Q&A Tired of Grazing After Work? Try This Simple Shift | TMOHP Episode 181

Hey everybody, welcome back to the podcast. This episode is one of a series where I am tackling a question that I have received from listeners. Usually it is a question that I hear some variation of over and over and over again, and kind of pull the question apart in the episode and give my best thoughts around what is going on.

So let's dive in. I'm going to read the question from the listener and then we'll tackle it. Here we go,

Melissa, here's the deal. I walk in the door from work, and even though I know it's basically dinner time, I go straight to the fridge. I open it, I scan the shelves, and I grab something. Usually cheese and crackers or leftovers. I'm not starving. I'm not actually really hungry. I just feel this restless pull to eat.

What am I actually needing in those moments?

A lot of women walk in the door and walk into the kitchen on autopilot. So let's deconstruct this. Let's pull this apart and talk about what's happening. Probably you've just finished a long day. You've probably been in motion since the minute you woke up, maybe in automatic motion. Meetings, deadlines, commutes, decision making, caregiving, taking care of the rest of the world.

Then you walk through the door and suddenly there you are standing in front of the refrigerator or in the pantry picking at snacks or grazing or just looking for something to eat.

There are a number of reasons that you might hit the kitchen or walk into the pantry reflexively when you walk in the door. It's a common issue for so many people, but there's one piece of this that is so common I knew when I read this specific question, I just needed to do a podcast episode on it.

Sometimes that path to the refrigerator is fueled by physical hunger. Often that comes from not eating enough and showing up starving at the end of the day. But that's not what this particular question asker was referring to.

Today what I want to talk about is that pattern that feels unbreakable of walking in the door, grabbing something to eat even when you're not physically hungry.

In this instance, you're not eating because of a physical need for fuel. You're eating maybe because your system is still trying to shift gears. Maybe your system, your body, your mind, even your spirit needs to shift from one situation to another, but it doesn't know how. Or you're not giving yourself a chance to do this. This is not a discipline problem. This is not a question of how do I stay strong when I walk in the door so I don't walk to the refrigerator?

This isn't about fixing your self-control or your willpower. It's about understanding what your body and your brain and your automatic habit, what these things are trying to tell you. This moment, right when you get home is what I talk about as a transition. It is a time when you are moving out of one role or one identity- worker, professional achiever, doer into another role. Partner, regular person, off duty, parent, caregiver, household manager, whatever it is. Maybe even just the person who is supposed to relax right now.

That time when you walk in the door or when you end your last zoom meeting and walk out of your office. That time is the start of a transition. But the mistake so many of us have learned to make, been conditioned to make is that we skip the transition. That place in between doing this and then doing this, there isn't a pause.

We don't pause; we don't take a breath. There's just this swirl in your head of mental noise and emotional static, all the stuff that was going on before and all the stuff that you now need to do next overlapping each other. And then often there's this voice in your head that's saying, okay, come on get on with it. We're onto the next thing.

There's not a respect for the space in between. Transitions are important, giving yourself space and time and a little bit of energy to shift from one thing to the next, to close up that one part and get ready for the next part. This is actually an important process.

And your brain is smart. If food has worked in the past to soothe you or to ground you or to distract you, your brain is going to suggest it again. That pull from the pantry the way it calls to you, it is your brain saying, here is something easy that feels good for a moment. Here is a way to make a transition. Here is actually sometimes a way to pause, maybe not physically, because you might keep going while you're grazing through the snacks, but at least give your brain a little space.

So quite possibly that autopilot habit of walking into the kitchen and opening the refrigerator after work has developed out of an ignored need that you have to create some kind of transition. But the thing is, in the moment I'm describing, you don't actually need the food. You don't want to eat the food, and you get frustrated with yourself because you're using the food in this way.

This is one of these situations where switching perspectives can be so empowering and can make such a difference. It's so tempting to just get frustrated with yourself because here you are doing this habit that you don't want to do once again. And this is a perfect situation to take things in a different direction.

This is a perfect situation to practice being curious about what this habit is about. Taking on the question of, huh, could this habit be a signal that there's something here that I need to be acknowledged? And maybe more specifically, could this be a signal that I need a transition?

Here's some ideas that you might want to play with. Maybe you are craving a transition like we've been talking about, right? Maybe what you really need right now is a moment or a few moments just to land and settle yourself before you switch gears.

You might be feeling emotionally stirred up from the day or have some emotional residue left over from what has already happened, and food is a way to, to distract yourself. Or to buffer, to just create a little bit of time or space before you dive into the next thing.

Again, that is another way of saying that you need a transition. It could be your brain needing the transition. It could be your physical body needing the transition. It's you needing time to process what has already happened before you overlap it with the next thing. And we do that all day long.

We live in a world by the way that conditions us, trains us to be overlapping things all day long. Think about how many things you do with your phone in your hand, right? Or how many screens you have open on your computer. Our neglect of transitions is a direct effect of the society that we're living in.

So start looking for that. Start being curious about these places where you might just need to take a breath.

Other things that could be going on in that place when you come home from work could be a need for comfort. Maybe you want some comfort or relief because you've been under pressure or because you've been ignoring your emotions all day. This easily happens, it often happens in workplace situations or when you've got stressful stuff going on, or when you've got one meeting stacked after another.

Maybe you're mentally fried and here you are walking in the door trying to ignore your need for a transition, and the idea of doing the next thing on your list feels like too much. You just can't face it again. Take a breath.

Taking a breath, allowing yourself a transition, washing your face, changing your clothes, doing something super simple like lying on your bed and staring at the ceiling for a few minutes. This can be exactly what your body and your system needs. The fix here is not creating more strict rules around snacking. Creating some strict plan for what you're going to do the minute you walk in the kitchen.

Again, that's ignoring a transition. That's just creating more stuff that you're moving from one thing to the other. Doing, doing, doing. The fix here is learning to give your mind and your body what it's really asking for. Recognizing that you're in a transitional moment.

The thing I would suggest that you play with here is being curious about where the transitions are in your life. Where are the places that maybe you've been neglecting your transitions? Being curious about recognizing these transitional situations and then giving yourself the transition.

Because here is the thing, if you don't pause, if there is no space in between, the first thing and the second thing. Then you don't have the opportunity to connect with yourself. You're doing this and then you're doing that, or maybe you're doing both things at the same time. You're thinking about this, but you're already thinking about the next thing you do.

There isn't any space to take that breath and to ask that critical question, what do I know about what it is that I need? What's going on inside me? What am I feeling?

One reason overeating at the end of the day is such a big problem is because there are so many things going on. There's so many things going on. You've used up a lot of your energy already, and it's a complicated time of day. So this idea of, oh, there's a transition I need to honor the transition. It can seem like one more big thing to do.

I want you to hear this. A transition does not have to be anything complicated. It does not have to take a lot of time. Even the act of acknowledging a transition saying, oh, this is a transition right now. It can make a difference. Taking a transition might look like sitting in your car for a few minutes with your eyes closed before you go inside the house.

It might mean putting whatever you're carrying down and just stepping outside on the back porch or on the deck for 60 seconds of fresh air. A transition might be turning on music you love as soon as you get home, or lighting a candle or changing your clothes or washing your face. Like I said earlier. A transition is giving yourself permission to have a space, acknowledging you're going from one thing to another thing.

You might experiment with something as simple as just giving yourself five minutes before you switch on, again, five minutes of being off duty.

When you start seeing those places of transition in your life, and then you start allowing yourself that transition. When you offer yourself what you actually need because you've taken the time to notice what's actually going on inside of you. And then you can actually offer yourself what might work better than food. You're going to start to notice that urge to graze or to eat on autopilot starts to fade because you're doing something else.

You're doing something that is actually way more effective at taking care of you.

 Yes. Right now you have this autopilot habit of making a beeline for the refrigerator as soon as you get home. This is not a situation where being frustrated with yourself is going to be helpful. This is not a situation where tightening up your food plan is going to be helpful.

This isn't about hunger. It's about giving yourself a transition. It's about giving yourself space and a moment. A reset. You're not broken, you're not undisciplined, but maybe you're tired. Maybe you are over full of life's things. Maybe you are looking for a place to take a breath and exhale. Maybe you need five seconds of simply seeing yourself.

When you learn to recognize what's going on, and you won't get it perfectly, but when you start to do this even a tiny bit more than you already are, you're going to get better at responding with what truly helps you. And again, it can be super simple.

When you start to recognize this and respond to your need for a transition, food no longer has to carry the burden of trying to take care of that. Of trying to help you keep going and plow on ahead and deny what you need. Food doesn't become the band aid for everything you've been holding all day and that you're still holding.

Again, this can be small. This can be simple. It can be an action that is one of those things that makes you roll your eyes because it seems so insignificant. These are the things, by the way, that the women I work with comment on all the time. The simple acts, the small shifts that they made, that made a huge difference.

So if you want to make a difference in this habit, start playing with doing something new. The next time you find yourself staring into the refrigerator after work, ask yourself, am I in transition right now? What do I really need? I. I am challenging you to start playing with this idea of transitions.

If you want to, you could create some reminders. Put a post it note on your refrigerator. You don't even have to write anything on it. Just put a blank sticky note on your refrigerator and decide that it will be a reminder when you see it, when you find yourself there with your hand on the handle after work on autopilot. That square of paper will be the reminder that, oh, this might be a transition. I could do something different here.

And then take a breath and ask yourself what you could do to give yourself a very short pause.

Play with the transitions. Play with what works for you. You might surprise yourself by figuring out some things that give you way more relief than a handful of crackers ever could.

I hope this was helpful. If you have a question for me that you'd like me to answer on the podcast, you can always DM me on Instagram at Too Much On Her Plate. Or reach out through my website. And if you find this podcast helpful, be sure to take a moment to follow it and like it.

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I'll talk to you soon.