Rigid mindsets pertaining to food

[Steve]

I wanted to post something to maybe stimulate some good conversation around here.

Scarcity of enjoyable foods will pretty much always make them more desirable. Which is why I find the more liberal people are with their food choices, the more consistent they tend to be. What's more is the fact that it's consistency without effort. Rather than walking around anxious about food rules, fretting over "bad" foods, and feeling guilty at the smallest indiscretions... they're simply eating when they're hungry and stopping when they're full.

It's the folks who box themselves in with rigidity who lose control of their appetites and lose their sense of physiological vs. psychological hunger. They're always craving and therefore they're always caving. Each cave is followed by a hefty dose of guilt. Once they've beaten themselves up enough, it's back to a punishing regiment of dichotomous food labeling and inflexible dieting.

I don't know about you, but this doesn't sound like a healthy and productive relationship with food. It's time to think in terms of what really matters - total daily calories and relatively loose macronutrient goals. You can have your cake and your health if you're sensible about it. Better yet, when you include things you love, you're also maintaining your sanity.

Want to know an even better side effect?

You're giving yourself permission to eat food. Permission nixes the sense of deprivation and the need for rebellion with binges.

There's a smarter way. You simply need to believe it and loosen the choke hold you have on your perceptions about "good" and "bad" food.

 

[Omega]

I wish that I was better at doing things in moderation...

I can see what you are saying - but know myself well enough to know that a lot of things get eaten if they get bought... I look in envy at people that can have one small slice of cake and not have another until another day...

My husband (Rod) is trying to lose weight now - and just this weekend he was annoyed because he bought a multibag of 6 or 8 bags of crisps and he ate all the bags in one sitting...

We were just saying that it would have been easier if he had not bought them... It is much easier to stay away from that aisle of the shop and not buy - than to buy and have the tempting food looking at you and saying "eat me" until it was gone... (Did you know that food speaks English in this house... I swear it says "eat me")...

 

[Steve]

I can definitely appreciate your experience. And truth be told, we know enough about the neurochemistry of appetite to know that it's going to vary quite a bit from person to person - there are some people that are beyond resolve via "reprogramming" of perceptions.

What I've found over the years, though, is that *most* people who tend to binge do so because of the habitual mindsets / thought patterns they have in relation to food. Most notably they label things in such a way to feel as if what they're eating is horrible and wrong and they have ingrained the binge -> punish/restrict mentality to such a degree that, when they do in fact binge, they're doing so because of the inevitable and severe restriction that follows. "Since I'm not going to be allowed to eat this ever again, I might as well force as much of it down now while I'm fist deep in it." And the restriction that follows, for most, feeds the perpetual pattern as the next binge is destined the moment the restriction started.

Once we break this pattern and perception pattern, which is easier said than done (especially for some people), they gain the ability to eat in moderation and without volatility.

Again though, it's different for everyone and I'm working with my own sample size of clientele which obviously isn't indicative of the universe. It's a complex matter... frustrating too. I hate seeing people restrict when it's not necessary... especially when said restriction blurs their ability to dissociate physiological hunger from psychological hunger.

And what's even more frustrating for me is when I encounter someone whose code can't be cracked - whose cycle can't be broken. Of course there are the others who tend to thrive on restriction. They actually to lose and maintain said loss without the volatility of binges and such. In my experience though, they're an exception to the norm.

 

[hollybelle]

I wanted to post something to maybe stimulate some good conversation around here.

Scarcity of enjoyable foods will pretty much always make them more desirable. Which is why I find the more liberal people are with their food choices, the more consistent they tend to be. What's more is the fact that it's consistency without effort. Rather than walking around anxious about food rules, fretting over "bad" foods, and feeling guilty at the smallest indiscretions... they're simply eating when they're hungry and stopping when they're full.

It's the folks who box themselves in with rigidity who lose control of their appetites and lose their sense of physiological vs. psychological hunger. They're always craving and therefore they're always caving. Each cave is followed by a hefty dose of guilt. Once they've beaten themselves up enough, it's back to a punishing regiment of dichotomous food labeling and inflexible dieting.

I don't know about you, but this doesn't sound like a healthy and productive relationship with food. It's time to think in terms of what really matters - total daily calories and relatively loose macronutrient goals. You can have your cake and your health if you're sensible about it. Better yet, when you include things you love, you're also maintaining your sanity.

Want to know an even better side effect?

You're giving yourself permission to eat food. Permission nixes the sense of deprivation and the need for rebellion with binges.

There's a smarter way. You simply need to believe it and loosen the choke hold you have on your perceptions about "good" and "bad" food.

My girlfriend and I were JUST having this conversation. What you described here is what I have learned for myself through multiple failed diet attempts. I can't tell myself I can not eat something, or I am going to eat that something x10.

She is on a very, very, very strict diet and did extremely well, and then fell off the wagon and has been beating herself up over it ever since. I was telling her what I have learned and what I have been doing (which is what you described here) and I think she is going to give it a shot. Each statement I read to her was followed by a "Yup, that's me."