HOW TO HANDLE URGES TO EAT WHEN YOU’RE NOT HUNGRY

Urges are intense desires that are hard to resist.  They are caused by our thinking.  When we have an urge, we feel uncomfortable and sometimes out of control.  We feel like we need to act on the urge.

Instead of giving in or resisting an urge – we want to allow ourselves to feel our urges.  If we sit with our urges, they usually last less than 5 minutes and then go away.  The more frequently we allow ourselves to feel our urges - without acting on them – the sooner they weaken.

When we become curious about our urges – where we feel them in our bodies, their color, their texture, their hardness or their softness – we learn to recognize them sooner and become more comfortable with just allowing ourselves to feel them.

It’s also helpful to try to figure out what brought about your urge.  Were you stressed, or unhappy, or anxious about something?  Why did your brain (your thoughts) think that eating would make you feel better? In the past, eating has probably made you feel better for a short while – but then your stress, or unhappiness, or anxiety would return – because you had not processed those feelings.

An urge jar is a helpful visual reminder to allow your urges.  It takes sitting with about 100 urges to truly be able to easily allow urges. An urge jar is just an empty container or vase into which you put a bead or marble whenever you successfully allow an urge.  Once you have filled your container with 100 beads or marbles, your urges should have weakened significantly.