ood is strongly linked to cues from our family, culture and environment. Think for a minute, where do you go that has a certain food as a “first thought”? Movies = tub of buttered popcorn. Rushing out in the morning = greasy drive-thru egg/cheese biscuit.  Sending a card to Grandma = trip to bakery for similar (but not as good) sugar cookies. Dinner at an Italian restaurant = half dozen bread sticks while waiting for the entrée.

    These are cues for eating, which we developed over time    and nurtured into our food bill of rights. Until we recognize the power of food cues, our efforts to reach and maintain a healthy weight will be unnecessarily difficult.

     This week let’s agree to go on a Search and Destroy mission for every possible food cue that might hold back progress.

      Keep a note card in your pocket or purse. Write down the place or time that a food cue pops into your mind. The food cue often has nothing to do with real hunger. It's a habit, nothing more.

       When starting the Take Shape for Life program, I found a major food cue was grocery shopping. Not in buying foods, but that “get a cart and get a bag of cookies” cue that hit   me as soon as I stepped into the store. The cookies were a “little snack” for extra energy while I shopped. Reality check was that my energy expended shopping (maybe 25 calories) did not make a dent in the 500 + calories of cookies. To break that cue, I changed my path. Upon entering the grocery, I turned sharp left (bakery is on the right) and headed for magazines. Finding a fashion magazine with the clothes I wanted to wear, I propped the pictures up in the baby seat and put my focus on how great I was going to look in the new clothes instead of the food cue. In a few weeks, that food cue was gone and no longer held power over my choices. I saw how my actions in the grocery were about habit, not hunger. If fashion is not motivating to you, get a magazine on gardening, sports, cars, decorating . . . anything but food.

         Ok, it’s your turn. For the next two weeks, identify your food cues. Be specific. What foods? Where am I when it hits? Who is with me? Make a plan to break the power of food cues that sabotage weight loss. Then, please share with our group by sending an email to me about what you have discovered as food cues and how you are dealing with them.