Consciousness of Addiction (Anatomy, Chap 1 - part 2)

Last night, I committed to spending the next 24 hours working on the following exercise from Chap 1:
1. 2  For the next 24 hours record the number and length of your cravings for food.  For each one record:
- Time
- Length
- Strength (scale of 1 - 10)
- What just happened?
- What are you feeling?
(I'll be doing this one from now until tomorrow night)

What I ended up doing was a revised version of this assessment each time I felt an urge to eat, rather than a specific "craving."  My assessment today was:
1.  Are you truly hungry (is it  TIME to eat, is it possible you're thirsty)?
2.  Are you hungering for a specific food, or will any food suffice?
3.  What are you feeling?
4.  What are you doing?

I realized quickly that in about half of the cases, I was NOT truly hungry (physical hunger).  A couple of times, I had a nice drink of water and realized that was it.  Other times, it was clearly boredom, anxiety, or needing something to do while someone else was eating in my presence.  Once I realized what was actually motivating my urge to eat, I found it somewhat easIER to deal with it productively.

I got through today on plan about 98%, which felt pretty darned good. 

My plan is to continue this self-assessment tomorrow to see what it brings out that might be a revelation.  We have a "lunch out" at work tomorrow (a celebratory lunch for a member of our team), and there's a bunch of potential anxiety points in tomorrow's schedule.  Forewarned is forearmed.

Karen