If you listened to episode one, you already have the foundation. An urge is a signal. Today we're doing the next step, reading the signal because one of the reasons urges feel so defeating is that people treat every urge like it's the same problem. And when you use the wrong tool, then you feel like the tool didn't work. And then you make it mean you must have done something wrong. Here's the big idea for today. The same urge feeling can come from different drivers, and different drivers need different responses. So I'm going to give you an urge map. Think of it like a quick sorting system. When the urge hits, you don't have to analyze your childhood or read tea leaves. You just have to answer a few questions about your current state and choose the tool that fits. Here's the name of the game for this season, matching the tool to the mechanism. Before I teach the map, let me give you a quick example, because this is where people can get confused. Imagine two clients and the same moment they're standing in the kitchen at night, staring into their respective pantries in their respective houses. Client A is under fueled. His lunch was light, his afternoon was chaos and his dinner was pushed late. The pantry urge is hunger. Wearing a costume client B is depleted. Not hungry necessarily just fried. His nervous system wants the fastest off switch from worrying about his job. It's the same scene, but very different mechanisms. And if we treated both like emotional eating, we'd miss what actually helps each individual. Okay, here are the five most common urge types that I see in my practice. And I'm going to say this up front, you might have one primary type, but urges also stack. It may not always fit neatly into one category. Hunger plus exhaustion plus autopilot. That's a very real combo. Type one the low fuel urge. Your body, in other words, needs food. This urge is about under fueling. It's not complicated. It's just the bill coming due. Some clues that your urges may be the low fuel type. If you have long gaps between meals, that's a clue. If you've had a light lunch or feel like you've been being good, or you've been busy and powered through with less food than usual, or being more active than usual, you may feel this type of urge spike in the late afternoon or evening. What it needs is food that actually counts. Not a lecture, not a walk around the block food. If you want a simple rule, if you're trying to solve a fuel urge with willpower, you're going to lose because it's not a willpower problem. And the age old battle of human versus hunger, hunger wins every time. If the problem is low fuel availability, The solution is nourishment. Here are some tools that you'll need. A real snack with carbs and protein, or a more adequate dinner, or maybe a planned afternoon snack so the urge doesn't show up. Yelling at nine p m. Note that low fuel urges don't only come from calorie deficits, they can also show up when you're unintentionally low on fat or on carbohydrates. If you aren't sure whether you're under fueling. Try a simple experiment for a week, add an afternoon anchor, snack with carbs and protein, and notice what happens to your evening urgency. Type two the depletion urge. In other words, your capacity is low. This urge is about being drained, tired, done. It's the end of day collapse. Clues you're dealing with this type of urge include poor sleep the night before they hit, after a long day, or when you've recently been doing heavy emotional labor. They can come up when you're making big decisions, doing a lot of caregiving in your life or trying to survive. Lots of people needing you. Energy. The urge often comes with thoughts like, I don't care or I'm too tired to think. What does it need? It needs less load and a soft landing. This type of urge is a signal that you've overdrawn the bank account of what you can do for others, and you need to make some deposits by receiving instead of giving. Here are some tools to help. You might need ten minutes of downshift after dinner. A period of time where you make fewer decisions. You might need a simple evening food plan so that tired you isn't negotiating. It may help going to bed earlier as a strategy, not as a punishment. Sometimes the most urge proof move is literally to lie down when the urge hits. You'd be amazed how often this works when you're truly spent getting to lay down can feel so good that staying there feels more necessary and satisfying than trying to get up and go find solace in a bag of chips. Type three The pain relief urge. In other words, you need comfort. This is about emotional and physical pain relief. It comes with overwhelm, loneliness, resentment, boredom, overstimulation. These all cause some degree of emotional discomfort. Plus, having a headache or a backache, digestive discomfort, or other physical pain will only add to the motivation to do something to lessen the pain. Urges of this type are trying to change your internal state by using food. Here are some clues. The urge spikes when the day gets very quiet or after you've gotten bad news. This type of urge arises after conflict, after you've made a mistake, or when you feel alone, worried or sad, or when you finally stop moving. They can be caused solely by emotional pain, but physical ouchies only add to them. What this type of urge needs is soothing and connection. Here are some tools. Name the feeling in two words, such as I'm tired and lonely. I'm resentful and overwhelmed. Another tool that you can use is reducing stimulation. Try doing one comforting thing that isn't food. First, try reaching out to people. Remember, turn to people, not food. And again, this isn't necessarily a rule, but it's an option. A way to steer yourself toward the thing that may work better than food ever did. Remember, that connection with other humans eases sensations of pain even if the cause of the pain remains. So calling your friend is a great idea, even if your friend can't do the slightest thing about the exact issue stressing you out. Handling difficulty alone hurts more than handling it when you're not alone. We have research to back this up. Food can still be part of how you comfort yourself, but the goal is widening the relief menu so food isn't carrying the entire job. Type four Scarcity and rebellion urges. This is the I can't, I shouldn't. It's my last chance type of urge. The urge isn't really for cookies, per se. It's for freedom from the feeling of being restricted. Usually this is weight related food scarcity and rebellion, but not always. People who put very harsh limitations and expectations of any kind on themselves are often prey for this type of urge, and this really commonly co-occurs with the first type of urge, I mentioned the low fuel driven urge. Here are some clues that you're dealing with Scarcity and rebellion urges. Dieting, rigid food rules, compensating after eating, weighing yourself frequently, telling yourself things like I'll start tomorrow or I'll cut back next week. These only predict food scarcity and can fire up rebellion urges. Also, if you find yourself cataloging all of the things you didn't eat, be careful. When I hear someone saying so I passed on donuts at work. I didn't eat any of my kids Halloween candy. I don't drink soda. I don't drink beer. I know I'm witnessing a person reinforcing a scarcity mindset. Focusing on all the things that we don't have, can't have, or gave up creates a headspace in which we feel shorted, Deprived and sometimes owed. This is often a predecessor to the. Scarcity and rebellion urges. scarcity and rebellion urges sometimes feel justified. As in I deserve a burger and fries because poor me didn't get X, Y, or Z or I hardly get anything for myself. What this urge needs is a believable. Yes. Scarcity mindsets respond super well to permission, but it doesn't need to be the free for all type of permission that can trigger binging. Instead, I'd like you to try permission with structure, Scarcity and rebellion urges are all about the black and white, where you're either locked down or you're doing the food equivalent of swinging from the chandeliers. It's either one extreme or it's the other. Permission with structure, on the other hand, loosens the rules somewhat without spiraling into chaos. It might sound like I'm going to include a small treat a few times a week instead of going no sugar, which lasts approximately four and a half days until I snap and eat seven candy bars. One of my favorite forms of permission with structure that I often use with my clients looks like this. If they're hungry at night and they want to snack, they choose from a pre-selected after hours menu. This would be a short list of options that are satisfying and enjoyable, but not likely to end up causing a binge. One of my clients' lists includes pistachios in the shell, you know, so you've got to take them all out. Turkey or beef jerky, Yogurt or cottage cheese and fruit. These are all great candidates, and they'll satisfy hunger without being as tricky to portion as cookies, ice cream, or nachos. Sometimes permission with structure looks like permission to eat the particular foods that have caused you trouble in the past, but to only eat them in certain circumstances, such as if I want to eat cookies, I'll have them at the dinner table with my family. But I won't eat cookies on the couch watching television because that tends to lead places I don't want to go. The goal is reducing scarcity, so urgency and rebellion also go down. If you suspect your particular flavor of scarcity, mindset and ensuing rebellion is about more than food. Like it's about time or money or affection, then other forms of permission with structure might be just the thing. Type five the autopilot urge. These urges are like the Old Faithful Geyser or Halley's Comet. They are utterly predictable. Same time, same place. Same sequence. Dinner, couch, screen, pantry or driving home on highway twenty one. Store snack aisle. Same chair. What clues indicate that you're dealing with this type of urge? When you're hit by an autopilot urge, you might not even notice it hit you. It's really subtle. You may say, I didn't even decide. My body just sort of goes through the motions. Or you might think I'm doing it before I even notice. This type of urge needs pattern interruption, not self-criticism. Just the pattern interruption. Here are some tools that you can use for this type of urge. First, if you understand the chain of cues, you can break one link. This might mean changing the scene, changing the lighting, or adding friction. For a few clients, it's been unplugging your television. Think of your evening routine like a line of dominoes. If you remove even one domino, one link in that chain, the entire sequence can stop. It can also help to set up a kitchen closed ritual, like wiping the counters and turning off the lights. Brushing your teeth can work. making a mug of tea can similarly fit the bill for reminding you that you're eating, day has concluded. Many clients of mine have proven that it's effective to get their hands doing something like knitting, crocheting, or doing their nails, which nullifies the ability to automatically start eating. The same goes for taking a walk during the time of day when you may find yourself automatically getting food, strolling around your neighborhood, you're just much less prone to accidentally make yourself a PB and J sandwich. Now, here's the part that makes this map actually usable. When an urge hits, just ask five questions. You actually don't even need all five every time. Just start wherever feels obvious. One. When did I last eat? Enough? Two. How tired am I? Three. What feeling am I having? Four. AM I in a scarcity mindset? Five. AM I on autopilot? And then choose a tool that matches the mechanism. If it's a fuel urge, eat something real. Depletion. Urge. Try reducing load, laying down and going to bed earlier. If it's a pain relief urge, soothe. Name and connect. Got a scarcity urge? Think about planned permission. If it's an autopilot urge, to break one link in the chain. And if you're not sure, start with the basics. Eat something real. Sit down, slow down and see if the urgency drops. A lot of urges get quieter when your body feels safer. Here's this week's practice. Just one experiment, not a makeover. Pick your most common urge type right now and run one experiment for seven days. If you have fuel urges, here's your experiment. Try an afternoon snack, something between three and five p m for depletion urges. Your experiment is to take a ten minute soft landing after dinner. Pain relief urges. Here's your experiment. I'd like you to try the two word feeling label and one moment of contact with another human scarcity urge. Your experiment one planned yes. Which includes permission with structure, autopilot urge experiment. You guys are going to break one link in the evening chain, and you can try different links And at the end of the week, don't ask did I do it perfectly? Ask? Did it lower my urgency even ten percent? If so, that's progress. Next episode we're going to talk about why urges can feel so persuasive even when the eating isn't that enjoyable. We'll talk about wanting versus liking and how that helps you stop treating cravings like a verdict. I'm with you. This is treatable, and I'm really glad you're here. If the show is helping, a five star rating or a short review makes a big difference. It helps other people find this work. I'm Georgie and I will see you next time.