Phase 2: Starting Your Shift
What is the issue?
As we navigate towards our Life Weight, we encounter various foods that can either keep us on course or lead us astray. While it's tempting to label foods as simply "good" or "bad," our relationship with food is far more complex. In this lesson, we'll explore a more nuanced understanding of our food choices: the concepts of Satisfying and Exciting foods.
What do you think?
Before we dive deeper, reflect on these questions:
Can you think of foods that leave you feeling content and energized hours after eating?
Are there foods that you crave or think about often, and give you an immediate burst of pleasure but leave you wanting more soon after?
How do your past experiences and memories influence your current food choices?
Remember, there are no universal right or wrong answers here. Your responses are unique to your experiences and relationships with food.
What else would be good to know?
Let's explore the concepts of Satisfying and Exciting foods:
Satisfying Foods (Thunder): These foods tend to provide lasting nourishment and fullness. They are perceived using the Gut-Brain Axis and the Below Water brain structures but help us eat Above Water by making it easier to regulate hunger, sleep, bowel movements and making it easier to notice our appetite cues.
Exciting Foods: These foods typically offer excitement because we anticipate these foods and tap into intensive motivation to consume these foods. They are often highly palatable and offer immediate pleasure and sensory enjoyment because they typically have a lot of salt, sugar and fat. They strongly activate our Below Water Mind, triggering immediate — though short-lived — rewards.
It's crucial to understand that these categories aren't fixed or universal. A food that's exciting for one person might be satisfying for another, based on individual experiences, memories, and habits. The key is understanding how different foods affect you personally.
Our brains process foods differently based on our life experiences and past eating habits. This leads to two important concepts:
Above Water Patterns (Assigned Salience): This is when our Above Water Mind assigns importance to foods based on learned experiences. For example, you might value a healthy meal because you know it will make you feel good later, even if it doesn't provide immediate excitement. Another example is when you eat certain foods when you are doing certain activities (i.e. while studying, while in meetings, while commuting).
Below Water Patterns (Incentive Salience): This is our Below Water Mind's automatic reaction to foods it associates with reward. It can create strong cravings even when we're not hungry, often leading to wanting the food more than actually enjoying it.
These patterns can create cue-reward cycles. When we repeatedly eat certain foods in specific situations, our brain starts to associate those cues (like a location or emotion) with the reward of eating that food. Over time, just encountering the cue can trigger a strong desire for the food, even if we're not physically hungry. For now, we are going to defer integrating Blue Mind and Red Mind into your understanding of satisfying and exciting foods but we will in future lessons to help reinforce and deepen your skills in this area.
Understanding these patterns can help us make more conscious choices about our eating habits and environments.
How do I apply this right now? How do I explore this more?
Let's engage in two practical exercises to help you understand your personal food patterns and how to track them:
You may stop reading the lesson and do these activities now or wait until the end of the lesson to do the activities in sequence.
Once you complete this lesson, the activities will appear on their own pages so you can find them and repeat them anytime.
Activity 1:
My Satisfying vs Exciting Foods Inventory
This activity will map your food landscape to creating an inventory of what foods excite you. This will help you understand how different foods affect you personally.
Activity 2:
How to Read the Ship's Manifest (RxFood)
This guide will help you integrate your understanding of Satisfying and Exciting Foods into your Ship's Manifest.
How do I bring it all together?
By creating your Satisfying and Exciting Food Inventory and learning to read your Ship's Manifest with this new perspective, you're developing a more nuanced understanding of your relationship with food. This awareness allows you to:
Recognize patterns in your eating habits and food choices
Understand how different contexts affect your perception of foods
Identify potential cue-reward cycles in your eating behaviour
Make more conscious choices about what you eat
Balance your diet to include both types of foods in a way that supports your goals
Remember, the goal isn't to eliminate Exciting foods, but to find a balance that keeps you satisfied, nourished, and on course.
How will I know if this is making a difference? How do I start noticing the changes?
As you become more aware of your personal food patterns, you may notice:
Increased ability to distinguish between hunger and wanting cues
Better understanding of how different foods and situations affect your eating behaviour
More conscious decision-making around food choices
Reduced automatic or habitual eating in response to certain cues
Improved ability to enjoy both Satisfying and Exciting foods without guilt or loss of control
Keep track of these observations in your Ship's Manifest. Over time, you'll likely see a shift in your food choices and your relationship with eating.
What is next?
In our next lesson, we'll explore strategies for navigating challenging food environments, especially those you've identified as triggering Big Eating scenes. We'll discuss how to use your newfound awareness to create a more balanced and conscious approach to eating that supports your journey to your Life Weight.
Remember, understanding your personal food landscape is an ongoing process. Each meal and eating situation is an opportunity to learn more about yourself and refine your approach. By developing this awareness, you're building skills that will serve you well throughout your life's voyage, helping you navigate towards health and satisfaction with confidence and joy.