How To Have Your Cake And Your Skinny Jeans Too: Stop Overeating, Overeating, And Dieting Forever Get The Naturally Slim Body You Crave From The Inside Out (Solution To Overeating) by Josie Spinardi is an amazingly written book accessible with clear practical strategies and robust evidence-based approaches.
Concept
Your body is programmed to maintain a naturally lean weight. You don’t need to know your ideal weight or calorie balance. More calorie dense foods and slower metabolism just mean you get full sooner and stay full longer.
Diets only address the symptom of being overweight. “Overeating or overeating is, in fact, a very powerfully anchored conditioned (learned) response to both diet (food restriction) and a lack of skills to navigate certain distressing emotional states.”
Most dieters get caught up in “The Dieting Trangle of Despair,” a cycle of dieting, bingeing, beating themselves up, and then dieting again… only to binge again in ever more extreme ways. Studies like the one by Ancel Keys show that “dieting leads to obsession with food, emotional distress and, wait, binge eating.”
recommendations
Eat like a naturally thin person. Enjoy satisfying servings of tasty regular foods without worrying, without going on a diet to try to compensate. If you eat so much that you feel uncomfortable, just make a note that it doesn’t feel good to be too full.
Break the “learned habit of overriding your body’s internal signals for hunger and satiety.”
Use root cause analysis to identify the real reason for eating without hunger:
a) Gasping for food violently out of control in response to deprivation, bingeing on forbidden foods. By eating only what is right for you according to your physical and psychological needs, you can be confident in any situation instead of being ruled by food obsession, deprivation, or “kryptonite.”
b) Eating because you ate breaking a diet rule. Tuning into inner forces helps.
The Mean Girl Munchies “press the silence” on critical self-awareness with quick bites of crunchy food regardless of taste. Meditation is a healthier approach to focus on something unique.
c) Licking your wounds implies avoiding and calming learned helplessness with slow, sweet and creamy indulgence. People who lack the ability to engage in task-oriented coping are more likely to emotionally eat. Instead, take direct action to resolve, mitigate, or eliminate stressors. Try positive psychology with an empowered paradigm.
d) Recreational eating is just a response to boredom or procrastination, particularly in times of transition like coming home from work. To strike a more balanced balance between the things you want to do and the things you have to do, sprinkle fun activities throughout your schedule. Give yourself permission; see the value; enjoy your life.
If you decide to eat before you’re physically hungry, indulge in a little of what you really want, and then move on. “This is not the diet of eating when you’re hungry and stopping when you’re full.” It’s not about rules; they are general guidelines for you to feel good, like resting when you are tired.
Strategies
1. Eat when you feel physically hungry. “Preventive feeding” doesn’t work. “Physical hunger is a soft, hollow, warm feeling in the stomach.” Gradually you start to become more sensitive to food cues. “You feel really light, active and full of energy.” Hunger growls are high in the stomach, not below the navel, which is the sound of digestion. Skip sugary drinks between hunger pangs until you can recognize hunger cues. Don’t stress if you can’t eat right away, your body will use its own fuel, but don’t get used to being hungry for a long time because you could get a headache, irritability and difficulty eating.
2. Eat what you really want to be psychologically satisfied. “Completely release the brake” and “move all foods to the No Guilt category.” Instead, rank by what you like and how it makes you feel. Your body is designed to crave a variety of foods, so keep small amounts available (out of sight) and accessible.
3. Sit down, be present and fully enjoy what you are eating. Satisfaction comes from the environment, freedom, perceived portions, etc. Take a substantial portion and commit to what you are eating. Sit down and eat in the designated eating areas. Be present to enjoy eating and remove conditioned triggers and escape self-consciousness. “Build and savor the perfect bite, every time.” If you eat with others, enjoy the food and the conversation separately.
4. Stop eating when you feel comfortably full. The first sign that you are approaching satiety is a slight decrease in taste. Try taking a 5-minute break after eating half of your current servings as an experiment. Leave a bite of quality food on the plate to indicate abundance and empowerment. Ask yourself if the next bite will make you feel better or worse. Create a routine at the end of the meal, like brushing your teeth, doing the dishes, or taking a 10-minute walk. Plan post-meal indulgence, such as only allowing one TV show after dinner.
5. Billing. See how the food makes you feel. Pure motivational states come from consistent feeling states, that is, pleasure both now and later. Conflict states require willpower, so build “wish power” by transforming Shoulds into Wants and Shouldn’ts into Don’ts. Watch for discomfort after unhealthy foods for tangible memories to change your motivational pull. Check 30 minutes, one hour, three hours, and again up to five hours after eating, rating energy, hunger, mood, focus, and other factors like digestion.
6. Exercise if you want to feel happier and look better, not to burn calories. Rate your mood, energy, tension, and problem solving; then walk at a comfortable pace for 10 minutes listening to music or talking; rating the same factors later, you will see the difference. Also, wear a slightly snug-fitting piece of clothing to track progress instead of the scale.
