Yes. IJDKWHWIGH Sydrome is, by
definition, seen most often on Mondays-Fridays between the approximate
hours of 5:30 pm and 11:30 pm.
You can recognize IJDKWHWIGH Syndrome if you have 4 or more of the following symptoms, or behaviors:
1)
You are PER-FECT on your plan ALL DAY at work or at school or at home
going about your business. You drink your water. You sing the praises
of how good you are doing (and rightly so! You are DOING this thing!
You are COMMITTED!) You rip open those packets of Medifast Meals with
hope and optimism because TODAY you have it HANDLED and you are feeling
GOOD!
2) There is no temptation that can tempt you at
work/school/home between the hours of waking and 5:30 pm. You have
loads of willpower and you bypass that bowl of M&M's on the
receptionist desk in the lobby without a second glance.
3) At
lunch social or business meetings at restaurants you always order an
entree salad with dressing on the side and no cheese, no croutons, no
dried fruit, and none of those little candy-glazed nuts that take those
salads from being 178 calories to 778 calories (LOL). And you are
content.
4) When you get home you are a little tired and hungry
because you've gone a little too long after your last Medifast Meal and
it's been 3.5 hours since you've eaten last and now you have to make a
Lean and Green, which you are running a little late on because you
remembered on the way home that you were out of vegetables so you had to
stop for them. And you picked up a rotisserie chicken because, let's
face it, by the time your prepare your vegetables you will need a Lean
that is already cooked or else it will be 7:00 pm before you actually
eat ANYWAY and your last meal was at 2pm. Oh, and you stopped drinking
water around that same time because you didn't want to have to STOP on
your commute home to use the restroom but you ended up having to do that
anyway when you stopped at the store.
5) NOW you are hungry.
With a capital H. And you are tired. And you haven't had anything to
eat or drink since about 2pm so you start to pick at the chicken while
preparing dinner for the family and making the salad or cooked green
beans. It's ok, no biggie. It's only protein.
6) Half an hour
after dinner you FEEL hungry again. You know it has to be emotional,
because you had a really long hard day at work/school/home and now your
spouse reminded you about something you forgot to do today that was
R*E*A*L*L*Y important and you dropped the ball.
7) The kids are
in bed, and you are still 2 meals shy of getting all of your Medifast
Meals in. You don't feel like doubling up on your Medifast Meals at
8:30 pm, so you go in to the pantry just to see if there is anything
quick you can have. Maybe a handful of nuts. That should kind of
offset the 2 Medifast Meals and is much more tasty.
8) After
the handful of nuts remorse sets in. Just a little bit. So you head to
the refrigerator because really the thing you need that will allow you
to unwind from your day is some cheese. You start with a laughing cow
because you can't remember if you had all your healthy fats at dinner.
After all, you don't ACTUALLY measure those healthy fats, I mean who is
going to do THAT. Really? Get a tsp measuring spoon out and MEASURE 1
tsp of olive oil? Who DOES that?
9) After the 2 wedges of
laughing cow cheese you surmise that you are still WAY too wound up and
what would REALLY relax you (and you deserve it) is a glass of wine.
MAN it has been so long since you had a nice glass of wine. Well, about
24 hours anyway, because you had one last night too under similar
conditions. So why not just go one more day. After all, tomorrow is a
new day, right?
If I have described to you anything that sounds
reasonably similar to your experiences on weekdays, just know that I do
NOT have a hidden camera hidden in your pantry, your refrigerator, or
indeed your kitchen. Events described are purely fictional. If any
similarities are noted, they are purely co-incidental.
SO, then the question arises WHAT do you DO about it?
WHY
do you DO it? HOW can you STOP it? WHY does it feel like a switch has
been flipped in your brain, why do you care SO MUCH during the day
about being ON PLAN and then seem to care SO LITTLE at night?
Here's the thing. You do it because it is a habit. Simple. That is it.
You
do it because you have been practicing that habit for some time. It
doesn't make you a bad person. You are not BAD when you are off plan
and GOOD when you are on plan. It is morally neutral. It is SIMPLY a
habit you have gotten into, a habit that is not going to take you where
you say you want to go in your health.
SO then, the next question is HOW do you achieve your health goals?
You
create a NEW habit. You can't SIMPLY focus on NOT DOING what you've
BEEN doing, you need to CREATE something ELSE to do which will be
positive and will take the PLACE of that which you have been doing that
you don't want to do anymore.
Habits are funny things. They seem
to be so unconsciously done. So, the first thing to do is to become
MINDFUL of what you WANT. Mindfulness results in PLANNING and ACTION so
START that process at 2:30 pm, don't wait until you get home. Set your
cell phone alarm RIGHT NOW for 2:30 pm, and then again for 5pm. Why?
At 2:30 pm I want you to eat a Medifast Meal, the one you eat for your
next meal after lunch. If your lunch is Medifast Meal at noon (or your
Lean and Green at a restaurant), then set your alarm for 2:30 pm for
your next meal, and drink 24 ounces of water at that meal. Then at 5:30
pm as you are driving home, have your NEXT medifast meal with 24 more
ounces of water. YES you may be stopping to use the restroom at a
Circle K or Safeway on your way home. No biggie. You have set the
groundwork necessary for you body to be fully nourished, hydrated, and
for you to have stable blood sugars when you walk through your door.
Eat your last Medifast Meal or your Lean and Green at 7:30-8pm.
IF
you arrive home from work/school and you can't really recall the last
time you ate/drank anything, your blood sugar and your hydration is
going to have set you up to be a forager. The stress of the day coupled
with your lack of nourishment/water between the hours of 2pm and 6pm
has set you up physiologically to be in a state where you health goals
may be pushed to the side while you satisfy the cravings that inevitably
will come around 6-8pm as a result. You have habitually satisfied
this very real physiological response with nuts, cheese and wine and now
it is time to take CARE of the physiological aspects that are working
against you during that time frame.
OK. Have that part handled?
Let's move on to the EMOTIONAL side of the habit. ONCE you have dealt
with keeping yourself properly nourished and hydrated in the afternoon
hours you will have a much easier time filling your evening hours with
activities that don't include pantry or refrigerator surfing. Find
something you think you might like to do that BREAKS the habit chain of
what you HAVE been doing.
For example, do you plop down on the
couch and flip on the television after you put the kids to bed? Does
that action cue mental hunger? Then break it up. There are two things
you can do if you are a sit-in-front-of-the-television-and-eat-snacks
type of person. Firstly and most obviously, do something ELSE tonight
when the kids go to sleep. Pick up a book of fiction, write in your
journal, work on that short story or novel you've been meaning to write,
re-organize your sock drawer, ANYTHING that will put a pause in that
habit loop. OR, you can "change the middle".
In Duhigg's book
"Habit" he speaks about changing the middle. What does changing the
middle mean? It means when you have something that cues a particular
habit, in the past you have done an action which gives you the reward.
Whether that reward is feel good endorphins brought on by eating
chocolate, wind-down rewards brought on by drinking wine, or even
experiencing that feel-good substance that is in cheese, there is SOME
reward you are obtaining, directly or indirectly from that habit that
you seek to change. So, next time the cue hits (ie kids go to bed) and
you want the REWARD, change the middle, which is the ACTION that you
previously took to obtain the reward. Do you love to chew when you are
watching TV? It is proven that a simple piece of sugar-free chewing gum
can give you the same pleasure. So instead of eating crackers and
cheese in front of the TV reach for a piece of sugar-free chewing gum.
You may feel like that is a cliche' but it WORKS! Or, chew a piece of
the new TSFL "ChillTime" gum with Thionine in it, which is a natural
relaxant. (I've tried it and it works which is the only reason I'm
recommending it!).
So, you can change the middle OR you can create a brand new routine. Do you want to know what I do?
8pm = usual cue, in the past, to have a snack and a glass of wine
INSTEAD make a cup of herbal tea and chew a piece of sugarfree gum
This
gives me a NEW routine. Once I do this enough times it becomes my
habit. It is helping me work towards my health goals so that is great
all around!
Eventually, if I am diligent at creating and practicing this new habit, I can kick IJDKWHWIGH Syndrome completely.
So can you!
Rinse and Repeat!
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