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In this chapter, we will discuss common eating personalities and the thinking errors that are characteristic of our personalities. By assessing your eating personality, you can identify your possible weakest link. This opens up an opportunity for you to make positive health changes.

Eating Personalities

EATING PERSONALITIES

One aspect of learning about you involves your personality—your eating and exercise personality. Why do you need to know this? It will help you to pinpoint the weakest links in your relationship to food and your health. Your eating personality; including the weakest links, are often formed from triggers and cues.

These are habitual patterns that have contributed to your weight gain or prevented you from becoming more healthy. Listed are some characteristic eating personalities. You may fit the description for one or you may have several characteristics from different personalities.

BE MINDFUL of your water and fluid intake. Benefits of water: keeps you feeling full, hydrates your skin, and prevents symptoms of dehydration (headaches, sluggishness,

fatigue, mental blocks, etc.). Thirst can often be mistaken for hunger and lead to unnecessary eating!

Gordon Grazer• You eat small amounts of food

periodically throughout the day.

• It doesn’t matter who, what, when, where or why...you may be eating at any moment.

• Eating usually involves another activity as well (checking e-mail, driving, working, etc.).

Nancy Nibbler• Three square meals are unheard

of; you may go all day ignoring your hunger.

• You put everything and everyone else before yourself and do not make time to take care of your own needs.

• By sundown, in a ravenous state, you finally pay attention to your hunger and consume enough food to make up for what you missed and then some.

Cathy Convience• “Fresh” or “home-cooked meal”

sounds like a foreign language to you. If it doesn’t come in a box, wrapper, or other package, you don’t eat it.

• Meals often come labeled with a brand name or from a restaurant.

• The characteristics of your meal plan can be labeled as high fat, high calorie, high sodium, low fiber, and low nutrient.

Brown Betty, White Willy• Brown and white—meat and

potatoes—are the staples of your diet.

• You think fruits and vegetables are not easy enough to keep on hand and prepare, so you stick to pasta, bread, meat, poultry, and desserts.

• Apples, orange juice, and bananas are the only fruits on earth.

Mike the Muncher• Even though you get three

square meals a day, snacking throughout the day and night are where most of your calories come from.

• Snacking is a preventive measure to keep you from ever getting hungry and overeating at one sitting.

• The sight or smell of food automatically triggers you to grab a snack, even if you are still satisfied from lunch.

MINDFUL MOTION

Examine your thoughts and pay attention to how your

thoughts affect your feelings& behaviors. When you

have positive thoughts, does your attitude reflect that?

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Pat the Portion Packer• Your eyes are bigger than your

stomach and you treat your stomach like a waste basket.

• Overindulgence is the name of your game whether it is healthy or unhealthy.

• You are the president of the “clean plate club.”

• Always the first one finished at the table, you scarf down your meals, feel ashamed, and swear you will never do it again (until the next meal).

Carl the Closet Snacker• There are “good” and “bad”

foods.

• You are “good” about not eating “bad” foods in public.

• After periods of depriving yourself from foods you enjoy, you become a closet eater of “bad” foods.

• Instead of satisfying your desire for a “bad” food with a small

portion, you overindulge in the lesser evil of the “good” food (i.e. no sliver of chocolate cake that you really want, but polishing off a bag of fat free cookies).

BOTTOM LINEYour eating personality may actually be a combination of characteristics from several of the personalities described. Use your new knowledge of your eating personality and your weakest links to make relevant changes

in your thought response to triggers and cues. In other words, we must be aware of: our bodies and minds, the connection between our bodies and minds, the effect that the environment, people, situations, events, etc.

have on our bodies and minds, our control of our own desires, goals, and well-being.

1. All or Nothing ThinkingAvoid words like “always,” “never,” “nobody,” and “everyone.” These words are the foundation for self-defeating thoughts. EatRight is not an all-or-nothing process. As you saw with goal setting, each person will have different goals that often change. Those who do succeed have realistic views.

Examples of All-or-Nothing Thinking: “I’ll never lose weight.” “Nobody with this much weight to lose can benefit from exercise.”

Example of Realistic Focus: “I can exercise and lose weight, but it takes time and hard work to reach my goals.”

2. Focusing Only on the NegativeLosing weight is hard work. Too often people focus on the negatives and ignore the positives. You may have problems or setbacks, but it is important to recognize your steps forward.

Examples of Negative Focus:“I only lost 1 pound this week and my goal was to lose 2 pounds.”

Examples of Realistic Focus: “It’s great that I’ve lost weight this week, but I am going to keep looking for ways to reach my goal.”

Top Six Thinking Errors

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3. Over-ExaggeratingMany people over-exaggerate a situation or turn some small event into something big or impossible.

Examples of Over-Exaggerating: “I ate 1 cookie and gained 2 pounds.” or “I’ll have to exercise every day next week because I was too busy to exercise this week.”

Realistically, you might gain 2 pounds by eating many cookies every day for a week, but you are not going to gain weight by eating 1 cookie. Likewise, you might exercise a little more the next week if you miss a week of exercise. However, it is also OK to simply resume your old routine, especially if trying to make up time exercising adds stress to your life. You also want to avoid over-exaggerating something small into something big or something big into something impossible. It is important to keep events in perspective.

For Example, misplacing your car keys is a frustrating inconvenience, but many people respond with anger and/or rage and destroy their house looking for the misplaced keys. Such a response only adds more stress. If you keep problems in focus, they become easier to solve or manage.

4. Thinking Things Should or Must Be A Certain WayThink about how many times in a day that you say something “should” or “must” be a certain way. Most of the time, you experience stress and/or anger when things are not as you think they should or must be. It is important to express your views and desires without being nonflexible and judgmental. Then, you might be frustrated when things do not go as planned, but it will not be a catastrophe.

Examples of “Should” and “Must” Thinking Errors: “I should be losing weight faster.” or “I must follow the EatRight Program exactly if I am to succeed.”

Examples of Realistic Focus:“I would like to lose weight faster.” or “I ‘do not have to be’ perfect in order to succeed.”

5. Predicting The FutureThe best you can do is plan for the future; you cannot be certain what the future holds no matter what you think might happen. If you are planning to fail; however, chances are that you will find a way to fail. Of course, chances are that you will also find ways to succeed if success is what you want.

Examples of Predicting the Future: “I failed at my last weight loss attempt, so I’ll probably fail at this one too” or “I’ll surely blow my weight loss program when I’m away on vacation!”

Examples of Realistic Focus: “I can lose weight if I really work hard.” “It might be hard to stick to my weight loss program on vacations, so I’m going to make a plan to keep me on track.”

6. Self-CriticismMany people are overly self-critical. Such thoughts can lead to feelings of shame and worthlessness. Self-criticism almost always results in a loss of desire to improve your health. In other words, there is usually no motivation to improve yourself if you feel that you are not worth improving.

Examples of Self-Criticism:“I’m a bad person because I’m overweight,” or “I’m a failure because I didn’t reach my goal”.

It is Important to be Realistic.You are neither a “failure” nor a “bad” person if you fail at tasks or your body is not perfect. You are simply human, which means you are imperfect and capable of mistakes. Of course, you are also capable of success!

Remember to give yourself a “pat on the back” each time you succeed.

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EATING PERSONALITIES WORKSHEETCan you tell which eating personality most resembles yourself? What characteristics made you choose that personality? _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

How have you become more aware of your body and mind? ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Give your own example of how your body and mind are connected. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Briefly describe how you can use your new awareness to make positive lifestyle changes. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Notes: ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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PROGRESS CHECK

What is the first characteristic of your eating personality that you are ready to change to become more healthy? _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Are you comfortable with the idea that you may have “thinking errors” that are preventing you from making progress toward your goals? ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

What is one of the thinking errors that can be addressed to make the most progress toward your goals? _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Repeat this statement five times. “I am in total control of my desires, goals, and well-being, especially when my environment, other people, situations, events, or other triggers try to influence my thinking.”