The way our minds and bodies work has always fascinated me.
I was out with the family the other day watching one of my daughter's play softball and her team was losing by a lot of runs.
My son turns to me and says "I'm bored so I am going to go get something to eat from the concession stand.
" Now I know he was not hungry as we had eaten before the game, but what had happened was that since the game was out of reach for our team he had gotten bored with it and his reaction was to "get something to eat.
" I thought about the fact that he was only getting some food because he was bored and started to think about all the times we all turn to food out of boredom or out of habit.
Watching TV: We are all guilty of this one as we all associate eating with watching TV.
From having popcorn for a movie or watching all the commercials that show all this tasty food we "snack" while we watch TV.
This is a very bad habit as families have even taken to eating their meals in front of the TV.
The next time you are watching TV ask yourself if you are really hungry or are you just doing it out of habit.
I think you will agree that you are just eating because you feel you should or you are bored.
Driving in Traffic: You are in your car making your commute from work to home and you now have time to do nothing but sit in traffic with everyone else so what do we do? Reach for the bag of chips and soda we picked up at the gas station to "kill the time.
" Once again we are just "eating to be eating" as I tell my kids all the time.
Think about it next time and pass on the snacks, you will feel better and cut your daily calorie intake and continue to keep all those hard gains you have made working out so hard.
Feeling Tired at 3:00PM: Possibly the most junk food consumed in a normal day is done by people trying to fight off the afternoon lull.
The soda and candy machines all across the country are spitting out tons of hollow calories and chemicals no human body should digest.
We do it to try and "wake ourselves up" when if you had a health snack or are following the "eat every three hours" meal plan you will never feel the lull and have plenty of energy.
It has been so long since I felt the "afternoon crash" that I wonder why I ever had it in the first place.
There are many times throughout the day when we eat out of boredom the trick is to realize that you are really eating for no reason and to stop it before you get that Twinkie in your hand.
By eating healthy and eating 5 meals a day you will fuel your body as it was designed to be and never have to think that the food you are eating out of boredom is ever needed.