Patients who come to the Bariatric Surgery Department to have weight loss surgery, many of them have had a confusion that they don’t know why they want to eat, and they don’t seem to be hungry, but they just want to eat, that is, they are not clear about their motivation to eat. First, why do we want to eat? In fact, the motivation to eat can be simply divided into physiological motivation to eat and non-physiological motivation to eat. The motivation to eat is physiological in order to fill the stomach; the motivation to eat is non-physiological when it is not to fill the stomach, or when it is not under the condition of hunger but under some specific scenarios. Non-physiological eating is related to the rewarding effect of the brain. Initially, to ensure that we eat and survive, when we fill our stomachs, the brain releases dopamine to give us pleasure and tell us that eating is the right thing to do. The reward effect reinforces our behavior and makes us understand that eating can be pleasurable, and this pleasure can make many events go smoothly, so we will want to rely on the act of eating in some scenarios to get more pleasure. For example, once upon a time, chatting is just chatting without much dopamine boost, especially when meeting between strangers, it will seem awkward, so we might as well eat something and everyone will be in a better mood, and we will map the good mood brought by eating to the person we are eating with. When several people maintain the act of eating at the same time, the relationship seems to go further, so the brain will have a sense of “building social relationships” to achieve, releasing some hormones to give rewards, and the next time when socializing, will also want to eat to strengthen the process, the motivation for eating in these cases can be considered as social. Whether it is physiological eating or non-physiological eating, it is part of our life. Second, are you clear about your motivation to eat? I have been in the weight loss industry for so long, on the topic of eating motivation, I found that the following situations are more common: 1. Hungry to dare to eat Many people have a very idealized goal – only when hungry to eat, if not hungry to eat, they will condemn themselves, thinking that this is a manifestation of the lack of “self-control”. But the fact is, we humans are definitely not pursuing just to live, but also to live happily, if only to allow themselves to eat because of the physiological motivation to eat, it is essentially deprived of the right to be human. 2, do not know why to eat Some people often eat without any motive, for example, may just glance at the table there is a cookie, without any processing and thinking, will be very casual to pick up and eat, and will not even realize what they ate; work, may also mechanically pick up the food at hand to start eating, eat a period of time before suddenly find themselves eating like waking up something. People who are immersed in their emotions also easily lose the ability to be aware of this. In a bad mood, want to eat something delicious to make themselves happy, and after eating, they are briefly happy, so their brains start to empty out and start processing the previous complicated events, but their hands and mouths will not stop, and they will still keep the mechanical eating action. 3, inaccurate perception of eating motivation Many people will simply say “because I want to eat” when describing their motivation to eat, but why do you want to eat? This answer is crucial, only to figure out why they want to eat, in order to start from the source to control the diet, but many people are difficult to give an accurate definition of their own motivation to eat. If you can correctly understand your motivation to eat, it will help you find the source of the problem and get out of the binge eating loop.