Deborah asked:
It's obvious you've
maintained your slim and trim figure by chic eating. I'd really like to know
how you are able to maintain your healthy eating habits while being a busy
business owner. How do you go about planning your meals and shopping; your food
prep and the choices you make; how do you avoid making wrong choices during
your day? Do you have snacks? Do you ever cave in to cravings or binges?
I constantly struggle
to eat healthy and not deprive myself, but more often than not, I'm finishing
the crumbs in the potato chip bag or making a late night ice cream run.
Deborah, despite my not being overweight, I find eating in a
consistently healthy manner is still not something I have mastered. I find it easy to plan for healthy meals simply by having a loose menu plan
throughout the week and knowing what we will be having the day before so I can
buy veges/defrost meat etc.
Where I do a problem is that I fall into the snacking habit
very easily. I go through phases of
being healthy, and I don’t know if it’s cyclical or some weird kind of
self-sabotage but I then start craving really crappy stuff (and give into those
cravings). So yes, Deborah, I definitely
have cravings and binges.
My ideal life is one where I would eat mostly healthy food
and some treat foods in natural moderation.
I would not feel compelled to eat big quantities of unhealthy
foods.
I wrote a post last year on
self-sabotage
here which I sometimes go back to read to remind myself.
My yo-yoing is confined to about 5kg (11
pounds) and I am lighter than I was at the start of this blog, but I still go
up and down.
I recently came across a cd I’d ordered more than two years
ago from an English lady Gillian Riley of
eatingless.com.
I also have her book ‘
Eating Less’.
I listened to the cd and read the book at the
time, but then forgot all about it.
Revisiting them both again it seems that I am ready to hear the message
better this time.
Gillian says (with lots of research and studies to back it
up) that many of us have an addictive desire to eat, and it is often food that
is low in quality and high in quantity such as junk and snack foods, which are
designed to be addictive with all those tasty but health-depriving ingredients
such as wheat, sugar, salt, fat etc.
One quarter of the Western population is extremely sensitive
to these addictive foods, a half are slightly less sensitive and the last
quarter aren’t sensitive at all, they could take or leave a bar or chocolate
and aren’t really fussed either way. I’m
sure these people could also eat one piece and have the packet staring at them
from the coffee table all night.
Gillian describes that you often get the addictive desire to
eat after a meal, when you want to keep eating even though you feel full
(that’s when I look for something sweet), and often people will overeat at
meals so that they feel so full they are subconsciously over-riding the
addictive desire to eat. I do this! I like to have a nice big meal so that I feel
really full. Most days I have the feeling
that I want to eat something outside of meal times, but when I ask if I’m
hungry, I’m not.
Gillian says that sometimes we just eat because we want
something, and that it is simply a memory of having eaten addictively in this
situation in the past or we have a happy memory involving this food. I do this too!
There is a four step thought process you can go through
whenever you feel the desire for food you don't need, and yes it feels
uncomfortable at first, but it gets easier over time and eventually the desire
melts away to be manageable and second nature to you.
The Four Steps:
Step 1: Is to recognise that you are having a desire
and temptation for food you don’t need.
Name it at the time it is happening.
Put words to it and say something to yourself like ‘This is an addictive
desire to eat.’ This is a simple but
crucial step. The more aware you are,
the more you will be able to regain control.
Your addictive
appetite is quite predictable. One time
it often occurs is at the end of the evening meal. Unless your meals are huge, you will probably
get the urge to continue eating at the end of a meal.
For most people who
overeat, feeling ‘unsatisfied’ is the worst thing in the world to feel. Yet this sense of feeling unsatisfied is in
fact our key to freedom. You don’t need
to deny that unsatisfied feeling. You
need to start to see that feeling as they key to change your life. Name it and put words to it: ‘This sense of emptiness or feeling
unsatisfied is my addictive desire to eat’.
Step 2: Remind yourself that you’ve always got the
freedom to overeat. You’ve got the
option of eating whatever it is that is tempting you. You can’t help being tempted, but it’s entirely
up to you how you respond to that temptation.
The biggest key to this technique is that you never, ever have to let
any addictive appetite go unsatisfied if you don’t want to. You can continue to satisfy it every time it
happens, every day for the rest of your life.
You will be overeating of course, but it is your choice.
It will help you
greatly to choose the consequences of your overeating as well as the food. Many people (me) blank out on the
consequences and just focus on how good something is going to taste, forgetting
how bad they feel afterwards. Choose the
complete picture. Gillian suggests
making a list of all the consequences you don't like about overeating.
If you don’t feel like
you’ve got the choice, you will likely feel like rebelling and eating
everything in sight. There may be a fear
that if you feel completely free to choose to eat what you want, you may eat
and eat until you pop. Gillian suggests
that if you genuinely choose, this will not happen. Firstly, choose the overeating, and know that
you can continue to do that. During the
times you are feeling out of control, you may start thinking ‘I’ve got to stop
eating this’ and deny yourself choice.
Deliberately turn it around and tell yourself ‘I am totally free to
overeat. I don’t have to make any
changes.’
Step 3: Acknowledge your addictive desire and allow
yourself to feel it. You’re feeling
tempted and you want more, you say yes to that feeling. Let yourself be with it and in it. It will help you to notice what this feeling
of addictive desire is. Is it a hunger,
a void, a yearning? Is there a physical
sensation with it? It might feel like a
type of hunger. The best way to describe
it is that it feels uncomfortable and unsatisfied.
Instead of resenting,
allow yourself to feel it. Yes, it feels
uncomfortable, but I’m going to let myself feel it. The reason you let yourself feel unsatisfied
desire is because it is your process of healing. It will change your life and it could, quite
literally, save your life. Part of
accepting your addictive appetite is forgiving yourself for having it in the
first place. You are not a bad or greedy
person. You will have eaten addictively
in the past and it’s just your memory of that.
Maybe you didn’t know how to do things differently back then.
Accept the addictive
desire without blame or judgement. Let
yourself feel the uncomfortable feeling rather than try to distract
yourself. Even just doing that makes the
feeling more manageable.
Step 4: Reminding yourself why you are letting
yourself feel unsatisfied. Remember the
trade-off you are making. Recall the
ways your life is better when you don’t satisfy your addictive desire so
often. Make a list to remind yourself in
the future.
The goal is to think
through these four steps pretty much every time you think about food. You can go through the four steps when you
are at the shops buying food. Notice
when you go down certain aisles your addictive desire flares up at your
favourite items. You make the decision
to eat something when you buy it, whether it’s eating it on the car in the way
home or the next day. Also, think how
you eat something. If you eat the whole
packet in one sitting, buy it (or not buy it) based on that fact.
One final piece of
advice that Gillian has is to not try to apply this perfectly. Low self-esteem is tied up in perfectionism
and it’s a tall order to say that you will never overeat or eat junk food ever
again. This is black and white thinking
where we are eating salads 100% of the time or are out of control eating junk
all over the place. If you are too rigid
and then have a blow-out, you will resist going back to that prison and it’s
like dieting all over again. Gillian
suggests ‘eating a bit of tasty rubbish’ every now and then in a way that works
for you.
It feels like a very calm way of living, and that’s what my
goal is. I’d also add that it’s human
nature to stumble every now and again, and that the most important thing is not
to give up. I know it feels hopeless
when you’re knee deep in chocolate wrappers and I have been there many
times. I’ve been eating junk almost this
entire weekend in fact.
I’m not prepared to give up though, and just accept that this is
how things are. I’m prepared to start
again from the beginning and persevere.
There are all sorts of motivational quotes about never giving up, you
only lose if you stop, it feels darkest before the dawn, etc and they are all
true. Don’t give up on yourself. Inspire yourself to be happier and better,
and forgive yourself. Forgive yourself for eating obsessively in the past, forgive
yourself for being too fat and forgive yourself for not being able to stop at
one. You are more than a block of
chocolate or a bag of potato chips. Forgive anyone who has ever made you feel bad about the way you eat. I am
writing this as much for myself as for anyone reading this post.
This is an extremely long post, but I feel it is important
not to hide and pretend to be perfect. For
the most part I am a happy person and am fine with my size and how I look, but
I do have this funny little screwed-up corner with food issues. I know there are lots of us out there like
this so let’s not feel less than, or isolated.
There is nothing wrong with us. Let’s give ourselves a break, really be okay
with who we are, love ourselves and get on with creating a beautiful life
instead of temporarily soothing ourselves with junk food (our drug) which does
not help things in the long term.
Anyone with me?
