StrongFirst, the strength education organization through which I hold a number of certifications and for which I occasionally teach, has a saying related to most of their recommended skills and training methodologies:
It’s simple but not easy.
And anyone who has ever swung or snatched a kettlebell understands the sentiment. The activity itself isn’t particularly complicated, yet doing it imposes an often significant physical and mental challenge.
But that’s the appeal. Simplicity is desirable when the rest of life feels complicated, and obstacles make us stronger, healthier, or otherwise better in areas that are important to each of us.
The same could be said for many other areas of life, not the least of which is a nutrition habit that trips up a lot of people: snacking, particularly on ultra-processed foods like chips, crackers, cookies, and candy.
Based on a few recent conversations and a ton more over the past 20 years, here are the three reasons that I’ve observed commonly cause people to snack and a few simple but not necessarily easy actions to help you overcome them.
Reason #1: Hunger
It’s hopefully obvious that eating—whether that’s a full-fledged meal or a snack—when you’re actually hungry is not a bad thing, particularly if you eat something that moves you toward your goal instead of away from it.
Here I’m talking about times like when you walk through the door after a long day, have a rumbling stomach, fatigue, and brain fog, and eat the entire bag of chips that was sitting on the counter while hardly even realizing what you were doing until you wipe the salty crumbs from your fingertips. (I’ll get to the “not actually hungry” part in a minute.)
Whenever someone tells me about a similar experience, their follow-up question is often about how to develop more willpower to avoid the chips and eat something healthier instead.
While there are ways to do so, the best answer is to use willpower offensively earlier instead of defensively in the moment. Practical examples include eating a bigger lunch (perhaps including more protein) or prepping a more optimal snack to eat at work, on the way home, or after walking through the door.
In other words, aim to not get too hungry, or have simple and healthy options (instead of a bag of chips) readily available for when you do.
Reason #2: Habit
In his book, The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business, Charles Duhigg describes the habit-building/reinforcing cycle of “Cue → Routine → Reward”.
Basically, some cue (e.g. a certain location, time, emotional state, person, immediately preceding action) triggers a routine (e.g. eating a snack) which results in a reward (e.g. increased energy, emotional satisfaction) that gradually reinforces the cycle for the evolutionarily advantageous benefit of conserving energy.
Of course, this process works for both beneficial and not-so-beneficial habits, as you’re probably well aware if you find yourself reaching for a specific snack sometime between dinner and bedtime. In that case, you’re probably not hungry, yet you likely feel an almost insatiable urge to snack on whatever it is that you always eat in that situation (e.g. at 7 PM in your living room while watching your favorite show with your spouse).
As Duhigg informs, the primary method to building a new habit after having isolated the cue and identified the routine is to experiment with different rewards and then develop a plan to make performing the new action easier when the cue triggers.
For example, options to replace post-dinner snacking might include feeling energized (reward) after taking a brief walk around the neighborhood (routine), a sense of accomplishment (reward) after doing the dishes by hand instead of putting them in the dishwasher (routine), or satisfaction from having learned something (reward) by reading a book instead of watching television (routine).
Not every option will reduce the urge to snack. But you’re likely to find one that does as long as you continue experimenting.
Reason #3: Hope
Getting back to the “not actually hungry” scenario, we have the fact that eating is comforting. On the flip side of the coin, plenty of normal human emotions such as boredom, fatigue, frustration, sadness, and anger (among others) are rather uncomfortable, and regulating those emotions is difficult and requires practice.
Put those two ideas together, and it’s not that surprising that all of us (myself included), at one point or another, turn to food when we experience an uncomfortable emotion.
That’s what I mean by hope: whether consciously or otherwise, we hope that the simple (and easy) act of eating will make us feel better and keep us from having to do the harder work of managing our emotional discomfort.
There are a couple “of courses” here:
First, this does often work in the short term, and doing so occasionally probably isn’t a major issue. That said, it also often causes other issues if abused over the long term, so it’s certainly not a strategy that we want to depend on regularly. (Here I’ll pause to reiterate that using food for emotional regulation is a common humanity thing. So don’t beat yourself up if you do it. We all do sometimes!)
Second, covering the breadth of emotional regulation is far beyond the scope of this tip. So you shouldn’t expect the following two suggestions to be comprehensive solutions. They can, however, be more helpful than you might at first expect.
The first thing to try when you’re feeling a little off is called box breathing. Sit or stand up straight, and inhale through your nose for a count of four. Then hold for a four-count, exhale for a four-count, and hold again for a four-count before repeating the process. After a few cycles, you’re likely to notice feeling a little better or more relaxed. And, hopefully, a little less likely to want to grab a snack.
The second thing you might consider trying when you’re feeling suboptimal is last week’s recommendation for improving your tolerance for discomfort. Flip a coin. If heads show, have the snack. If tails show, skip it.
In the latter case, you will still feel uncomfortable in the moment. But not getting what you want will make it ever-so-slightly easier to ignore the urge to snack the next time you feel less than your best. Besides improving your attribute of neutrality, that’ll also be the start of a new cue → routine → reward habit-building loop.
Putting it into practice
If you have a snacking habit that you want to break, pick one of the ideas above that you think best describes your situation and consider how you can begin to work at it today. (Otherwise, consider picking a specific time of the day to practice some box breathing, set an alarm, and commit to doing it for the next few days. Because improving one more emotional regulation skill can never hurt!)
Overcoming a snacking habit won’t necessarily be easy at first. But it’s also not complicated and, like any skill, will become easier with practice.