From skwigg's journal:
I listened to a Jill Coleman (Jillfit.com) Moderation365 webinar today and I'm bursting with happy eating excitement! I'm also sleepy, so I'll just copy and paste my notes for now. :-) There are lots of juicy ideas here. Any thoughts?
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Moderation365
Choose the middle path with your eating. One end of the spectrum is deprivation, the other end is overindulgence. Both of those are stressful and uncomfortable. At every meal, ask what is the middle path where I will be completely satisfied and feel great?
The more you restrict yourself on Monday, the worse your eating will be on Friday. The more you restrict yourself earlier in the day, the worse your eating will be at the end of the day. Deprivation is not benign. There's always an opposite reaction.
Is your HEC in check? - Hunger, Energy, Cravings. If those are all out of whack from your current approach, any changes you try to make will not be sustainable.
Choosing moderation = choosing satisfaction. A moderate meal is a satisfying meal. Satisfaction is always the goal.
Satisfaction can be increased both with the food you choose and with the ritual or experience of eating.
Think about your typical meals. Which ones are totally satisfying? You really look forward to them and feel great afterward. Which ones don't quite cut it? Maybe you feel hungry an hour later, or you feel rushed, or the environment is stressful, or you feel uncomfortably stuffed afterward. The least satisfying meals are the ones to adjust first.
FOMO - fear of missing out. Leads us to order the most indulgent over-the-top choice in certain situations because we give ourselves the choice between totally going for it or ordering lettuce, or black coffee, or skinless chicken breast. The middle path is in between blowout eating and restriction. Maybe you do get a salad, but with cheese and bacon.
Don't give up the rituals that are satisfying to you - morning coffee, wine with a friend, taco night.
Tools to avoid going overboard: consistent exposure and mindful eating, especially with "trigger foods." If a food has been a problem before, you want to expose yourself regularly in small doses and be more mindful of hunger/fullness/emotions while eating. If you do overeat (you will sometimes, it's an ongoing practice) resist the urge to tighten up. Why? Deprivation leads to more overeating! Come back to the middle instead. If you overeat at night, you still deserve a satisfying breakfast. Always the middle way. Include enough favorite foods and preemptive treats to take the edge off and keep satisfaction high. If things get weird for a meal or a day, just come back to the middle. "Perfect eating" isn't an option so don't feel bad for not doing it. The idea that it could ever work is absurd.
Q&A - Do I keep exposing myself to tricky foods until I can have them around and not care? YES! Have a small portion every day until you're bored. You don't want there to be foods you can't have in your house because what happens when you're at a friend's house? At a party? At work? You don't want to turn into a trembling moron every time there's cake in the room (Jill didn't say it quite like that. LOL) You want to be able to trust yourself to take it or leave it.
The way you eat is the same no matter what day it is, whether you're at home alone, eating with others, in a restaurant, at a friend's. Sit down to satisfaction at every meal. Break the restrict/cheat cycle.
The goal is to eventually eat intuitively but in the beginning you may need to eat a little more strategically. Think about your current meals, how to make them more satisfying, and how to make them work with your schedule.
Q&A - Breakfast grosses me out. I'm not hungry in the morning. I eat something small and not very satisfying just to get through it. Do I have to eat breakfast? NO! Try waiting a couple of hours and eat something more satisfying when you're actually excited about it. Maybe this will work better for you. Maybe it won't. You'll know based on what happens with your eating the rest of the day. Honor your own process.
Q&A - What if I eat a whole pint of Ben & Jerry's in one sitting every weekend as a "cheat" and feel physically icky afterward? Eat a smaller portion of Ben & Jerry's every day for a couple weeks until it's not as exciting. Maybe smaller portions eaten mindfully are just as enjoyable and feel better afterward. Limiting ice cream to once a week and labeling it a "cheat" keep it exciting and scarce.
Q&A - How do I share the moderation message with friends who are restricting and doing cleanses? Don't try to tell them that they're doing it wrong. Leave them to their own process of learning and discovery. You do you. Maybe you can be a positive example and share some of your own approach (especially on social media) without ever judging or commenting on what they do.
Additional thoughts about the "HEC in check" part. She's really talking about maintenance. It's important to learn to maintain in an enjoyable way where you like the way you eat, aren't thinking about it too much, and your weight is stable. If you can do that, then you can make one adjustment at a time to begin to create a deficit. If you're currently dieting and your HEC (hunger, energy, cravings) is not yet in check. Making another run at a deficit while you're still feeling restricted and food-obsessed will likely only perpetuate the deprive/overindulge cycle.
Additional, additional thought. She actually doesn't weigh herself or encourage weighing. For maintenance, she means maintaining your size. Like your clothes fitting or your circumference measurements being stable.Â
From skwigg's journal:
Here comes another big brain dump of my notes and thoughts from the 3rd JillFit moderation365 webinar.
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The Sunday Night Roundup - when you go through the kitchen eating all of the leftovers, processed foods, and sweets from the weekend so that you're not tempted by them on Monday when they'll be off limits again. Because logic.
A commitment is something I choose. A rule is something put upon me.
Choose 3 Daily Nutritional Commitments (DNCs) that are 3 Es: Effortless, Enjoyable, Effective. These limit the amount of mental energy spent on food.
Jill's are: eating a Big Ass Salad every day, eating some protein with every meal even if it's only 10g from nuts or cheese, keeping a favorite dessert-like protein bar with her and having a piece after meals or if she gets hungry between them.
These are things you already do. Things that come naturally and are already a cornerstone of your eating. Not something new you want to try or something you think you should be doing. Someone asked what to do if their current eating is a trainwreck. Jill said to start with eating in ways you think you would enjoy. Then see how it feels and make adjustments. So it may take some practice and investigation to narrow down the three things.
Some of mine: eating satisfying meals when hungry eating some protein and fat with every meal eating high-fiber cereal, fruits, vegetables, and nuts every day
Those things are second nature and make me feel good. They also support being healthy and eating an appropriate amount.
Give yourself permission to be the expert on your own body.
Troubleshooting:
How are you getting your protein, fiber and water every day in amounts that feel good to you? Taste good? Are easy?
Greek yogurt, chocolate whey protein, cooking enough burgers and chicken for leftovers, tuna pouches, eggs, cheese, nuts. All-Bran, beans, veggies, apples, green smoothies. Having a glass of water or a water bottle nearby all day, but drinking to thirst, not forcing it.
Some people feel better with a higher fat intake vs a higher starchy carb intake. To determine which it is for you, ask which provides the highest satisfaction factor in a meal? Which produces the best outcome in terms of hunger, energy, and cravings (HEC)?
For me, it used to be dietary fat by a landslide. Now that I'm more active, I feel better with more starchy carbs than before, but I still tilt toward a balance of everything. Like my English muffin lunch today. Protein, fat, starch, veggies, and fruity.
What is very important to you in terms of enjoyment / treats? How can you include those regularly to boost satisfaction with the way you eat and reduce feelings of deprivation?
Baking and partaking in delicious homemade desserts is very important to me. Cheese rules. A little chocolate does wonders for a meal. Regularly including smaller portions of these foods keeps me from getting overly excited about them or romanticizing them into bingey territory. It's also important for me to be able to eat anywhere with anyone and not stress about it. Dieting made me socially awkward.
What kind of meal timing works best for you? Are you hungry in the morning? Do you like to snack? Do you like bigger meals? When do you have time to eat? When do you usually get hungry? How does your meal timing affect your hunger/energy/cravings? You get to decide what works best for you. There are no rules. Question everything.
Me, I'm a breakfast, lunch, and dinner person. Although, I'll throw in a fourthmeal (as Taco Bell calls it) if I get hungry between meals or before bed. I like feeling a little hungry before bed, just a general light and empty feeling that I barely notice. If I do notice, it just makes me look forward to breakfast. But if I'm so hungry it's distracting or might keep me awake, I'll go ahead and eat something
How do you teach yourself:
Moderation - have 3 bites of a shared dessert in a restaurant or birthday cake at work, one fry off of someone else's plate. Little challenges that flex your moderation muscle and build confidence. You don't need to have all or none.
Mindfulness - asking if you're still enjoying what you're eating, checking in and eating just enough. She says 80% full but I translate that into EJE. At "enough" you feel like you could still eat more. You're not stuffed. You're comfortable and satisfied.
Abundance - practice intermittent sampling. That's eating some and saving some, of one specific food. It's not snacking on lots of things. It's breaking a chocolate bar into pieces and having one now, one after dinner, and one tomorrow. Knowing you can always have more reinforces abundance. Exposure is important. There shouldn't be any foods that you're terrified of and can't have in your house. Expose yourself in small doses. Practice intermittent sampling.
Q&A - How do you reconcile everything you've ever read about what's healthy and unhealthy with what you actually like? "I will always choose a food that I'm satisfied with over a food that I read somewhere is healthy." The more you choose a food that you enjoy and that satisfies you personally, the less likely you are to overeat more and worse later. If you eat something because a book or an expert says, and you feel you should, but you don't even like that food, trouble will follow. Trust yourself more than you trust the rules.
How do you stick to your values when you're tempted by situational eating? The more you value and practice moderation, the less tempted you'll be. Whoa! So true. Abundance, exposure, satisfaction. When you're not deprived, you're not a ticking time bomb. Plus, you can always have some of whatever it is you really want. There's no need to resist using willpower. Have a few bites and move on.