Category: Companions
The Transformed One
Transformation means you’ve genuinely changed — not just behaviors, but your relationship with food, your automatic responses, your identity. Real transformation is structural, becoming your new normal. The old you made certain choices by default; the new you makes different ones. Automatic responses have changed, identity has shifted, setbacks don’t spiral. This companion covers what transformation means, markers of transformation, recognizing it, and its ongoing nature. (3 min read)
The Comfort Zone
You’ve reached a comfortable weight but not your goal weight. Comfort is seductive — urgency fades, easy gains are captured, external pressure diminishes. Research by Locke and Latham on goal setting shows meaningful goals drive continued effort, and specific demanding goals outperform vague ones. Is your original goal still meaningful, or should it be revised? If you decide to press on, the best-evidenced move is monitoring: across 138 randomized studies, getting people to track progress raised goal attainment, and it worked better when results were reported to someone and written down. This companion covers why comfort emerges, comfort as trap…
The Pantry Depth
Deep pantries become food graveyards — items pushed back, forgotten, eventually discovered on a bored evening. Research by Rolls shows variety increases consumption — and it is variety in kind rather than in number: twenty things that differ in texture and shape are a bigger problem than twenty flavors of the same cracker. The back of your pantry is a museum of intentions that didn’t stick. Pull everything out, sort, check dates, make decisions. This companion covers the archeology of the pantry, why depth is dangerous, the excavation exercise, and maintaining minimum viable inventory. (4 min read)
The Glycemic Index
The glycemic index measures how quickly food raises blood sugar, but it’s not the whole story. Research by Zeevi found enormous individual variation in responses to identical foods. GI doesn’t account for portion size, ignores insulin response, varies with preparation and combinations. Watermelon has high GI but low carb per serving; ice cream has moderate GI but isn’t health food. This companion covers how GI works, its four major limitations, and how to use it wisely as one tool among many. (4 min read)
The Evolved One
Evolution means leaving things behind — behaviors, beliefs, identities that no longer serve you. Research by Prochaska on the stages of change shows real transformation is structural, becoming your new normal. The evolved eater doesn’t resist old behaviors through heroic effort; they’ve genuinely moved beyond them. What have you left behind? Late-night eating, emotional eating, “I have no willpower”? This companion covers behaviors left behind, beliefs outgrown, recognizing your evolution, and honoring how far you’ve come. (4 min read)
The External Validation Need
External validation is unreliable fuel — people don’t always notice, comments taper off, visible progress slows. Research by Deci and Ryan on self-determination shows internal motivation is more sustainable than external rewards. Connect your eating to your own values, measure what matters to you, find satisfaction in the process. This companion covers why external validation is fragile, building internal motivation, identity over validation, and what to do when the compliments stop coming. (3 min read)
The Baking Supplies
Baking supplies are permission waiting to happen. Flour, sugar, butter, chocolate chips — individually innocent, together they’re a cake. Research by Guyenet shows food availability increases consumption; ingredient availability increases production of tempting foods. If impulse baking consistently leads to eating what you baked, the supplies are the upstream problem. This companion covers the baking trap, the availability effect, auditing your supplies, and reducing the impulse-baking pattern. (3 min read)
The Working Vacation
Business dinners every night for a week — loss of routine, social pressure, rich food, compounding damage. One of those is an association and one is measured: eating in company is associated with eating more, scaling with table size in seven-day food diaries, while eating with your attention elsewhere raises intake at the time and again one to two hours later, because the meal never gets recorded in memory. Success comes from advance decisions: which courses, how much alcohol, what’s non-negotiable. Order protein and vegetables, ignore the bread basket, decline dessert gracefully — and register what you ate even while…
Satiety Hormones
Several hormones signal fullness: CCK responds to fat and protein, PYY rises as food moves through the gut, GLP-1 slows gastric emptying. Research by Batterham shows protein triggers the strongest PYY response. These hormones respond to actual nutrients — protein, fiber, fat — not liquid calories or ultra-processed foods that bypass the satiety system. This companion covers CCK, PYY, GLP-1, and leptin, what triggers them, and what doesn’t activate your body’s fullness signaling. (4 min read)
The Overthinking Trap
Overthinking exhausts you because you have too many decisions. The familiar explanation is decision fatigue, a model that has not settled — but the fix does not depend on which way it lands. The solution: fewer decisions, not better deliberation. Create defaults, rules, routines. Eat the same breakfast. Have go-to meals. Define foods as “always,” “never,” or “sometimes.” This companion covers why overthinking happens, how to simplify through templates and rules, routines that work, and when thinking is actually appropriate — upstream, not in the moment. (4 min read)