Before You Blame Your Willpower and Understanding the Feelings & Daily Habits Behind Your Food Choices
Written by Charmie Mohnot, Functional Nutritionist, Lifestyle Medicine Coach & Founder of Health Forest
Dr. Charmie Mohnot is a Functional Nutritionist, Lifestyle Medicine Coach and founder of Health Forest. She holds a Pharm.D., an MSc in Cancer and a certification in Functional Medicine in Clinical Nutrition. She combines nutrition, emotional awareness and habit coaching to support gut health, women’s health, autoimmune conditions and weight management.
The food you promised yourself you would avoid is in your hand. You have had a demanding day, dinner is still unplanned, and you are too tired to think about another decision. Before you have finished eating, you are already planning how to be stricter tomorrow.
It is easy to call this a lack of willpower. It takes a little more curiosity to ask what brought you to this moment.
Perhaps you missed lunch. Perhaps an uncomfortable conversation has stayed with you all afternoon. Perhaps you slept poorly and have spent the day trying to keep going. Your choice may reflect several needs arriving together.
This is where I begin in my approach at Health Forest. Alongside discussing food, we explore the circumstances, emotions and routines that influence eating. A plan becomes more useful when it accounts for the person who has to live with it.
Look beyond the last thing you ate
When someone wants to change their eating habits, the conversation often begins with a list of foods. Yet knowing what to eat does not guarantee having the time, energy, ingredients or confidence to prepare it.
A packed lunch may be a sensible recommendation, but it needs somewhere to be stored and a realistic opportunity to be eaten. A complicated breakfast may offer good nutrition while being completely impractical for a rushed morning.
I find it helpful to ask, “Where does this plan become difficult during your day?” That question makes room for an honest answer. We can then work on a specific obstacle rather than repeatedly handing someone an ideal routine they cannot use.
Notice the emotions in the background
Food can offer pleasure, connection, reassurance or a welcome break. These are ordinary parts of eating. The aim is to recognize when one response has become so automatic that we no longer consider what else we need.
Stress may make one person snack more and another lose their appetite until evening. A familiar food might become associated with switching off after work. Neither pattern tells us everything about the person, but both give us something useful to explore.
Cortisol helps the body respond to stress and regulate energy. However, cravings or weight changes alone cannot tell us that cortisol is too high. It is more helpful to examine food intake, sleep, health history and daily demands than to assume every struggle has the same hormonal explanation.
Hunger and cravings can share the same moment
“Am I hungry, or am I emotional?” sounds like a simple question. In practice, the answer can be both.
You can need nourishment and want comfort. You can be hungry and specifically want something sweet. A preference for one food does not make physical hunger less valid.
Instead of testing whether you deserve to eat, consider when you last ate, whether it was enough, what your body feels like and what happened just before the urge appeared.
Imagine two evenings when you reach for biscuits. On the first, lunch was small and dinner is late. On the second, you have eaten adequately but feel hurt after an argument. These are everyday instances, not reported client cases. The visible action is similar, while the needs behind it may differ.
The first evening may call for food straight away. The second may call for emotional support alongside whatever you choose to eat. Enjoying the biscuit remains an option in either situation.
Use a pause to understand your needs
In my coaching, I use four simple steps: observe, pause, reconsider and respond.
Observe. Describe the moment without judging it. “I feel tense. I have been working for hours. My stomach feels empty.” This helps separate what you notice from the criticism that may follow.
Pause. Take a comfortable breath or briefly put down the phone. The pause is an opportunity to check in, not a requirement to delay nourishment. Symptoms of low blood glucose need prompt attention according to an appropriate treatment plan.
Reconsider. Ask, “What would support me now?” You may need a meal, rest, company, reassurance or several of these. You do not have to identify the answer perfectly.
Respond. Choose one manageable action. Arrange food, take a break or reach out to someone. If you still want the snack, allow yourself to enjoy it. The exercise has value because you paid attention, even when your food choice stays the same.
This practice works best alongside adequate nourishment and practical support. It cannot resolve every cause of difficult eating on its own.
Include sleep and digestion in the conversation
A night of poor sleep can affect appetite, concentration and emotional regulation the next day. It can also influence how the body responds to insulin. Someone who feels depleted may struggle to cook or organize meals, even with a clear intention to do so.
Digestive discomfort can influence choices too. A person who worries about bloating may begin avoiding lunch before meetings, then become intensely hungry later. In conditions such as irritable bowel syndrome, communication between the gut and brain can affect bowel function and discomfort. Worry may accompany symptoms as well as influence them.
These connections do not mean symptoms should be dismissed as stress. Ongoing digestive problems, persistent fatigue, unexplained weight changes or significant sleep difficulties deserve appropriate assessment. Likewise, an afternoon craving does not establish that blood glucose has fallen abnormally low.
An integrative approach keeps the wider picture in view while recognizing when medical care is needed.
Make self-care easier to carry out
Awareness is useful, but the next step often involves a practical adjustment. Keep a simple meal available for a late evening. Decide on an accessible lunch before the workday fills up. If bedtime keeps slipping because the evening is your only personal time, explore whether a little of that time can happen earlier.
Hydration may need an equally straightforward solution: accessible water and a reminder linked to an existing routine, within any individual fluid guidance. Every missed glass does not need a psychological explanation.
Specific plans can reduce uncertainty. “If I cannot cook tonight, I will use the meal I have ready” gives you something to do when life changes. “I must be more disciplined” leaves the same problem waiting for you tomorrow.
Stop turning one choice into a verdict
An unplanned meal does not require you to abandon the day. Yet thoughts such as “I have ruined everything” can make returning to a routine harder than the original choice did.
Try deciding in advance how you will continue. Resume your usual eating pattern at the next appropriate meal rather than compensating with restriction. Review the difficulty if there is something to learn, then make the adjustment you need.
Pay attention, too, to statements such as “I do not deserve dinner” or “I have not done enough to rest.” Food and rest are basic needs. Repeated loss-of-control eating, compensatory behaviors or substantial distress call for qualified support.
Enjoyment also needs room. Wanting a favorite food does not, by itself, establish addiction or reveal a dopamine problem. Concern is better guided by recurring loss of control and the effect on daily life than by guilt about liking something.
Build confidence through ordinary practice
For one week, choose a single recurring moment to observe. Briefly record the situation, your last meal, how you slept, what you felt and what helped. Use the notes to look for a workable change rather than to award yourself a score.
Progress may be noticing hunger earlier, making lunch more reliable, asking for support or returning to your routine after a disrupted evening. Habits take time, and there is no fixed deadline by which a new behavior must feel effortless.
Over time, repeated experiences of meeting your needs can help you trust your own decisions. The aim is to become more capable of caring for yourself through the days that actually happen.
Before promising to try harder tomorrow, ask what would make tomorrow easier. Sometimes the most useful change is a prepared meal. Sometimes it is a boundary, a conversation or an earlier night. Understanding the need gives you somewhere practical to begin.
Read more from Charmie Mohnot
Charmie Mohnot, Functional Nutritionist, Lifestyle Medicine Coach & Founder of Health Forest
Dr. Charmie Mohnot is a Functional Nutritionist, Lifestyle Medicine Coach and founder of Health Forest. She holds a Doctor of Pharmacy and an MSc in Cancer from the University of Central Lancashire, UK, alongside certification in Functional Medicine in Clinical Nutrition and further qualifications in clinical nutrition, nutrigenomics counselling and Core Somatic Integration Therapy. She helps people turn health advice into lasting habits by addressing both their nutritional needs and the emotional patterns shaping their daily choices in lifestyle-based conditions, GUT health and Women’s health.
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