Understanding Your Eating Habits: Part 1
I get asked on a regular basis what my recommendations for dieting are. Let me first say I hate the word diet, probably because I spent most of my life on one. I really do believe that you must look at how you eat as a lifestyle whether you are trying to lose weight or not. It changes your attitude towards the process. All that being said, I don’t adhere to a diet. Weight Watchers was the program that I chose to help me figure out how to eat when I started my journey and it has shaped how I view nutrition. To me it was in no way a diet because it never asked me to give up any kind of food at all. When I started I was determined to not have to give up the things I loved and in the beginning, I would have a Butterfinger for dessert several times a week because it was still within my points. Was that the healthiest decision for my body, no, but did it help me to stay the course, absolutely. I don’t eat that way anymore, or at least if I do its rare, but what I would like to share with you are the things I have learned along the way that helped me lose 130 lbs. and maintain that loss now for 10 years.
Understanding Your Patterns
You can’t make changes unless you know what needs to be changed. How many times have you spent Friday and Saturday eating and drinking your way through the world only to wake up Sunday feeling regret? ou make the decision that Monday will be a new day and spend it googling diets, you find a book, blog, TedTalk on a certain diet, feel like its doable and jump in Monday morning. You start your week feeling great, you own that diet like a boss. Then Thursday comes around and you didn’t sleep well, or your kid is sick, you have a project at work that the deadline just got moved up and you are worried it won’t get done. Stress kicks your butt and you just don’t have time to think about this new-fangled way to eat. Slowly, but surely you drift back to your old habits and that diet becomes a distant memory. You feel disappointed in yourself because you can’t seem to get it together. I am here to tell you that you aren’t a failure, you just haven’t taken the time to get to know yourself, your eating patterns and your triggers and planned how to eat around…..you! What a novel idea. When clients approach me, the first thing I advise is to keep a food journal. This exercise makes you more aware of your eating patterns, triggers, and habits. Recognizing these can pave the way for sustainable changes in your life.
The Power of Awareness
Knowledge is power. Often, we eat mindlessly, not realizing the patterns and habits we've developed. By becoming aware of our eating habits, we can create a lifestyle that supports our success, not hinders it. By understanding ourselves better, we can make informed decisions about what, when, and how we eat. Consider this research on yourself. When you become aware of your eating patterns you can see that everyday at 3:30 you lose your mind from the stress of work and head to the break room for one of those packaged bear claws. You see that when you have a fight with your spouse the first thing you do is head to the fridge even though you aren’t hungry. You come to realize that it doesn’t matter the day, at 9 pm every night you have to have popcorn while watching TV. Knowledge is power people and what happens with most of us is we eat mindlessly through our life. We are so focused on everything else what we put in our body becomes secondary, ritual, and not something we are present for. If you learn about you and where you succeed and struggle then you can create a lifestyle that supports your success, not hinders it.