New Year’s Resolutions

Don’t Make Them If You’re Gonna Break Them

I hate New Year’s Resolutions. Maybe it’s because I’m not organized enough to think about what I really want to change. Or, perhaps it’s because I don’t like setting myself up for failure. It’s December 31 (already 2011 in Australia, I’m reminded) and I’m finally getting to write this New Year’s post. And here’s why.  I feel the need to warn you. If you’re not prepared to work on your goals on December 30^th, before the New Year, then don’t expect miracles to happen on January 1^st. If you’re committed to change, to work on your eating and eating behaviors, you can and should start on a Friday, or a Tues, or the 12^th of January, for instance, rather than waiting for January 1^st or a Monday.

But if you do feel ready for change, please consider these strategies.

Yes, dancing cupcakes, from an amazing cupcake shop in NYC

• Set small, realistic goals. Set them so absurdly small that you are guaranteed success in achieving them. From there you could build on those new behaviors resulting in a greater impact on your health and wellbeing.

• Focus on achieving healthier behaviors, rather than targeting a change in weight (regardless of the direction your weight needs to head.) For instance, work on avoiding long periods without food. Keep snacks available, preventing impulsive eating resulting from excessive hunger. Eating modest amounts throughout the day better fuels your body, so you’ll feel better between meals.

• Caution: resolving to be good is a huge trap. Even the use of the words good and bad have no place describing our eating. You are not bad, as in a bad, or immoral person, simply because you ate in excess. For many, the resolve to be good (for instance, the next morning after overeating) really means restricting or eating lightly.

And where does that lead you? Let’s look at this chain of events:

1) You start off early in the day with the goal of being good, or in your mind, eating light.

2) You deny later morning hunger.

3) You might further be exposed or triggered by food on the counter or other food temptations.

4) You’re now starving. (You may see this as a positive, but ultimately it will result in trouble).

5) You overeat.

6) You get angry with yourself, feeling defeated, like a failure. Feeling that you’ve blown it, one of two things result.

            • You continue the downward spiral, thinking it just doesn’t matter anymore;

            • You resolve to be good tomorrow, and set yourself up with unrealistic expectations. And so the cycle continues.

Breaking the Cycle

Instead of trying to be good, focus on honoring your hunger. For many of you, those hunger cues aren’t working too well, (due to chronic restriction and slowed metabolic rate, or slowed stomach emptying, making you feel full much longer than most people, or simple because of high volume intake of low calorie food and drinks).So for now, you’ll need to make a point of scheduling frequent feedings. Generally, I recommend not exceeding 3 ½ or 4 hours max. Give yourself permission to eat, meals and snacks.

Remember—slips happen. (Perhaps a bumper sticker in my future?) Instead of thinking you’re a failure at this, that you’ll never have control over getting healthy, consider any positive changes you have made. Don’t beat yourself up for your slips. Rather, try to track how and why they occurred. What can you learn from the past slip? And what are you going to do differently.

Here’s a New Year’s resolution worth considering. Be kinder, more compassionate to yourself. And consider every day a clean slate (not a clean plate). It’ll work better than absolutely any diet!

Happy New Year, readers!

And thanks to my recent 4-5 followers who joined after the last post!

Running Off the Carrot Cake? There’s Gotta Be a Better Way.

Okay, Plain Jane, your question was a great one (in the comments section of Recovering from Holiday Slips: Practical Strategies for Moving On), and deserves more that a one line response.

Plain Jane said...

 But, if we do eat more than we would normally, is it okay to exercise more to compensate? Isn't this a sensible way of preventing weight gain at these times? I'm struggling to understand how to just sit calmly by when I feel full and think 'oh it's okay, I won't gain any weight' (you have talked before about how many extra calories are needed for weight gain, but that doesn't seem to hold true for me. It seems anything I eat without exercising causes weight gain).

I bet this thought has crossed many a reader’s minds. And having just had my comment be the focus of another blogger’s post (see ED Bites), I thought I’d do the same. So here goes.

No, I don't recommend increasing your activity to compensate. This can easily spiral into compulsive exercise habits. You know the pattern—overeat, over-exercise, get too hungry, overeat, over-exercise—with a bit of restrictive eating thrown in. With increased activity, you'll find yourself hungrier sometime after exercising (generally after 40 or 45 minutes after exercising). But you're likely to not trust your self, not believing that listening to that hunger is okay (because you're still focused on the fact that you already ate too much).

So how do you manage to regulate weight, then? By listening to your fullness. Okay, true personal insights, from today.

I baked a cake, a delectable carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, in honor of my husband’s birthday. Let’s be honest. I wanted some delicious cake to eat, too. The birthday was just a convenient excuse. But more about the cake later. I had a hefty slice, I might admit, certainly more than I needed. And it was good. But a mere 1 ½ hours later we were expected at our friends’ home for dinner. And so we went. And we ate the traditional Christmas meal of Jews around the world—Chinese food. And then they served desserts, to celebrate my husband’s birthday.

I was minimally hungry by the time dinner was served, so what happened? I ate less than I would have normally. It’s not that I was calculating my intake, but merely acknowledging the feeling of my jean’s waistband. (And these were my very comfortable jeans!) And when dessert was served, quite frankly, I had absolutely no interest. I was full, and I knew it. And I knew that ¾ of the carrot cake remained at home. And I knew that if I should get hungry later, and should choose to satisfy that hunger with cake, that was an option. See where I’m going with this? 

If you eat more than you need, and you are listening to your fullness, you’re likely to make up for the excess simply based on how you feel. You’ll find your self less hungry, and if you are listening to your body and it’s signals you’ll eat less later. Hard to believe, but it really works. That is, unless you allow destructive thinking and negative self-talk to take over, sabotaging your recovery.

No, I won’t double up on the spin classes tomorrow. But I won’t leave the cake wrapped in plastic wrap on the kitchen counter either! I’m still feeling a bit full, but the feeling is passing. As I knew it would. As you know it does.

One more thing to address is the weighing. If you’re weighing yourself regularly, frequently, compulsively, in all likelihood you are not measuring changes in body mass. Rather, you’re seeing fluctuations in hydration, or other influences such as bowel changes. Perhaps the worst thing to do when you are struggling with feeling uneasy about how much you’ve eaten is to weigh yourself.

Remember—reassure your self that the fullness passes, that a large meal or snack has an insignificant, not-even-measurable impact on your weight. Don’t let your thoughts mislead you! Try to trust this process. It really does work, if you allow it to!

Here’s an offer for official “Followers”

• Send in a question or topic you’d like to have addressed. Once a month I will select one to blog about.
• Email me for the cake recipe! It was modified (as is my norm) from 3 different versions to a delicious recipe, healthier, though still requiring attention to portions!
• Not a Follower yet? Shy? Sign up with a made-up name/identity. Rather liberating! It’s a way of thanking me for free information, and letting me know you care!
• By the way, for the past 7 months I have sent out email welcome notes, after followers joined. I just found out that none have been received. So welcome, followers, and thank you all for reading, commenting, and sharing the blog with others! I do hope to figure out this little glitch soon!

Recovering from Holiday Slips: Practical Strategies for Moving On.

Garrison confections: Impossible to resist! Central Falls, RI

Last Sunday after a lovely afternoon out, I returned home to find an entire box of expensive artisan chocolates devoured. Well, almost the whole box. He left the apricot-filled piece after biting into it and deciding it wasn’t worth eating. Eleven of the twelve chocolates, gone.

Binging is totally out of character for him, although, like me, he’s always been fond of chocolate. He’s always been a grazer, eating when he’s hungry, and stopping when he’d had just enough. He always knew he could eat anytime.

I was angry and upset. He would never eat this way in front of me. I’m certain. No, he had to sneak those chocolates. Did he think I wouldn’t permit it? Did he even think about it at all?

After some time, my initial shock passed. And with some insights from my husband, it all made sense. I realized he must have been starving. He’s never been one to take his own food, to fend for himself. No, not him. So when our return Sunday was a bit delayed, I’m sure he was feeling it. Those chocolates were the easiest and quickest thing to grab.

Besides, if I was intending to give that box as a gift, I shouldn’t have tempted him by displaying it on the kitchen counter. I’m sure the trigger of smelling these freshly made delights was just too tempting.

He knew I was upset. But given the circumstances, I bet he’d do it all over again.

Yes, Mica, my dog ate an entire box of chocolates. And there’s a lot we humans can learn from this situation, particularly in this holiday season. With less structure to our days, and more exposure to challenging eating situations, consider these tips during the holiday season:

• Try to prevent your self from feeling too vulnerable. No matter what you know about healthy eating behaviors, they will be impossible to adhere to if you are starving. You’ll be looking to meet some basic needs, like raising a low blood sugar, and raising it quickly. You’ll eat fast and mindlessly. So prevention is key.

• Plug in some stress management strategies. Check out Nourishing the Soul for some guidance and great resources. Be sure to view and fantasize about being in the lovely photos!

• Cut yourself some slack. Don’t beat your self up for having a slip. But don’t ignore it either. Try to understand it, to learn from it, in order to prevent it from happening again. Did you go too long without eating? Was the visual stimulus, seeing the yummy stuff on the counter too suggestive and tempting? Yelling at my dog, after the fact, would have been meaningless for him. Yelling at your self after overeating is similarly useless. So have some compassion. And rethink your old patterns of reacting.

• Remember that normal people (and dogs) eat foods that look, smell and ultimately taste good, when available and visible on the kitchen counter. Yes, even if you weren’t depriving yourself. So take control of your environment. Take foods out of eye’s view. Wrap them up and store them in the freezer, to have when you are ready to eat them mindfully.

• Tomorrow is another day, even if it isn’t a Monday or January 1^st. And if you say “I’ll wait until Monday to address my eating”, ask yourself if you are truly ready for change.