This is a YouTube video titled "Do This Before You Reach For A Treat" containing a monologue or talk recorded on April 4, 2021. The speaker discusses a mindful approach to emotional eating by introducing the concept of the three Fs: Feel, Feed, and Fines, encouraging viewers to recognize their feelings, understand how food addresses those feelings, and find alternative non-food behaviors to satisfy emotional needs.
Let's say someone's listening to this, Mark, and they're sitting on their sofa in the evening. It's 8:30 at night. They've got the television on and they feel like having some ice cream, right? Let's say, because that's pretty common for people to feel like that in the evening. Okay. So, the first F is feel. Just take a pause for a minute. You can write it down if you want or just think, what am I really feeling? Am I hungry for food or am I hungry for something else? Right? So it could be, oh, actually, I'm really stressed today. I've been on Zoom calls all day and I've not managed to go out yet. Or it could be, I've had a row with my partner or the children's bedtime took too long. Or, as many people are facing now, Mark, I'm lonely. You know what? I've not seen anyone. And actually, that food is providing a bit of nourishment for me. So, first F is feel. What are you feeling? The second F is feed. How does food feed that feeling? Okay, I'm feeling stressed. When I eat ice cream for 20 minutes or so, I feel less stressed. Okay, now you're building in awareness, right? So, without that awareness, it can be very hard for some people to change in the long term. And the third F is fines. Now that you know what the feeling is, now that you know how food feeds that feeling, can you find now a non-food behavior to feed the same feeling. So, if you're stressed out, it could be maybe I'll run myself a bath instead of having ice cream, or maybe I'll do 10 minutes of yoga from YouTube, or as we were saying before, if you're lonely, maybe actually you're better off phoning a friend.
