Diet Survivors: January 2006 Archives

Dieters fear adding sugar to their food. Their minds are so twisted by eating "diety" and then going "off the diet" that they'd sooner binge on a gallon of ice cream than add real sugar to their tea. Why?

The sugar in the ice cream is hidden, passive--you didn't put it there. You don't have to be conscious of it. We've been made to feel so guilty about food that our diety eating takes the form of "I'm especially bad if I intentionally eat bad foods."

Ever notice when you're on a diet how tempting it is to eat out? You can't count calories, fat, carbs, or sugar in prepared foods. That's why restaurant food feels like such a treat--it is. When you eat at home, you take all the taste out because you can.

What kind of cereal do you eat? Do you try to eat healthy whole grain, high fiber cereals such as Bran Chex? I do. But I find that many cereals that are good for me are too low in sugar for my tastes. What to do? Should I eat an unsatisfying bowl of low-sugar cereal and end up overeating later on something sweet?

Or shall I add two spoonfuls of real table sugar to make a perfect bowl of Grape Nuts? Which makes sense to you?

If adding sugar is new to you, try it out. It's part of learning to eat mindfullly. While you're spooning the sugar out of the sugar bowl, say, "I'm adding sugar now." Figure out exactly how much you like.

Don't have a sugar bowl? LOL! Neither do I. But I recently discovered my supermarket now sells table sugar in a big round plastic container that fits a spoon inside. Or you can buy the little individual packets of sugar.

I notice that the amount of sugar I add to my cereal or tea seems to vary. I put in the exact right amount for that moment only. Tomorrow I might want it a little less sweet.

What else can you add sugar to? Have you returned to eating fruit? Many dieters steer away from fruit. They almost think of fruit as a waste of calories. Are blueberries a little too sour for you, but you love blueberry pie?

There's a reason you like the pie and not the berries. Add a spoonful of sugar to perfect your bowl of blueberries. You might not have that late-night binge on the pie tonight as a result.

Remember when you're having sugar that it's good to have a little protein and fat, too. Those will give your tiny perfect serving some staying-power. How about some strawberries, sugar and cream tonight for dessert?

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Find out more about Linda Moran's book, How to Survive Your Diet.

When folks ask me about going on a diet, there's no point (no pun intended) in telling them not to go through with it. Why? Because then I'd be telling them what to do.

Isn't everyone here tired of getting told what to do and what to eat and how to eat? Some folks come here, not having hit bottom yet.


So I say go ahead on your diet, not because I think it's a good idea, but because there's merit to learning for ourselves what we need and to have autonomy over our decisions.

In my book, I even painstakingly tell you how to survive several popular diets. I do this because non-dieting isn't about the food, just as dieting isn't about the food. I encourage my readers to approach their diet knowing who's in charge.

But I also like to remind all of you that the only people I've ever met who've done fine on those diets were those who didn't have much food issues to begin with. They just weren't careful enough, gained a little weight, and after the diet, they're more careful. Cool, huh? But rare.

Personally, you couldn't pay me to count points. (That's the calculation they do in Weight Watchers that kind of resembles calories.) When I was counting points, I was a maniac. But even more important, I have a hunch that, now that I'm a normal eater, some days I eat three times my allotment and other times I eat one third my allotment.

That variability would be pretty hard to allow if I were counting points because counting induces guilt and rules and fear. I've come to believe it's really important to have that much fluctuation from day to day in how much we're eating.

And when we're doing it right, we don't necessarily notice the light and heavy days, or if we do notice, we royally don't care. We only care when we're hungry and when we're full.

Find out more about Linda Moran's book, How to Survive Your Diet.

I've noticed that many, although not all, diet addicts suffer from a bigger case of the "musts" than just in their diet lives. They have edicts, to-do lists, and restrictions, which result in pretty good productivity, but may be limiting their creative, spontaneous side. Great thinking, don't forget, can often arise from this other, messier side of ourselves. Are you on a life diet?

Susanne Corning, owner of Recovery Rebellion, says this happened to her. And she did something about it. The following is reprinted with permission from Sue.

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I suspect the term "hunger/fullness living" may have been a Freudian slip in a letter from an RR friend. However her words made me think further about whether I could apply my approach to 'normal eating' to my life. For me hunger/satisfaction/fullness EATING requires that I honor my body cues ... not just listen to and ignore hunger or fullness, but honor them by eating when I'm hungry (and not eating when I'm not) and STOPPING eating when I'm satisfied or full (rather than continuing to eat to the point of discomfort).

That approach has worked so well for me to free myself of my binge/purge habits and ENJOY food despite celiac disease limitations. So I wonder if I can LIVE according to my 'gut' feelings or intuition like I live according to stomach cues to eat and body cues to sleep.

I noticed that I often LIVE like I'm on some kind of a 'life' diet which says I MUST do certain things at certain times in a certain way. I often push myself to complete my 'to do' list or do what I think I should do, rather than honor my preferences and impulses to do tasks not immediately on my to do list.

Perhaps those impulsive tasks provide needed breaks as well as accomplish something. For example I enjoy gardening on sunny days, but hate it on rainy days. When I sit too long in front of my computer, I love doing yoga exercises or taking a walk or even doing active chores around the house. I worked at my computer all morning yesterday. So in the afternoon, I walked and in the evening I did 'stand-up' paperwork at a high table in my studio.

This morning I intended to do more stand-up paperwork, but when I went downstairs to make a cup of tea, I felt compelled to re-pot a couple of plants. Rather than just adding that chore (re-potting plants) to my 'to do' list for later and forcing myself to continue with the paperwork chores I began last night, I just let myself indulge in re potting plants in my kitchen on a cold, rainy day. I know the paperwork can wait until tonight or tomorrow.

Instead of following my to do list 'diet', I let myself do what my gut craved ... a break from paperwork and left brained words ... an indulgent right brained activity of digging my hands into dirt and creatively gardening. I also took advantage of being in the kitchen to make 2 peanut butter and banana sandwiches for my next 2 lunches. I HATE preparing food when I'm hungry just before a meal. I thoroughly enjoyed ignoring my to do list and doing what I wanted to do when I wanted to do that.

I realize many RR members have jobs which dictate what they do each day. However they have some choices about what they do at other times of the day. Even stay at home mothers with small children have some choices about when they do what.

I wonder if other RR members like me have put their lives on a diet by scheduling every minute of their day, so that the only way they feel free is to literally break their 'eating' diets by bingeing. Even though I have not followed 'diets' for 4 years I still regularly binged (and purged) to give myself a break from my 'life diet' after I pushed myself to do too many things I didn't want to do or things I did want to do, but at undesirable times.

Can we listen to our guts or intuitions about our lives like we can listen to our hunger/fullness/satisfaction cues to tell us when, what and how much to eat? I would certainly like to try 'hunger/fullness living' even if it began as a 'Freudian slip'. Can any other RR members relate to life diets? Does anyone else want to try hunger/fullness living with me?

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We're in charge of how we respond. This was never illustrated more clearly to me than the day of the milk incident.

My son was supposed to demonstrate solutes in his science class. His task--to mix Hershey's syrup in milk for all to see, then pour and serve to each student along with an Oreo. Nice idea to make a mainstreamed kid popular!

I sent in all the materials except the gallon of milk. That I knew I'd hold off until the day of the science "experiment." Now, you might imagine with a household of six, I have a system for keeping fresh milk in the house. Indeed I do. I freeze it in the garage freezer. At any time of day you'll see a carton of semi-frozen milk thawing on my counter.

On the day before the experiment, I realized that if David will be coming to school with a thawed milk, I'd better point out to the teacher that expiration dates are invalid on milk that's been frozen. I didn't want her to think I was sending in expired milk, or giving expired milk to my kids. I emailed her.

Then we had a snow day, the experiment was rescheduled, and I got word that the science teacher would be bringing in the milk on the rescheduled date.

My reaction: "Oh my gosh, the special education teacher hated that I was sending in expired milk, and she told the science teacher who diplomatically solved the problem by offering to bring in the milk herself. I feel like such a fool. They must think I'm really out of it. What a bad mother I must seem like...."

Over the years, I've seen my ever-logical, opportunist husband, choose peace for himself. He's so easy on himself, and I've learned to emulate him. Of course I still have my own reaction first, but I've gotten pretty good at re-framing within a second or two. I do it by saying, "Okay now Linda, think like Mike, think like Mike. What would Mike say?"

What would Mike have said about the milk? He wasn't around to ask, but I already knew. If it were him in the situation, my ever-logical, opportunist husband would have said, "Oh good, now I'm off the hook for bringing in the milk." End of story.

So I thought like Mike. I didn't do it instantly. I still thought my own self-talk first. But only for a nanosecond or two. If that's as good as it gets for life, I'll take it.

I sometimes ponder what hubby and I would have done, had we been infertile. The answer always comes quickly, though...we would have found a way to have kids. For us, being childless was not an option, due to sheer determination and desire.

We would have tried every fertility route we could, then if that failed, we would have changed the work we were doing and figured out a way to adopt. We would have had kids somehow.

Which gets me to thinking about chronic dieters. They are determined people, just like Mike and me. But why is it that year after year of hard work, they still don't get their dreams fulfilled?

I think it's sad when couples who want children conclude it wasn't meant to be, or they just don't deserve it, or there's just something wrong with them. Likewise with dieters.

These are unnecessary conclusions. In the case of couples wanting children, of course, some folks just don't want to adopt, and that's understandable.

But what about dieters? Do they simply need to change the work they're doing? Instead of diet programs, altered food, counting fat grams or carbs, perhaps they need to switch over to non-dieting, or the "hunger and fullness" method, or normal eating? Whatever its name, it's a way of tuning in to your body to become accurate about eating only when hungry and stopping when full.

Perhaps, like some couples who don't want to adopt, there are a few dieters who simply don't want to find hunger and fullness.

But for the rest, who are still determined to fulfill their dreams, the change is as drastic as the switchover from the more scientific forced conception to adoption. It's a whole-life kind of change, accompanied by some new beliefs and new ways of viewing ourselves.

Any couple that's been through this switchover from trying to achieve to trying to adopt will tell you it was a major paradigm-shift, or what is sometimes called an adaptive change. They had to change many of their assumptions and beliefs, and had to go down a whole new road of research and learning. They had to meet different people, and set new goals.

The change you're making from dieting to non-dieting is just as revolutionary, just as rife with ambivalence, just as jolting. Sometimes you may feel tempted to return to the scientific method of diet plans and counting. It's no wonder you have some bad days.

There's one more facet to the metaphor, too. In some ways, adoption may feel less "natural" than the couple had envisioned. But after all the infertility treatments, it may start seeming natural indeed, by comparison. Non-dieting, too, may feel that way. Worth it? You decide.

If the answer is yes, then take heart. Think of a couple you know that adopted. You have more in common with them than you once knew. And look what they got.