When you think movies, you probably also think popcorn. Similarly, football and beer go hand in hand. Specific cues in our environment can trigger wanting to eat certain foods. This type of subconscious eating can even drive us to eat when we're full. Therefore, while knowing the general types of foods to eat and ones to avoid is essential for controlling your weight. Translating that knowledge into your daily life takes more than conscious choice. It also requires managing your habits. Habits shape most of our everyday decisions. Yet unlike conscious choices, habits are carried out subconsciously, outside our awareness. They are reflexive and instinctive. We don't control them through determination and will power like we do our deliberate choices. Being aware of and shaping our day-to-day practices is critical for being successful at achieving any goal. Our brain is constantly shifting between two types of thinking, conscious thinking and subconscious, automatic responses. Conscious decision are ones that are in line with our values and beliefs. They are rational and goal-oriented, but they also require a lot of effort and energy. We couldn't possibly get through the day if we spent time deliberating each split-second decision. Imagine getting up each morning and having to think about how to get into the shower, shampoo your hair, button your shirt, or find your way to work. It would be nearly impossible to get through the day. The brain prefers to default to mental shortcuts. It delegates repetitive and routine activities to the subconscious mind. This part of the brain, also called the primitive brain, acts efficiently and reflexively. It frees up our conscious brain to spend time and energy on choices and decisions that need consideration. Habits are subconscious actions that have been repeated enough times in the same context that the context alone, be it a place, a social setting, or smell, can automatically cue the habit. Marketing relies on the associations our mind makes with food. For example, television, magazines, and billboard pictures of decadent chocolate chip cookies or their smell wafting out of a bakery can evoke the expectation that a reward is imminent. In this way, sights and smells can create cravings. Researchers call these advertisements, which often prompt us to engage in unhealthy behaviors, food porn. These environment triggered habits can work to our advantage just as much as they can work to our disadvantage. The primary way to leverage habit is by being aware of the instinctive associations we make with our surroundings, and disrupting and recreating better ones. Indeed, up to 45% of everyday activities are estimated to be behaviors that we tend to repeat in the same physical location every day. Another way is to use our consciously thinking brain to shape our microenvironment so that we default into good decisions. Our subconscious decisions need to be shaped just as much as our conscious choices. They're just as much a part of us, and among the reasons we succeed or fail is our informed choices. When applied to how we control our weight and appetite, our internal signals are regulated by the hypothalamus. It's the part of the brain that integrates our metabolic and cognitive and emotional brains. The hypothalamus processes most decisions outside our consciousness. That means that we make most of our food choices without thought. We don't use mental energy to apply the information we know about healthy choices. The implication is that we not only have to know what to do to control our weight. We also have to structure our environment so that the habits we create and the many decisions we make each day are subconsciously sound decisions. We have to use our thinking brain to create these positive associations. We need to use our mental energy and resources to develop habits that work to our advantage when we are hungry, in a rush, or under stress. Recognizing the vital role and power of habit is the first step to getting there.
