Q&A 22 – What does looking upstream have to do with diet and weight-loss?

When we use the phrases ‘upstream’ and ‘downstream’ in the conversation about the nature of Thought, how does that relate to resolving an unwanted habit like overeating? What does the way we look at our thinking, and whether it’s upstream or downstream, have to do with weight-loss? Today’s episode answers these questions.You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below. Show Notes:* What does looking upstream or downstream mean? * Examples of getting caught in our thinking when we look downstream * What does looking upstream entail? * How does looking upstream resolve an unwanted habit like overeating?Resources related to this episode:* My book: It’s Not About the Food * Online course: Freedom From OvereatingTranscript of EpisodeHello Explorers, and welcome to another Q&A episode of Unbroken. I’m your host, Alexandra Amor. Today our question is, what does it mean to look upstream when we’re talking about diet and weight loss? Someone that I was interviewing recently touched on the subject of looking upstream or downstream. And this was something that confused me a little bit at the beginning of this exploration. And also, previously to that I remember some family members talking about looking upstream versus looking downstream years ago, and I didn’t really know what it meant. And now today, I find it a really, really useful way to look at what we’re exploring with the three principles understanding. I’m going to talk about that specifically, as it relates to resolving an overeating habit, and to diets and weight loss and all that kind of stuff.In this understanding, in the Three Principles Understanding, we’re always looking upstream. And I’m going to come back to that in just a second. First, what I want to do is talk about what it means to look downstream. In our culture, currently, what we tend to do reflexively, and because that’s what other people do, and because that’s where our culture seems to be focused, is we tend to look downstream at any given issue. When you think about a river, which is really all this metaphor is about whatever’s going on downstream from where you are, is the stuff that metaphorically is more granular, more detailed, definitely. We’re more absorbed in the content of the things when we’re looking downstream at them. The reason we use this metaphor is because what happens is when we look upstream, and we understand what’s going on up there, then the things that are downstream resolve themselves. Let me give you a specific example, so that we’re on the same page. When we think about dieting and weight loss and resolving an unwanted overeating habit, very often, and I absolutely did this, I spent a lot of my time looking downstream at all the details around that over eating habit. * When did it occur during the day? * What kind of foods was I attracted to? * Did I feel like I had an unhealthy preoccupation with or an addiction to? * And what sort of things could trigger me to want to engage in my overeating habit? * Did any of my specific other kinds of habits in my life, or thoughts about things have an effect on my overeating habit? I would get really caught up in all those kinds of details that, in the end, I realized didn’t actually matter. And that’s why we’re going to talk about what’s upstream.