Defending Your Diet
Posted by PhilifeFeb 17
What Are You Eating?
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Everyone eats. But everyone eats differently. The less common your eating habits are the greater chance you have of facing persecution from other people.
For many people the way they eat becomes an identity and a belief system. If you choose to eat differently than other people around you they may perceive your choice as an attack on their lifestyle and beliefs.
In most cases people want to see what you eat because they’re trying to validate their own choices. In other words, any persecution you face over your diet is never about you, it’s always about them.
In this podcast we discuss diet choices and the social challenges and persecution that you can be faced with by separating yourself from the pack.
John
22 comments
Comment by Lachlan on February 17, 2010 at 9:36 am
awesommeee
Comment by Jefferson on February 17, 2010 at 4:12 pm
Insights I just had while listening to this podcast: while defending myself from the “attacks” people made to my ESE lyfestyle, I have also “attacked” them for eating differently like trying to prove myself right. A. Same happened with exercises, when I started Turbulence Training.
Good to recognize myself on both sides of the coin, I bet a lot of people have been there too.
Looks like the real secret to achieve one’s goals is discipline. No matter what method you’re following. I stick to ESE for its simplicity, but I’m sure there are still some rules to follow like not over eating on the other days and make good choices.
Comment by Shelley on February 17, 2010 at 6:07 pm
I found this VERY interesting! I’m currently training for my first figure competition, am therefore getting very lean and have had all kinds of people commenting on what/how I eat, how unhealthy it is, etc. Thanks for reminding me not to take it personally. Their comments aren’t a reflection of my choices, but a reflection of their dissatisfaction with their OWN choices!
Comment by Damon on February 17, 2010 at 6:29 pm
Most of the time I just explain, if they laugh, I don’t worry about it. The weight is coming off. Lifting weight is getting me in shape. Goals are being meet. What else matters?
Just be respectful and gentle with people. If someone is on a different diet or exercise plan, and its working for them, congratulate them. If they bash you for what you’re doing, don’t worry about it. Just go on with what works. They aren’t living in your body.
Understand that people have to make their own choices about how they will live.
Comment by Tre on February 17, 2010 at 6:59 pm
Brad,
I find that during the day my fast goes great but at night i get super hungry then i break my fast i get discouraged then i eat more.
Comment by Vikki on February 17, 2010 at 7:26 pm
I just had that experience with my high-priced bioidentical hormone/anti-aging doc – apparently I am not supposed to be eating bread, nonfat dairy, or fish, and low fat diets are bad. BUT I am sort- of going “na-na-na-na not listening” because THIS TIME I am NOT going to regain those 60 lbs. I lost on a low calorie density diet. I fight my appetite constantly to win this battle – I eat a lot like the kids with Prader-Willi have to eat, though not quite as strict. For me that means mod-high carb, moderate protein, and very low fat diet. For life. Fortunately, I love blueberries, salads, and low fat popcorn. And the breakfast I made today of Chilean nova salmon, nonfat cream and chives on everything bagels hit the spot. Even my teenage son ate one and he is usually Ronald McDonald’s personal love slave.
Sigh. OK, I’m not really “not listening” as it may be important to just listen in case there is a grain of truth in it, as there usually is…and I do get a handful of nuts a few times a week, and an occasional dose of olive oil, plus fish oil and CLA supplements, and I do need to be better about sticking with the seafoods known to be low in mercury. But other than that, I am just NOT going to go with conventional or unconventional “wisdom” however popular at the moment, and I will stick with what works for me. Even my doc had to admit it was known that at least 10% of people can’t tolerate a low-carb diet, and I just said, well, I tried, and though the research in general on it is great (with the exception of hat one in NEJM in mice – their arteries clog up even though HDLs are OK due to endothelial repair factors), I’m clearly one of those 10% in any event. I need to learn to squeak up and not take it to heart when criticized like this. I have let comments like “why don’t you just eat less of regular foods” derail me in the past and I don’t know why it feels like such a struggle to handle them appropriately.
Comment by Jordan on February 17, 2010 at 9:31 pm
One of the great things about this approach is that one doesn’t have to eat a lot of “exotic” foods, or eat in an overly restrictive way (LC, Paleo, vegan.) The one concern seems to be IF. I think Brad Pilon said that if he could do it over again, he wouldn’t call it fasting or IF, but rather “taking a break from eating,” something like that. From what I’ve heard from these anecdotes, it sounds like if someone says the word, “fasting,” people will have that knee jerk reaction that perhaps can’t be undone.
I haven’t done IF’s consistently yet, so I haven’t talked about it much. I talked to my mom several months ago, and I think I said something about only eating once a day on certain days. She didn’t react that strongly, other than to say that she couldn’t do it because it would mess with her blood sugar or something like that. So that went okay, for me anyway! lol. In the future, if I had to tell anybody what I was doing, I would be discrete. I would say something like, “I’m skipping this meal” or “I ate a lot yesterday so I’m gonna eat a little less today,” something like that, rather than “I’m fasting.”
Other than that, we eat normal foods, we don’t eliminate entire food groups or categories, we’re free to eat tasty popular foods, and we can enjoy celebrations, so we should be able to blend in anywhere. Pretty good deal overall.
Comment by Chris Warden on February 17, 2010 at 10:02 pm
I am on my 5th day of fasting, was doing every 4 days but im moving it up to every 3. I have a rather unique situation, I want to get my body fat % lower which isnt very high to start with..about 10% maybe give or take. I would like to use the fasting approach as well as what ever i might need to continue to lose fat…any help would be appreciated.
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Comment by Fable on February 19, 2010 at 1:37 pm
Agree with Jefferson – I’ve been guilty of attacking others for their “eating styles” (what a crazy expression) as well. Now, I am eating all sorts of stuff, but skip breakfast on weekdays. This is really easy, since my boyfriend is the only one who would notice, and he doesn’t care – he’s never been very fond of early breakfasts anyway
My biggest vice is afternoon snacking. If I could just avoid eating between lunch and dinner (usually eaten after work here in Norway, around 5-6), I would probably be at my desired bodyweight in no time. Wonder why this is so hard, since not eating before lunch is quite easy for me.
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Comment by Vikki on February 20, 2010 at 5:44 am
Well, although 70 percent plus of people who succeed in weight management never skip breakfast, that means nearly 30% do so occasionally, so take this suggestion with a grain of salt. (Unless you are on a low salt diet, in which case try a smidgen of magneisum or potassium instead.) The biggest reason not to skip breakfast is that when you do, the appetite may kick in later in the day and you end up eating more calories total. Which can then become a vicious circle because the extra calories late in the day mean you aren’t hungry in the AM. Now I know that most people don’t think that appetite is what drives them to eat when they think they shoudn’t/don’t need to, maybe because they aren’t necessarily stomach-growling ravenous, but I’m reasonably sure it is not just a lapse in willpower that makes us say “yes” to the afternoon snack that shows up uninvited in our general vicinity, or in my case, go into foraging mode! I’ve learned to grab an apple or a small bag of popcorn when the hungries grab me, and make sure I am properly hydrated first too. My preferred routine has become a good breakfast and lunch, high fiber small afternoon snack, and late, light dinner – sort of like the German Abendessen. Since hubby does not get home til late anyways, the four smaller meals a day has worked very well in general.
Comment by Jordan on February 20, 2010 at 4:37 pm
Vikki, you make a good point. I believe that it’s an individual thing. Every person needs to find their “triggers,” their vulnerable situations, their bad habits, and go from there. Personally, I can overeat at any time, regardless of my meal timing! I can eat breakfast and overeat, I can skip breakfast and overeat, I can overeat eating two meals a day, or three, I can overeat during any meal, I can snack in the afternoon regardless of how I eat before that time period, I can snack in the morning or early afternoon, etc. So I don’t think skipping breakfast increases my appetite. I’m just an eating machine regardless.
I do agree that appetite is what drives us to eat, if “appetite” is separate from “hunger.” I know for sure that I don’t overeat because of hunger, or cravings. I would describe it as appetite, habitual eating, or mindless eating.
As for willpower, that’s a tricky one. I still haven’t unraveled the thought process that precedes my overeating. I feel like I don’t choose to overeat, it just happens really quickly, and while it’s happening, I sort of “zone out” until it’s over. I’m not sure how to approach this other than to hammer away at my habits, to basically force myself to eat less. Willpower may not be the problem, but it’s probably the solution for me. I don’t know how else to eat less, rather than to simply force myself to. It really doesn’t seem to matter when I eat, how I eat, or what I eat. No “trick” is going to do it for me. I’m going to try sheer force and see how it goes.
Comment by Philife on February 20, 2010 at 11:28 pm
Jordan,
Interestingly a recent piece of research indicates the only consistent thing with people who have lost weight and kept it off was discipline and will power! Go figure.
JB
Comment by Vikki on February 21, 2010 at 12:03 am
If you find it is really true, that just mindfulness and the will to break habits is all you need, maybe you are eating for emotional reasons or routine/time of day reasons and just not responding to or even experiencing real hunger at all. I find that recording food intake if I am going hungry at all makes me think about food way too much. But most people apparently lose weight just by doing the recording. And you might see the pattern or have it dawn on you what is going on when you overeat.
There was a program that was faith-based that taught to very strictly eat whatever you were hungry for but only when your stomach growled, and stop the instant you felt full, not one bite more; some people ended up fasting for a couple of days before they felt hunger, and a few even said it was the very first time they actually experienced that! They also had you record the level of hunger before and after you ate along with what you ate. I lost 8 lbs on it by just stopping eating at an 8 instead of a 10, but it quit right there. I still had an appetite for more than my body needed. Plus sometimes when the food was very good I could not bring myself to stop and leave a few bites on the plate, and thinking so hard about how hungry I was and using that much discipline all the time every time started to be a REAL chore. That’s part of why Lap-Band, etc. work for most people who go that route; the raging appetite goes away and every day is not a battle against it. Theoretically the appetite should shut off and make us not want to eat another bite more than we need, but for probably a variety of reasons, a lot of us can’t count on that, and just have to envy those who seem to have one that does.
So do entertain the other possibility, which proved to be the real one for me – that the “zone out” thing is what happens when your body wants to eat (hunger/appetite) and wants your mind (your “willpower”) to shut up. No one wants to believe we are battling internal biological forces, that makes us feel out of control! And those forces are powerful, they are meant to be, to keep us alive when it might be harder to get food than it usually is. I’ve done the sheer force thing, and my husband tries to do it too – he even tries to convince himself he’s full when he’s not. It never worked for more than a few days for me and a few meals for hubby. I have a friend whose family has excess appetite problems worse than mine, and she told me the only one of the siblings who ever stayed at a normal weight had “learned to hate food.” She seriously convinced herself that eating was a chore and she did not enjoy it. Now to me that’s depressing, I like to enjoy my food.
To test that theory out to see if it applies to you at all, you could just give a try of picking more filling foods – higher fiber/higher volume per calorie. I try to think of foods like that not as just “healthy” or “diet” foods, but the foods that let me relax and enjoy eating as much as I need to feel satisfed without the pounds piling back on.
Comment by Phyllis Collins on February 21, 2010 at 4:10 pm
I am very much enjoying these podcasts.
I’ve listened to each one several times.
I wish they were on ITunes
so I could listen to them on my Ipod,
AND
share them with some friends who don’t have time
to sit at their computers to listen.
Please advise me if and when they get posted on ITunes.
Comment by Jordan on February 21, 2010 at 5:36 pm
John, sometimes I feel kinda silly because I’m learning, or re-learning, all of these obvious truths. For so long I’ve been preoccupied with reading and thinking about all of this minutiae, that I’ve forgotten some very basic ideas. And willpower has become such a four-letter word, so that’s added to the problem. I haven’t seriously thought about it for a while, I’ve been too distracted with other concepts. But I’m becoming less and less distracted every day. Brushing away all of the fluff.
How glorious are all of these simple, obvious revelations! lol.
You mentioned recently that you were eating 1200-1500 calories for the first 3 months of your cut, so that gives me something tangible to shoot for. If I can consistently get down to 1500, 1600 calories on most days, with a select few moderate-to-large social meals here and there, I’ll be very happy with that.
Comment by Jordan on February 21, 2010 at 6:11 pm
Vikki, I don’t think it’s emotional eating. I haven’t noticed any trend in that regard.
I’m not worried about the physical part of it. I’ve done some IF’s sporadically, and I don’t remember the hunger being overwhelming. My stomach would growl a bit in the afternoon, but nothing that I couldn’t handle. The reason that I didn’t stick with it was because I was too undisciplined during off days, so I ended up not losing much weight (I think a pound over a month or so.) So it was a lack of discipline, not hunger or physical discomfort. Over the last few months, I’ve been eating somewhat less than I used to, and there are times when I get full more quickly than when I was eating more. Brad H. mentioned that he gets less hungry over time when he eats less.
So I’m not too worried about hunger. It’s really the mental part that concerns me. I know how easy it is for me to slip into overeating, regardless of my intentions. I’m not stupid, I know what I need to do! lol. It’s a bit of a mental block. I sincerely believe that it’s not a biological function. Does my body really need all that food? No. Does it really want to be 255 pounds or more? I don’t think so. I’ve weighed 267 pounds, my body doesn’t want that. It’s not my body, it’s my mind, that’s the problem.
As for filling foods, I doubt that would work for me. I can eat lots of different meals, healthy meals, and I’ll stick go back to the kitchen for more. I just haven’t noticed a trend in that regard. I do admit to not eating a lot of veggies. A couple of salads per week, some baby carrots, maybe some steamed broccoli with butter every now and then, that’s about it. John mentioned that trying to lose weight by eating different foods than you normally do isn’t very sustainable. Eventually someone is going to revert back to their previous favorite foods. So the philosophy is to eat what you enjoy, just less of it. That’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to test this philosophy on myself. I’ll be my own experiment. We’ll see how it goes!
Comment by Vikki on February 22, 2010 at 12:46 am
Aha! Now I know what you’re talking about – its called the Bronx Diet! To gain weight, eat more. To lose weight, eat less. Two knishes instead of three. It makes perfect sense. It absolutely does work for some people, and God speed to you with it too! Some people can actually just cut what they are eating in half. There is something to the idea of eventually getting a smaller stomach – maybe not really, but at least feeling satisfied on smaller portions. as a side benefit, if you have reflux it will typically get better too.
My family almost certainly has a set of bad cardiovascular genes from both sides, plus a mild form of mitochondrial disorder (early sensorineural hearing loss, diabetes that quickly becomes insulin dependent, relative short stature, nasty migraines, and DJD straight through the materal lineage as far back as I can find) so a lot of things would tend to not work as well for me. And I’m more desperate than most people to keep that weight off, not be diabetic (once I lost 17% body weight, my pre-diabetes went away and has not come back so far) to prevent as much as I can. It probably is strange that I am even on this list/blog, since I can’t actually fast, but it is such a good one for new ideas, openness and supportiveness for different ways of thinking and doing things, plus the exercise advice is so on-target. And the eat what you enjoy part is really important to me too; I’m blessed with liking a variety of foods and always wanting to try new things, so turning my favorites list into a healthier version has actually clicked and stayed clicked for me. I kiddingly tell people that I’m on the salmon, blueberries, and popcorn diet – my three most favorite things to eat. But tonight I’m off to fix us a low fat lemon cake for dessert, with actual home-squeezed lemon juice, and we’re having either chili or spaghetti with meat sauce using this really good ground turkey we get at the grocery store plus a fancy salad. And some good coffee.
Comment by Jordan on February 22, 2010 at 5:36 pm
Thank you for the well wishes. I’m very excited about this journey. I’m doing my first IF today in quite a few months, so I feel like this process is starting today. I’m so ready for this!
I’m sorry about what you and your family have gone through. That’s rough. Diabetes is definitely a concern for me. When I first became truly committed to losing weight in November 2009, I was 255 (now I’m 247,) so I was roughly 70-85 pounds over my ideal weight. So needless to say, I was concerned- and still concerned- with eventually developing diabetes, as well as joint problems, etc. I’m only 28, so I can nip it in the bud now before I go past the point of no return. I’m very fortunate that this change in my life is happening now rather than later. This needs to happen now.
There are some health problems in my family, but I think it’s mostly self-inflicted. Smoking, overeating, etc. We’re pretty healthy overall. So I’m lucky in that regard. My problems begin and end with me, so it’s a wonderful thing that I have the power to change myself and my life for the better. I’m in control of this, so that’s a blessing.
That food sounds good! And since I’m fasting today, it sounds really good! lol.
Comment by Philife on February 23, 2010 at 9:37 pm
Hi Phyllis,
There live on iTunes!
B
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The less common your eating habits are the greater chance you have of facing persecution from other people….