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The advice from Part 1 of this question… to offer myself some grace and self-compassion around just getting started with learning Intuitive Eating…very well-received, thank you.

Here is my unintentional model around snacking at work in the afternoons:
C: PM snacking
TD:
I am not hungry, so why am I eating this?
I am eating out of habit, and it’s a habit I need to break.
I don’t feel good eating this food, during or after.
I had a great lunch, and I am “ruining” it with this snacking.
It’s totally unnecessary.
I don’t want to be constantly reaching for food in the afternoons.
I should be able to resist eating snacks at work in the afternoons or at least just have a small one.
I am doing something wrong here.

T: I should be able to resist eating snacks at work in the afternoons, or at least just have a small one.

F: Frustrated

A: Continue to eat, criticize myself, distract myself

R: I continue snacking in the afternoons at work and feel bad about it. Sometimes, I will continue eating when I get home. I am no closer to understanding why I engage in this behavior.

ANSWER

Hello!

Same coach here from Part 1… Let’s do this!

First off, good work, sister! I’m glad the first coaching was helpful. I’ll coach on your model first, then give you the next step.

When I look at your unintentional model, I can see why you are feeling like you are “struggling” with snacking. The thoughts you have about snacking are assigning a status of “snacking is bad and snacking should be controlled”. This is what we call Diet Mentality thoughts. Unravelling these thoughts and belief is principle #1 of intuitive eating: All eating patterns are neutral. All food are neutral.

Thoughts like:
It’s totally unnecessary. (at a deeper level, you don’t trust your hunger cues; therefore, you don’t trust your body).
I am doing something wrong here. (at a deeper level, you are holding the belief that snacking is wrong; hence you think you are doing something wrong.)
I should be able to resist eating snacks (at a deeper level, this means that you are assigning moral virtue to your ability to “control” your eating).

All of these thoughts and deeper beliefs are why your body is rebelling and leading you to swing your pendulum of eating. As long as you continue to assign moral value to eating or food types, you will continue to have rebellious eating behaviours.

The process of intuitive eating is like shedding years of socialization and internalization to eating and food beliefs.

So my assignment for you is to do another round of self-coaching on C: PM snacking, but this time, get deeper.

What’s interesting is the part 1 coaching on this question was not completely acted upon. You probably unconsciously left out the most significant part of the coaching. I want to emphasize unconsciously because your brain is trying to protect you from seeing the “real issue” as a way of keeping you in your current reality. I’m going to paste it again here:

“The first place I want you to focus is understanding WHY you want to stop snacking in the afternoon. Why is snacking in the afternoon a problem to be solved or fixed? What will happen when you “fix” this problem, or what are you trying to avoid by “fixing” this “issue”?

For most women we have coached, the desire to stop eating (even snacking) is the fear of gaining weight and or not losing weight. When that’s the motivating factor, it will always trigger more eating. That’s what we call psychological restricting driving by internalized fatphobia.”

So let’s do another round of model with the next layer of deeper thoughts.

I’ll wait to see your model and coach you again!