You stepped onto your bathroom scale and did a double take when you saw the numbers had moved up. You thought you were doing everything right. You have made changes in your lifestyle, right-sized your eating, started exercising regularly and even asked for help from your support system when you needed it. Yet, you gained weight. And you don’t understand why!
Here’s one possibility: Somewhere along the way you fell victim to a “trigger.”
What is a trigger? It’s simple: A trigger is any kind of stimulus that we can have a reaction to. Triggers can be sights, smells, sounds, locations, stressful situations—even people—that break down our resistance and cause us to eat things that sabotage our weight loss efforts.
It shouldn’t surprise us that we’re feeling triggered right now. After all, we’re all facing one of the most stressful situations of our lives as we cope with the COVID-19 pandemic and all the personal and societal upheaval it’s causing. Maybe we’re working at home, where food is within easy reach at all times, or we’re tired of cooking for ourselves and are tempted to order food take-out or delivery.
Because triggers are specific for each individual, they can be difficult to recognize, but here are some examples of things that can trigger someone into overeating and gaining weight.
We can be influenced by our surroundings. The enticing smell of cookies can lure us into a bakery, or even into our own kitchen if a family member is baking, and, usually, when we walk out those cookies leave with us.
Distracted eating. Sometimes we’re triggered simply because we’re not paying attention to what we’re eating. For example, we check emails while snacking on some crackers. When we’re finished, so are the crackers.
We are surrounded by opportunities to eat. Not only are they where you’d expect—like fast food restaurants—but they are not always in traditional places where food would be expected, like those vending machines in hospital waiting rooms, gas station mini-marts with their displays of candy and coolers of soft drinks, or that box of donuts a family member brought home. As we begin to leave the shelter of our homes, we’ll once more be facing these kinds of triggers.
The most important thing is to become more aware of what causes our triggers and to change our behavior so that we aren’t vulnerable to the temptations. For those triggers that are unavoidable or particularly tempting, the key is to have a game plan in place to deal with them—techniques such as visualization (picturing yourself achieving your weight loss objective) and thought-stopping (thinking something positive, like how proud you were when you started losing weight) can keep triggers at bay until the urge to overeat passes.
With so many opportunities to encounter triggers, it’s not difficult to see how the numbers on our scales can move up. Teaching ourselves how to recognize and avoid our triggers will help us continue to make smarter decisions to reach our weight loss goals!
Please remember at DuPage Health and Physical Therapy we are always here for you. We would like for you to share your particular challenges with us for support and guidance to help you in achieving your goals.
Here's a recipe so you won't miss out on any cookouts this summer!
Lettuce Wrapped Beef Burger:
Ingredients
1 pound of organic extra lean ground beef
2 small green chili peppers
1 cup of clover sprouts
1/2 cup of onion
1 cup celery
1 tsp garlic
1 tblsp parsley
1 tsp horseradish
3 tblsp soy sauce
salt & pepper
Mix all together in a bowl, and make 3-4 patties. BBQ on grill until desired wellness/done-ness.
Crispy Rutabaga Fries
Ingredients
1 Rutabaga large, peeled and cut into wedges or french fry sticks recipe=4 cups
2 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
Instructions
Preheat oven to 425° F
Place two egg whites in bowl, and whisk briskly, add onion powder & garlic powder and whisk again. Pour contents into large plastic zip lock bag.
Placed peeled and sliced rutabaga in microwave for 3-5 minutes and blot dry. Let cool.
Place fries into bag toss together until the fries are thoroughly coated with seasonings.
Spread fries on a non stick baking sheet
Place in oven for approx 25-30 minutes, turn fries on baking sheet after about 12 minutes continue to cook until golden brown.
Remove from the oven and serve immediately.