I have been giving a lot of thought to identity, and how believing certain things about myself contributes to who I think I truly am as a person. Of course, the goal is to write this new story for myself, a new identity. One where I believe my weight will remain stable because I do not overeat anymore. It’s not my identity anymore. I am not someone who overeats. That problem is in my past, because it is a past version of myself. This is the new me.
This is not just wishful thinking. It has been long enough now that my new identity is my reality.
And it was never more true than last night.
I stressed myself out leaving assignments too close to the due date, too many times, while finishing my bachelor’s degree. I did my degree as an adult learner, completing it part-time while working full-time. So, when I did my master’s degree, also part-time while working full-time, I made sure I NEVER left assignments to the last minute.
Recently, I got a gig freelance writing articles for the entertainment sphere. I feel like I am in school again, I have assignments and due dates. So, for the first three articles, I was fine. There was a small amount of procrastinating on the third one, but I still had it mostly done a day before the due date. The next morning, I finished it up and edited it. I submitted it with plenty of time to spare.
But the fourth article…I do not know what happened. For five days, I just could not make myself start it. Right up until noon on the last day, (when it was due at midnight that day), I was watching TV, playing solitaire on my iPad, vacuuming, anything to avoid it.
Then I finally started it at about 12:30pm.
Ug! I do not know what got into me!
And my back was killing me, because I wrote for five hours without taking a break, (I don’t even remember going to the bathroom). My body needs me to get up and stretch every hour, when working at the computer like that! And the phone kept ringing. I had to answer it, and deal with whatever it was, as quickly as possible, and then get back to my writing. It felt just like the “old days” as a Bachelor of Arts student. Trying to get an essay done while dealing with unexpected work tasks, the phone, a call-out, which—Murphy’s law—always seemed to increase exponentially when I had a school deadline also.
So, back to the connection with overeating. If I allowed my identity to be that of someone who cannot resist X food, (as I have in the past), then I would have to give into temptation (for example, at Christmastime) to match that identity.
The same is true of the reverse situation.
When my identity is that I do NOT procrastinate assignments, breaking that promise to myself yesterday…well, all last night it felt just as if I had cheated on my diet and overeaten.
What a roller coaster of emotions I had last night! I didn’t even really enjoy the dopamine rush of getting my writing assignment done, because I was so dismayed by my procrastination behavior.
And that’s because that behavior is so contrary to my identity now.
The good news is that I really have changed. My procrastination just reminded me of the old me. But that is not who I am anymore, or I would not have been so upset.
I woke up today knowing I will NOT procrastinate again, just like I will NOT overeat again. I simply eat what I plan to eat, no more, no less. And I enjoy every minute of it without any stress. 😊
People just have to live their own lives and do what they need to do. I see it on social media a lot, people struggling in so many different ways. And whenever I want to jump in with a comment, even just a “Me too, I know how you feel,” most of the time I instead think to myself, “Don’t try to insert yourself into their story.”
All I can do is just continue to live my own story, and I try to write it better this year than I have written it in the past. 2022 and 2023 (before my accident) were not the best story I could have written for myself. I am writing a better story this year, for sure, and today I want to remember that.
This cartoon illustrates what has been my thoughts in the past, (or could be my thoughts, if I let them), that I wrote about here.
It hit me just last night: eating for fun is simply that = fun. Not eating for comfort or stress or distraction, I am talking about eating just for fun, for the pure sensation, for enjoyment.
I don’t eat for fun anymore.
Although I love the meals I plan, I love the food I eat, (I make sure I exclusively eat foods I really like, that are particular to my own tastes), I no longer eat just because it would be fun to eat something. And that is something I used to do. Really, that is normal in our society, it is something that many people do. Normal, as in not necessarily something society would say I should not do, (versus society would say, for example, you should not smoke cigarettes, they are bad for you). And that is why it just hit me last night. I guess I will never eat for fun ever again.
Wow. I will never again just start eating because food is simply there, and it would be fun to eat it.
A big part of this is because I know that planning my meals really works for me. And I know that planning a special occasion indulgence (Thanksgiving, Christmas) is also fine and works for me. But just that realization that I will never just start eating something (snack food=chips, nuts, candy) for fun, for the sensation of chewing, for pure enjoyment, ever again, wow, that really hit me last night.
Of course, it does not end up fun or enjoyable in the end. I may start itching all over, (many nuts are contaminated with gluten during the bagging process, a light dusting of flour prevents nuts from sticking to conveyor belts and each other). I may start feeling intestinal pressure and bloating because chips made with corn flour state gluten free but also contain…I just went and looked at my husband’s bag of mini pizza rounds that he occasionally likes to eat with salsa…calcium hydroxide, which is used to soak corn to make it more digestible, (which will give me gas and bloating for 24 hours). I may end up waking up drenched in sweat from the sugar in candy, (as if occasional menopause hot flashes were not bad enough, nothing brings on the worst nights sweats like sugar will).
So, all in all in the end, no fun, no enjoyment.
Admittedly, I am sensitive (really sensitive) probably because as a Celiac I went undiagnosed for the first 40 years of my life. And even though going gluten free stopped my body’s immune response to gluten, the gluten free substitutes (and many other grains) eventually made me feel just as sick as if I had eaten gluten, because most of them are processed and ultra processed. The suspicion is I have some intestinal permeability that lets through more of these chemicals than average, (and as an eczema sufferer, I also have skin permeability that makes my skin “sensitive” also), which are in most ultra processed foods.
But I could still eat snacks, if I wanted to, and just put up with the discomfort. People do it all the time.
In addition to not eating excess foods for comfort, stress, or distraction, I have to choose every day not to eat foods that will eventually hurt, no matter how good they taste, or how much simply enjoyment or fun I would feel in the moment.
I have shrinkles. Really, it’s mostly my thighs, and interestingly, one thigh is worse than the other, (which happens to be the side on which I went down the day of my accident).
But I have never had “smooth” thighs, because I have always dealt with the good old cellulite, even as a teenager. When I was 28 years old, I travelled to the sunny south part of my province on a holiday, which was a break from living in the rainforest of the northwest and spending five days a week at an office job (and therefore I had zero tan on my legs). It wasn’t just the lack of a tan that led me to walk around (in the heat) wearing a pair of control top panty hose under my shorts, it was my bumpy thighs that I was worried about.
28 years old, healthy on the body mass index, and I did not want to show my bare legs in a pair of shorts.
In the past, I have used poor self-esteem and being self critical of things, (like pale skin and cellulite, which I cannot control no matter how much exercise I do), as an excuse to give up healthy eating and instead overeat to soothe the bad feelings those thoughts created in me.
Recently, the temptation is to follow the same pattern with my thigh shrinkles. I just cannot do that anymore.
My health, the health I have right this minute for which I am working to maintain, is just too important.
I have been working at defining what constitutes and can then satisfy my specific biological chemistry of:
Pleasure
Reward
Contentment
Soothing, and
Gratitude
I want to have a list of healthy behaviors to use instead of my past habit of overeating.
At Christmastime, 2023, I realized there was a big difference indulging in food and overindulging in food. A really big difference between planning an indulgence and just giving in and overindulging. A huge difference!
Planning an indulgence is no problem at all. You make a decision, you make a plan, you indulge in some specialty items because it’s a special occasion. You pick a few favorites and eat them. That is, if you want to. Then you totally own your decision, you own the choices you made, and afterward you feel satisfied. All is well.
On the flip side is some dialogue (that I have had in the past) that may sound like this: I shouldn’t eat that, but maybe I will? Will I or won’t I, can I resist? Maybe just a little. Maybe not. Okay, I had a little, and maybe just a little more. Why can I not control myself? This is dumb to try and resist, everyone else is eating this like it is no big deal. I can just eat a little. Okay, that was not enough. Then: All bets are off, what the heck am I resisting for? I am eating everything until I hurt.
Wow, I do not want to ever be that person again. I will continue to work on my list of healthy activities that will speak to these emotional desires for:
It’s number 5 on this list I wrote about here, in the past I used to eat to soothe my emotions.
The problem was resulting weight gain from eating to soothe emotions caused even more internal emotional stress and distress than I was already experiencing, and thus a vicious circle of soothing the stress and distress would start, one literally feeding on the other.
I no longer overeat to soothe my emotions and it is really making me notice what other behaviour I will do instead as a substitute. Because the truth is I still want to soothe my emotions. At different points in my day, after different stressors, I want to soothe myself. Taking away the one bad habit (overeating) does not eliminate the desire to soothe my emotions.
There are certain schools of thought on resisting certain soothing in the first place. After all, we’re grown ups now, it’s not like we need a pacifier. Or do we?
I know some people say they can just modulate their emotions, whether that be mind over matter or sheer will. I should just use the correct self talk that will result in positivity and productivity. Go inward, not outward. You do not need anything but what you can find within yourself to fix your own problems. No food, drink, drug, or pill, is going to fix it. You have to fix it. If you decided to fix it, it will be fixed.
There is truth in that, yes. But…what if you are someone for whom that does not always work? Some days, some moments, are just harder than others. And old habits beckon from the wings saying this (comfort food) will make you feel better right now, in this moment.
The people on the other side, the “you simply don’t need that” side of the argument may feel that saying that you need something outside of yourself to feel better is just a convenient excuse to indulge in whatever it is (comfort food) you are desiring in the moment. Of course, the alternative is to just own the choices you make without arguing either side. You are in charge of you. If you want it, have it. (But then you have to own the consequences, which might be eventual weight gain).
I have to ask myself:
Do I want to feed the behaviour (soothing) and thus have to own the consequences (weight gain)?
Or will this feeling pass?
Can it be soothed in a healthy way?
The answers are:
No, I do not want the weight gain.
Yes, this feeling will pass.
And yes, it can be soothed by reminding myself I am maintaining my current health, even improving it, and like the old adage I have been finally able to realize in my own life: nothing tastes as good as thin (healthy) feels. Or like I said in this blog post, “Nothing tastes as good as accepting yourself feels. Nothing tastes as good as not hating yourself feels.”
One of the keys to my recent success (in being free from cycles of overeating and thus maintaining my healthy weight) is to truly find what continually motivates me on a daily basis.
Motivations can change, evolve, and sometimes reach an end, especially when you are at a “goal weight.” So, now what?
What keeps me going is to reinvent what motivates me anew. Set a new goal? Sure. But a goal, once achieved, comes to an end. I have had (and still do have) exercise goals like how many kilometers I can walk each week or each month. Or a goal of walking more this year than last year. Or recently, I have had a goal of hitting 10,000 all-time kilometers walked since signing onto the RunKeeper app for the first time, (which I will reach in about 4 days, then what?)
Finding (and re-finding) my daily motivations is an ongoing process from which I do not want to ever reach an end. I have found that what really motivates me at a deep level may be individual to me, but that finding that motivation is what allows me to stay on my current path.
In the past, going externally or outward to find my motivation by mimicking someone else’s motivation, or following someone else’s plan, never lasted very long. Instead, I have needed to go inward and find what really works for me. Adopting someone else’s plan only works temporarily. Someone else’s plan has been a starting point maybe, or a guide, but the whole reason why I called this blog the “Bio Joy Diet” is because I find that going internally to look for my motivation usually connects with something that motivates me on a biological level.
We have biological imperatives: survival, territorialism, competition, reproduction, quality of life-seeking, and group forming. It’s the “quality of life-seeking” that I have found provides me the most sustained motivation. When I am constantly trying to improve my own life, which has that biological imperative connection, that is what sustains my motivation the longest. In the past, I have wanted to lose weight for a special event, or lose weight for a holiday, but those events come and go. The biological imperative for quality of life-seeking is a constant. I make maintaining the quality of my current health a daily constant goal, and I feel motivated. I am 53 years old and not getting any younger. Now is the time to hold on to my current healthy weight for as long as I possibly can. There is no time for me to “chuck it in the f#*! it bucket it” and have to start over again. Now is the time!
Maybe my current health is even something on which I can improve.
I do not want to lose my current level of health, only improve it. I just finished reading a really interesting book by Dr. Peter Attia called Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity.His “medicine 3.0” theory is about not waiting until you are declining in health, because that’s when medicine today, “medicine 2.0,” steps in and simply treats your ailments as you acquire them. Medicine 3.0 is about prevention. It’s about maintaining your health now, even improving it, and holding onto it for as long as possible. Not just focusing on your lifespan, but on your health span.
That’s where I am at. I am at a healthy weight, and the quality of life I am seeking to hold on to is the health I have now that I worked for the last 12 months to achieve.
As well, with respect to the biological imperative for competition, I enjoy competing with myself. For example, I’ve already walked more kilometers this year than last year and it’s only August. In previous years I have walked 1000 kilometers or more in a calendar year, so I would also like to exceed those total kilometers walked again by the end of this year.
As much as I like to compete with myself against my previous years, I still find myself feeling like I’ve already done what I wanted to do this year, simply by doing significantly more outdoor walking this year than in the last 2 years. Instead, my new motivation is “100 walks, 100 rocks.” I have a rock garden that this year I’ve worked on creating. We are finally settled into our new home and property so no active construction is going on, and I could look at what I wanted to do outside with the confidence that whatever I did would not get plowed over for some construction project. My rock garden has given me new motivation in the category of quality of life-seeking. I have the luxury of having my own property where I can choose to tend to it in any way I want, and make it look beautiful. Everyday I walk so I can pick up a white rock, preferably quartz, if I can spot a piece. Then I replace a rock in my rock garden with the new white rock, thus brightening a certain area of the garden to be all white. Replacing one rock at a time is slow paced, but 100 walks and 100 rocks from now, wow, it will look amazing,
My 100 walks 100 rocks motivation is really working for me. Whenever you are doing something in life, whether it’s home improvement projects, or a body improvement project like diet and exercise, you need to find your continuous daily motivation. What works best for you to keep you moving forward, to keep improving. What works best for me is going inward, not outward, and tapping into motivation that is hardwired in my biology anyway. Finding motivation that is actually already there and only needs to be cultivated, because artificial motivation from external sources may not stand the test of time. I have discovered that going inward and tapping into the biological imperative that is already hardwired in me, is proving to be more sustainable, just as long as I am tapping into it.
When it comes to weight loss medication, I advocate for everyone to make their own choice. Who I am to tell anyone what they should do with their body?
What I will say is that I was (in the past=power of past tense) influenced by society in general and chose to compare my body to others to my detriment, instead of accepting and caring for my own body in terms of me and only myself.
Therefore, some people (smarter people than me) have pointed out that when it comes to young minds who are still very much in the socialized mind stage of adult development, the wide-spread availability and use of effective weight management medication could have a negative impact on society’s orientation towards thinness (conflating “thin” as automatically equaling healthy, without considering what is truly healthy).
As well, the wide-spread availability and use of effective weight management medication could appear to mitigate the side effects of poor food choices, which could be problematic to our overall health if we do not change what we are eating, (see the book Ultra Processed People). If we are consuming too many foods that literally make our bodies sick, but a pill appears to “fix” our bodies, then where is our motivation to fuel our bodies better?
What I tell myself often: Do your own research. Make your own choices. Think about what is best for you. Only compare yourself to you.
I plan what I eat everyday (and log it on an app). I weigh some of my food, because look at the size difference of these apples! Huge apples like this all summer long without keeping track…and maybe I would start to see the scale go up. And that could mess with my head. So, to combat that, I am ordered about what I eat daily. When could that cross over into disordered?
I still haven’t eaten any of my homemade ice cream. If I had disordered eating, I had it in the past, because of the power of the past tense that I wrote about here. So, if I wanted, I could have some ice cream. But I guess part of me is still a little cautious about eating ice cream.
With the leading cause of eating disorders being dieting, and my having been on a diet basically since the age of 12, (or at least having had dieting on my radar since that age. I was definitely thinking about “my diet,” even when not actively counting calories, since the age of 12, and honestly, for years before that too), then yes, I have to admit, I ended up having (in the past) an eating disorder, or disordered eating.
How we say things matters. Disordered eating is in my past. I am moving forward with my identity as someone who enjoys eating healthy foods where I try to know all the ingredients, I plan what I will eat, and I sometimes I measure the amounts so I know how much I am consuming.
Food Rules=In the past
My earliest memories of food and my eating that became disordered was that I categorizing foods into foods I was allowed to eat and foods I was NOT allowed to eat. I also remember sharing special foods just for me and my mom, who was going to Weight Watchers. It was the early eighties, so along with her I got the lite salad dressing, the diet soda, the sugar twin. My brother got the “regular” food, because he was skinny and could “eat anything” without gaining weight.
Yeah, that was not a great start to my relationship with food, and I ended up thinking there was something “wrong” with me and my body when comparing myself to my brother. And I was told I could not eat the same things as him, I felt deprived, so I would sneak food from the kitchen when no one was looking. To sum it up, (because I am just tired of looking back, and I really only want to look forward right now), I found myself obsessed when weighing less and going to Weight Watchers at the age of 15. I was not even overweight at that time. I just wasn’t skinny. I do not know why anyone expected me to be skinny?! The eighties diet culture influence (as I experienced it) really sucked!
Periods of dramatic restriction of food and overexercising=In the past
So, I constantly put myself on diets, for decades. I would count calories, restrict food, and think about food all the time. Then I got a pedometer, (in the days before FitBit), and I pushed myself to walk more and more steps each day after work. One summer, it spiraled out of control, and I would think I was “bad” if I did not walk more steps than the day before. If I turned the corner on a street too sharp, I made myself go back and walk in a wider arc around the corner. It was crazy. I couldn’t sustain it. I gave up. All or nothing. I gained weight back.
Periods of intense discipline around food=In the past
I had to eat “perfectly,” not even a lick of a spoon of food I was preparing for my family, or I would “chuck—it in the f#*!—it bucket.” All of nothing, black or white.
Obsessive thoughts of food, tracking, counting, journaling, charts, graphs=In the past
I thought about food all the time. I had written journals where I wrote all the time about food and my dieting. Once I got a smart phone (2012), I started tracking my food and calories with an app, tracking kilometers with an app, taking pictures of myself and creating computer files in which to store them, and keeping an online journal. I was obsessed!
Weight cycling up and down=In the past
Of course, all periods of time where I lost weight, were followed by periods of time where I was gaining weight back. I made a list of all my significant gains and losses here, and thought it was over 400 pounds. But it actually adds up to 500 pounds lost in my lifetime, (and that is still without counting the large amounts of little weekly ups and downs that were constant). Just the fact that I know all my significant gains and losses, to the exact pound, is because of my obsession with writing it all down, and meticulously chronicling every number.
Weighing myself multiple times a day=In the past
I do still weigh myself every morning. However, I have stopped weighing myself multiple times per day, and letting the number on the scale send me into a self destructive tail spin, that I wrote about here. I also used to take a picture of the scale and save it on my computer, when it got to a low enough number for me to feel “proud” of it, and I wanted a picture by which I could remember.
Do I still have food rules?=In the present
Well yes. Even though I no longer experience disordered eating, I still have a “rule” that I will plan what I am going to eat for the day, and how much I am going to eat. This is because my brain finds variable reward addictive, and that behavior excites in me obsessive thoughts about food. The whole “will I, won’t I, should I, shouldn’t I” thoughts about what food I am going to eat…for me it’s just too much thinking about food. Simply planning my food ahead of time keeps those food thoughts so much more quiet in my head.
The important thing is that even though I currently still have a rule that I will plan (and also sometimes measure) what I eat each day, I plan for changes in my plan. If I do not feel like another cup of tea, and want to eat a piece of cheese instead, I eat the cheese, change it on my food log, and move on.
I believe I am at peace with food in a sustainable way for the first time. Currently, to stay at peace, I plan my food each day, measure some foods, and log it on an app. That order could be considered disordered, but for now, I am at peace. I don’t always weigh my food, but when I do it is because it is really easy for me to eat more than I think, portion-wise. So I weigh and measure some foods that are harder to guess the portion of, and then I know how much I am consuming. The result is my weight on the scale each day is staying quite stable. In the past, when I just eyeballed portions, I would wonder why the scale would start creeping up, and up, and up some more, and then what the hell, I’m gaining weight and my clothes are getting tight. Gaining weight back could send me into restrict mode, and the truly disordered eating could start up again. So, if weighing and measuring some food each day, just to make sure I know how much I am eating, keeps the scale from creeping up on me? Then yes, I still have a few “rules” when it comes to how I eat today, but it is ordered, not disordered.
In my life I have striven to accomplish things. I strove to be a university graduate. I then strove to be someone with a Master’s degree. I strove to be a homeowner.
I have also striven to reach a healthy weight. A weight that is comfortable for me.
Unlike the other things like education, being at a healthy weight is something I have recently achieved, but it’s something that does not feel as permanent. Being at a healthy weight can be undone for health reasons, or by simple bad choices. There are a number of factors that can undo this recent accomplishment of mine, so I am treading carefully moving forward.
I have started to focus on my healthy eating through the lens of this is my new identity. The me that did not plan my food (and subsequently overate) has been left in the past. The current me does not do that anymore. And therein lies the power of the past tense. Instead of saying I cannot have certain foods in my house because I have a problem with over eating them, instead I HAD a problem with overeating them, past tense. Who I am now, someone who simply eats what she plans to eat, can have any food in the house. Who I am now is my identity now (in the present tense), and my identity is I can have anything in the house because I plan what I eat daily. Therefore, overeating by “accident” is not going to happen, because I had that problem in the past, (past tense). I don’t have that problem anymore, (present tense).
This led me to think about the 12 step programs. I am not saying there’s any fault in those programs whatsoever. I would never criticize something that obviously works for so many. But I feel as though, for me, constantly identifying myself in the present tense, “I am a binge eater,” would be problematic with my current way of thinking. Binge eating is in my past. I WAS a binge eater. The overall thinking of always identifying with a behavior in the present tense, is never thinking you can behave the way you used to without consequences. I get that. But the distinction here for me is that what is in my present is that I have to plan my food every day to remain someone who USED to binge eat.
I have—in the past—overeaten, or binged, when I did NOT plan my food. In the past, I have been on a diet and restricted my calories, and then felt deprived and entitled, and let loose eating whatever in whatever quantities. In the past, I thought, “Well, I’ve blown my diet now with something unplanned, so I might as well keep going and reset my diet tomorrow,” and then I would eat a lot of everything I had been previously restricting. But all that thinking is in my past now, so it would not serve me to refer to it as my present. It would not serve me to have my identity as, “Hi, I am a binge eater.” For me, this is just me, I believe it will better serve me to have as my identity, “Hi, I was a binge eater, but I don’t do that anymore, I plan my what I am going to eat each day.” Not planning my food, (and subsequently binging for whatever reason among many I can come up with), yeah, I simply do not do that anymore. If there is something I want to eat, I’ll just add it to my food plan for the day.
Recently, I bought the Ninja Creami, (this is not a product advertisement). I want to control my ingredients, therefore, if there’s going to be ice cream in my house this summer, I would like to control the ingredients and make it homemade, particularly for the people in my household that do eat it regularly when they want a dessert. (I had noticed a lot of ice cream commercial brands aren’t even called “ice cream” anymore, instead they’re called “frozen dessert.” That was my first clue that it’s not really ice cream anymore, so making it homemade from scratch and processing it with the Ninja Creami is pretty great).
Now, I have not had the desire to eat homemade ice cream yet myself. Is it because I don’t trust myself? Is it because I still identify as someone that has a problem with my portions? Do I still identify as someone who has a problem with eating sugar? I’ve given it a lot of thought. I was a person who could start eating something with a lot of sugar and then would have trouble stopping. But that was when I was usually in the process of restricting calories, and I was telling myself I wasn’t “allowed” to eat ice cream. And then if I finally gave in and had some that I did not plan to have, then for my brain I was activating “variable reward” that I wrote about here. The lack of planning the item that has some sugar in it, like ice cream, was the problem.
Dr. Robert Lustig is has some amazing stuff on YouTube about sugar, (it’s really not good for us), but he himself says he is not a purist, he’s a pragmatist—there is bound to be some sugar in what we eat daily, even healthy eating. Additionally, your body converts almost all foods (including protein) into glucose, (which is the same as sugar), which is the basis on which our bodies survive. So, you can limit the amount of added sugar to your diet, but even he says that you cannot go purely without sugar in your life. There are naturally occurring sugars that are in milk and fruit, for example, so don’t try to be a purist, be a pragmatist.
Of course, I recommend making anything you eat homemade these days, to control the ingredients and limit the ultra processing chemicals, but that’s a personal choice.
So, I haven’t had the homemade ice cream yet. However, if my identity is that I had a problem like that in the past, and I no longer have that problem, then I am more than welcome to plan some ice cream into what I eat, should I desire. I believe as long as I plan it, then it is not the same problematic behavior I had in the past.
I have to say that one thing that has really helped me in this last endeavor, (which is at least my 7th time working at staying at a maintenance weight following a significant loss), is to eliminate variable rewards. You can google the heck out of all the scientific studies done on the “Chronic exposure to a gambling-like schedule of reward,” but the cliff notes version is that when you go to the fridge and cupboards randomly, looking for a food reward (snack), imagine yourself standing in front of the fridge as though it is a slot machine, and you just pulled the lever, and the dials are turning. The science backs me up here. That behavior, (as though a random food choice is a slot machine that may or may not pay out), is addictive for the brain.
The key word here is random. If, instead, each day I plan what I am going to eat, (and sure, I plan for snacks, and even have a few back-up plans for alternatives if something in my day changes, if this happens I can eat that instead, so that my brain will still interpret this as a fixed plan, versus a variable), then I am eliminating variable reward.
I have planned what I am going to eat (each morning) long enough now that my brain has stopped offering me the thoughts of a myriad of possibilities of other things I may want to eat (overeat) because that is no longer the normal behavior from me it has come to expect. However, if I embark on just a few random choices, I will reactive the possibility to my brain that a variable reward is an option. I prefer my life when I am not constantly resisting the possibility of that option, that of a variable reward.
The Bio Joy Diet 