboard where the cookies are. Failing that, out of site is out of mind. On the very, very top shelf is where I stash my chocolate. It doesn't tempt me every time I'm looking for something else, so it doesn't get eaten on impulse. But if I really must have chocolate now, I know I could -- but it would involve digging the step stool out of the closet, so it had better be worth the effort.
posted by cgg at 8:28 PM on December 22, 2010

I keep stuff out of the house as much as possible.

One strategy when you don't control what's in the house: get stuff they like, but you don't. Surely there are flavors of certain sweets that don't tempt you, but others still like. Stock the house with those.

The other thing I did: begged by wonderful husband to stop baking so much. He finally gets it now--that it was no big deal for him to eat just a couple of chocolate chip cookies, but for me it was taking all of my willpower and energy to do it--and then I'd fail anyway. He thinks it makes more sense to buy a gallon of ice cream, whereas I'd rather go out for ice cream--because then I'll eat ice cream only once, whereas with a gallon, I'd eat so much more.

It also works if I don't just have one cookie, or whatever. Once I have one, then I might have two. It's always easier to have none than one--because one becomes many.

Another trick: ask someone else in the house to put the treats away in someplace you won't find them accidentally. Out of sight is sorta out of mind for me, so this can help. It also helps if the treats aren't someplace where I regularly go (ie not in the fridge).

Having lots of tasty fruit displayed in bowls helps too.

I read a couple of books that really helped me understand this. The first was Hungry by Alan Zadoff. It's a quick read, but insightful. Zadoff yo-yo dieted for years and finally figured out a great system. He has three kinds of foods: green light, yellow light, and red light. Red light foods are the ones that, once he starts, he really can't stop eating. Yellow light, he likes and really enjoys, but can exert some more will power. Green are the foods he won't ever overeat (think: steamed veggies). His strategy is never to eat the red light foods--no exceptions.

The book has more than just this. It's a great read.

The other book, which takes a more scientific approach to the same issue, is The End of Overeating by David Kessler. His book helped me understand the impulses in my brain and body that make certain foods so deliciously compelling to me. For some people, it is a matter of willpower. For others of us, that food being around is incredibly distracting and makes it harder to concentrate. I suspect you are, like me, in the second category.

Wait, I just thought of a third book. I kinda hate this book, but if you need some tough love, read Skinny Bitch. They have some nutritional advice, but what's really helpful is when they say things like, "Don't expect to be able to put all that crappy food into your mouth and look good." Ouch.

Good luck. I know this is tough.
posted by bluedaisy at 9:46 PM on December 22, 2010

I like jello. It is sweet and filling (because it takes up space), and it hydrates you. It's a lot less calorific than chocolate or chips. If you make it with part milk or yogurt, it even ticks the "creamy" craving box.
posted by lollusc at 9:48 PM on December 22, 2010

I'm unclear on why you need to keep junk food in the house.

I'm unclear as to why one person's food problems should dictate entirely the food choices for the rest of the people in the house.

My house is just my husband and I, and he's a grown-up person. If he would like to have pita chips and dark chocolate bars for snacking in our house, why should my impulse control problems prevent that?

"Just not having it in the house" is not as optimal a solution as working on yourself to get to a place where you don't feel compelled to eat all the treats. "Just not having it in the house" doesn't cover you when the stuff shows up at work, or a social occasion, or other places where you can't exert control over other people's choices.
posted by Squeak Attack at 8:06 AM on December 23, 2010 [2 favorites]

"Don't expect to be able to put all that crappy food into your mouth and look good." Ouch.

Probably not as bad as what I say. I ask myself, how fat* do you want to be? It sounds awful, but what it has done is made me far more cognizant that whatever it is I'm eating will, or wont, make me fat again. The rest of the mindful self talk goes along the lines of "not fat. Then why are you reaching for/eating [insert delicious temptation here]? Depending on what the answer is, hungry/bored/tired/upset I'll have, or not. The other part of it is thinking about what I really craving sweet/salty/crunchy/&c and, hone in on that instead of mindlessly going for the junk. Between the two it's allowed me to do things like take a pass on the cheezies my partner is eating after only having three because wow I didn't realize I was so hungry then going into the kitchen to find something better for me. I couldn't have stopped at just one two years ago, now I can do it easily.

*I never weighed myself during the weight loss, but eleven inches came off my waist alone and, has stayed off.
posted by squeak at 9:14 AM on December 23, 2010

Best answer: For me, it's a combination of two things:

1) I pre-decided the foods I'll can indulge in when presented with them unexpectedly (like at work). For me, those are potato chips and homemade baked goods. Everything else, I just don't love enough, so I don't eat them. So no candy from the front desk, no chips at the Mexican restaurant, etc. It's not even a choice, I just don't do it. Having acknowledged with myself ahead of time that I don't love that food item makes it very easy to say no.

2) This one is actually harder for me to stick to on a daily basis, but getting enough sleep is the one thing that makes the biggest, most critical difference in controlling my lizard brain with ease. When I'm well-rested, I make good choices effortlessly and genuinely desire good-for-me protein-packed salads and fresh fruit. When I'm exhausted, the process ceases to feel automatic and I feel powerless over those same choices that were so simple the day before (I know I'm not actually powerless, I could make good choices if I wanted to, but it becomes a million times more difficult to execute).
posted by anderjen at 9:24 AM on December 23, 2010 [2 favorites]

A recent episode of the podcast from Science included a segment on a study "Thought for Food: Imagined Consumption Reduces Actual Consumption" which speaks directly to this issue.

audio and transcript here.
posted by olecranon at 4:29 PM on December 23, 2010

I have an extreme sweet tooth normally, and I've realized that the more sugar (and flour, actually) I eat, the more I crave it. I recently cut out sugar completely for a couple of weeks and I just stopped craving it; at least, my cravings went WAY down. Now, I will eat it, but often it's too sweet for my taste. I still eat fruit and other non-sugary things that I like, and I usually feel sated.

I think one of the biggest reasons people overeat is because they are addicted to sugar and carbs. Now that I cut it out by a lot (and living in an Asian country helps, though there is still plenty of sugar here!) I don't really crave it anymore. So you might consider going cold turkey with the sugar, at least for awhile.
posted by bearette at 12:55 AM on December 24, 2010 [2 favorites]