Another example of Simple

I was just reading a post explaining how a simple technological advance has helped children undergoing open heart surgery.  The problem with this procedure is the OR team needs to cool a child to 82 degrees Fahrenheit (click the link if you're interested in why they do this) and the process of bringing the child's temp back up is challenging.  What is this marvelous technological advance that has made surgery safer for these tiny patients? 

A hat.

Really?  It took an epiphany to come up with this?  Mothers from all over know kids should be wearing hats to keep them warm.  And yet it took a nurse a portion of her career and a grand epiphany (when no one else was able to solve this problem either) to come up with a simple, common sense, completely obvious (if one bothered to think about it at all) solution.

This little example begs the question:

Are we being open minded with our attempts at weight management?  Are we looking for solutions to uncomfortable problems?  And are those solutions the simplest ones possible? 

High-tech won't solve your weight problem.  Surgery, fancy apps, complicated diets -- they are overly complicated solutions to an simple problem.  Eat less.  Move more.  Your body size is a reflection of your behaviors.

Again with the Magic Beans

Mindful Eating:
1. Deliberately paying attention, without judgment, to ones own experiences.
2. Cultivating openness to, and an acceptance of all experiences.
3. Mindfulness happens in the present moment.

I spoke to a group at the Crossroads Village Apartments yesterday. Great group of people. They seemed interested in the thinking behind mindful eating and had lots of questions about how it really helps you lose weight. One thing I always get, though, is the person who wants to know what foods they can eat mindfully to help them lose weight.

We have been ingrained with the belief in Magic Beans -- that all illusive food or combination of foods that will give us perfect health and a thin body to go along with it. Well....guess what?? There are no Magic Beans. Food is food -- neither inherently good (just because lima beans are a healthy vegetable doesn't mean they taste good to me!) or inherently bad (alfredo made with whipping cream and real Parmesan is definitely not "low cal" but boy is it delicious!!).

Deliberately paying attention and not pigeon holing (judging) foods is one of the cornerstones of mindful eating. Believe me -- I would lose weight if I was on a diet of lima beans (mostly because I think they are so gross I wouldn't eat them -- or perhaps I would gain weight on a diet of lima beans because I would have to cover the taste of them with so much butter or cheese that I would take in lots of extra calories) But one thing I know for sure -- my life wouldn't be more enjoyable because of the lima beans.

There are some people out there that just don't get this concept. EAT WHAT TASTES GREAT -- JUST EAT LESS OF IT.

The reason a person gains weight is just that they are eating too many calories for their activity level. Cut down the calories to the level you expend and your weight will be stable. Eat fewer calories than you expend and you will lose weight. No games, no gimmicks, no tricks -- but no Magic Beans.

The question, for me, always comes back to:

Would you rather eat foods you enjoy but eat smaller amounts?

Or do you want to slug it out on the "Diet Du Jour", eating foods that, at best are only okay and at worst taste like the cardboard box your last pair of sneakers came in?

For me: Life's too short -- I want the food that makes my heart sing! And I will be happy to eat less now so I can have some more in the future.

So maybe we've gone off track...

I was sitting here thinking about getting the Christmas shopping done this week. My goal is to have it all done by 12 December so I can enjoy the last days before Christmas without the gift-buying/just-one-more-quick-stop/one-more-quick-thing stress.

I read a post from a group member on linkedin looking for our favorite "cheat foods" (those foods you can eat when you're on a diet that don't lead to weight gain --seriously...don't get me started!).

Here's what's buggin me:

We have such an idea that more is better -- more food (it's our right to be able to eat whatever we want), more stuff (the "American dream" on steroids), more, more, more.

We are tired. We are overweight. We are feeling frustrated because there is always so much more to do.

Maybe we need to recalibrate. We just had Thanksgiving -- if you had to pick 31 things you were grateful for, could you do it? And what, once you finished your list, would be left off the list that you automatically think you just couldn't live without?

Is one of the items on your list that you got stuffed on Thanksgiving? If it is not one of your top 31 things -- did you really need to be that full to enjoy the holiday?

A couple years ago, during a move, I made a vow that I wouldn't move anything into the new house that I didn't love or wasn't useful. There were a lot of items that didn't make that cut. It has taken me a while to furnish the house so that it really looks like a house and is still a work in progress. But I can honestly say, everything sitting around has meaning for me and has the ability to make me smile.

How would life be if we started approaching things more like that? And I am not just talking about our stuff here (obviously, since this is a blog about eating).

What if you only put things on your plate that had the ability to make you smile? What if you stopped eating while you still had the ability to feel great about the amount you had eaten? What if we stopped thinking it was necessary to have more (stuff/food/square footage in our houses/ whatever) and started seeking out the things that make us smile and keep raising the bar to find the best of the best -- not settling for something that doesn't meet our standards? What would your fridge look like? Seriously, would the non-fat ice cream be in there??

Do we need "more stuff" or do we just need the "stuff that makes our hearts sing"?

Go Slowly

Short-term behavior change is pretty easy. Let's say you want to start the Flat Belly Diet. You are motivated. You bought the book. You bought the journal. You bought everything on the shopping list for the first week. You're off and running. The first week -- no problem because you have a plan.

Second week -- things get a little more challenging. Food choices are kind of limited. Not as much structure to the plan -- you are having to make more decisions -- what's with that? You bought the book -- you bought the journal -- but the motivation is starting to wane.

Third week -- eek gad! Let's not even go there -- since most of you know this goes already.

Diets work in the short term. As I told the group at Flowserve yesterday -- diets work because somehow they get you to cut down the amount you are eating.
Portion size, points, cutting out a food group or macro nutrient -- all of this restricts your calorie intake in one way or another. If you are following their plan, you will lose weight.

But back to the title of the post. Where is the inherent flaw in diets?

They ask you to make a ton of changes to your lifestyle all at once.

Have you seen a diet commercial that doesn't have fine print that talks about the results being tied to following a "sensible eating plan" combined with exercise? That, for most people, is asking them to rework their whole lifestyle. Can you find an extra 8 hours a week to be at the gym AND grocery shop every week with a list provided by the diet? That kind of change is unsustainable in the long haul. It is too much.

We can put our lives on hold for a diet in the short term but eventually life barges back in and needs attention.

After my talk yesterday, one of the woman commented that I didn't talk about exercise at all. True. I know how hard they sell exercise in the US. And there are good reasons to exercise. You CAN eat more if you are exercising. BUT...

If you are currently trying to lose weight and are not exercising -- don't try to make it happen all at once. Rome wasn't built in a day and you didn't get to where you are since yesterday.

Go slowly. Go sensibly. Weight loss (or just weight, for that matter) should NOT encompass your whole life's energies. How are you going to have time to do all of the things that make your heart sing, if your weight loss is taking up all your brain space.

Pick a starting point that seems sensible to you. If you need help finding a place to start get help -- ask a friend, email me, figure it out. Work on that starting point -- get good at it.

Once you have successfully integrated the starting point into your life, you can find another small change and work on it's successful integration. You shouldn't have to drop the first behavior to add the second.

Slowly, you will see your weight heading in the direction you have been waiting for. This won't get you on the commercials promising "DRAMATIC WEIGHT LOSS IN SIX WEEK!" but you will lose weight without having to sacrifice every spare minute of your life.

And more importantly -- you will be able to maintain your weight loss for more than 3weeks!

Books in the trash can

A couple weeks back, I was talking to my friend Phyllis. I don't remember how the subject came up but she was telling me how when she was a kid, she and her friends would walk downtown (Kalamazoo) after school got out. They would stash their school books in the trash can, ask the local police officer to keep an eye on them, and head to the local soda shop for a drink.

Now...you might think this story would provoke me to talk about how sweets were viewed as treats during the time P grew up or...that it was wonderful how much activity the kids got so they could actually calorically afford to go to the soda shop...

But those are not the things that struck me first while she was telling the story.

What I got hung up on was that she stuck her school books in the trash can -- GROSS!!
When I asked her about this ("Didn't anyone ever dump something on them???") She said it was always fine because they didn't used to have trash like we do today. Hmmmm....that got me thinking.

How would your today have been different if...

1. you had to either make your coffee and drink it at home (no travel mugs or cup holders in the cars)

2. you had to go to the diner and sit and drink your coffee there (and possibly eat your breakfast sitting down at a table .. gasp!) because you just didn't drive thru back then. And paper cups and plastic wrap were not plentiful.

If these options were taken away from you, would you consume foods differently than you did this morning?

Could you get back to more of this view of food? Not eat in the car. Not eat out of plastic wrappers or paper cups or travel mugs (the travel mugs is what would be hardest for me)?

Could ya? Would ya? Just give it a try -- just for a week. Maybe you will learn you can be happy living with real dishes and real coffee mugs and making less trash. If you take away the multitasking while we eat -- we would reduce how many times we eat a day -- no question about that. Calories saved. Weight to be lost.

Minimalism

The other day, I was thinking about reducing the message of Eating Coach down to its simplest form. It came to me today:

Omit needless foods.

That's it. Any bite of food you eat when you are not physically hungry, is stored in the form of fat. Those calories are not nourishing your body.

Any food that you eat when you are not ACTIVELY appreciating the taste, texture and smell are not nourishing your soul.

If food is not nourishing either your body or your soul -- there is no purpose to it!!! It is needless. Omit it. Save the calories -- lose the weight.

Why is more better than one?

The other day I was having a discussion with a client. He was relaying the story of his visit to friend’s house and how the friend pulled out a huge tub of cookies and exclaimed his guests “just had to try one!”. The guests (my client) ate one and it was unbelievably good. So…after the guests had eaten their cookie, the host packed up the box and put the rest away. No more cookies -- just one. The guests were stunned.

In talking with the client about this, the question came up “would you have eaten the one cookie differently if you knew it was going to be the only one you got?”. The answer was a resounding yes!

We have gotten used to many -- not just one. It didn’t even enter into my client’s head that there would be just one offered. If it had, he would have eaten the cookie slowly, savoring the texture and the taste of butter.

Why is more better than one? Honestly, I do not believe it is. More is just what we are used to. More just means that we have more opportunities to taste what we are eating without having to pay close attention while we are doing it. But we eat more calories and gain weight. In the case of the cookies, we amp up our blood sugar and put additional strain on our pancreas as it tries to secrete enough insulin to bring our blood sugar back in line. The downsides are there because of our lack of attention. Honestly, we do not care enough about what we are doing to bring our full attention to it. That one cookie does not merit our full attention because there is a whole tub of them and we can always have more.

Sound familiar??

Simplify

How much chaos is there in your life? Does your house or your desk at the office feel cluttered and chaotic?

How about your eating? Does it feel like you are always trying to make decisions between what you should eat and what you want to eat? Constantly trying to decide if you “can” have the desert or another helping of dinner?

If your office or desk is cluttery, what advice would you get from your friends? I would tell you to go through your stuff and throw out (or at least box up) anything that is not useful or does not bring you huge amounts of pleasure to see. All of the little knick-knacks given to you over the years that you didn’t know what to do with so you set it on your shelf and now there is a hundred of them (pain in the neck to dust under and you can’t even look at them individually because there is so many…sound familiar?) Get them put away and start over!

The same goes for eating. Lots of the eating we do is just because it is there. We don’t necessarily want to eat -- it is just the path of least resistance. It is not wonderful, it is just there.

My suggestion? Take a look at your food journal. Figure out what (or when) you have been eating that hasn’t been for hunger (useful) or truly brought you pleasure. “Box” those up those foods or times. Get rid of them! Make a commitment to eat only those calories that add value to your life.

Analyze what you are about to eat and ask yourself “Is this useful or truly going to bring me huge amounts of pleasure?” If it takes more than a split second to answer, you can safely say that food is neither useful nor pleasurable enough – it will just be adding to the chaos and clutter of your life. Throw it out. Simplify.