Why does moderation work for some people but not all?

skinnyjingbb

I had similar experiences, I started again to diet and lose weight last March and was pretty in control the whole year, I was eating small qty of sweets as treat, I can easily stretch one cookie for a whole week without wanting to eat the whole thing in one go. However, I had a binge episode early this year where I crave chocolate so bad, I ate whole bag of the baking chips I brought, which isn't something I like to eat normally.
So now I decided not to have binge trigger at home, because on good days I can eat moderate portions but there will always be bad days, sometime is stress, sometime is hormonal like the week before period. But I am not banning these food completed, I would still have some if family gave some, and I can still buy individual packaged sweets but I no longer buy the whole bag anymore because when I am in binge mod I cannot help but eat the whole bag which will only lead me to want more.

greenlandgem

The psychology and physiology of sweets and bingeing is so incredibly complex and varies enormously between each individual, and even over the course of each individual's life. Kudos to you for being self-aware enough to recognise behaviours that you aren't happy with, and to seek advice in how to change them. It's really tough!

I am lucky in that I don't have an overly fraught relationship with food. I was fortunate to grow up in a house in which food (both healthy and otherwise) was embarrassingly abundant so I don't struggle with some of the issues previous posters have mentioned (I can only imagine how hard that must be). When supplies are limited, I have always had a tendency to ration really strictly - when living in Australia, I could make six Canadian chocolate bars last over a year. As a child, my Halloween candy lasted until Easter. (I know. It's weird.) But when things are readily available, I definitely have tendencies to ... not binge, exactly, but to nibble my way through an entire bag of Cheezies over a four hour period. This made for a long, gradual weight gain through my early thirties that, at 35, I decided I would fix for good. This is what works for me:

• Plan your meals!!! I often loosely plan my entire week (great for grocery budgeting) but do allow myself some flexibility in case plans change (which they rarely do these days, thank you Covid). When you have planned that delicious mug of homemade hot chocolate in the evening, it's easier to resist the *kitten* vending machine Mars bar that afternoon. It takes some time to switch mental gears, but I now (usually) think about indulgences on a weekly timeframe, rather than - well - what I want at that moment.
• Every night after dinner, when I am satiated and my belly is happy, I enter the next day's meals and snacks. I find it's easier to make good choices about future meals when you aren't hangry and your blood sugar isn't in the gutter.
• On that note: Always eat before you go grocery shopping!!!! And if the snack aisle is dangerous, don't walk down it. (Easier said than done - but also easier done than not eating the jelly beans once they're in your cupboard.)
• If your family eats a lot of the foods that trigger you, try keeping them in a different cupboard - or even in a different room, as weird as that sounds. If your partner has a "room of his/her own" like a craft nook or a workshop, perhaps asking if their goodies could live there might help.
• If you can, prep your meals in advance. I make soups, stews, curries, chili, etc then spoon them into a silicone jumbo muffin baking tray, the cups of which are usually ~250mL and a pretty good portion size. I freeze them, pop them out into ziplock bags, and done. I always have about six different meal types ready to be reheated. Every few days, I will cook brown rice or barley or quinoa and keep it in the fridge ready to use. There are two reasons doing all this works for me: firstly, it simplifies meal planning (and packed lunches) significantly, and secondly, I found that my worst snacking offences occurred at 6pm while I was standing next to a stove with my stomach growling ferociously as my brown rice took eighteen thousand hours to cook.
• Pay attention to your cycle. My cravings go through the roof the week of my period - there's nothing I can do about it, it's just hormones. I make extra certain to have healthy meals prepped for this time, but I also allow myself to indulge moderately for the worst couple days, usually up to maintenance calories or even a little over. I don't run riot, but it's just too miserable to abstain entirely from all the crunchy salty goodness. I know that the following week my appetite and energy levels will be back in balance and I spend that time gently compensating for the prior excesses.
• If sweets are your weakness, try to explore and find alternative snacks. If I'm going through a sweet mode, I'll often take little containers of chopped pineapple or strawberries to work, and I'll eat them with a fork and nibble slowly through. Dried fruit is another, easier option. Still sugar, still calories, but lots of vitamins and fibre. Have you tried dried mango, snipped into little bite-sized pieces? It isn't low in calories, exactly, but it beats the pants off jelly beans for flavour and nutrition!
• Figure out how to hack your digestion with macros. I realised that unless a meal has moderate amounts of both protein and fibre, I burn through it and an hour later I am so hungry I can't think straight - well, I can think myself straight to the nearest glucose source, but that's not helpful. It's different for everyone, but the protein and fibre combo seems to be pretty common and is backed up by nutrition science. You may find that focussing on better satiety from meals will lessen your sugar cravings - it had a pretty profound effect on mine.
• Make sure to keep every meal and snack as tasty as possible. Nothing makes me want to curl up on the couch with some crunchy goodness like a bland bowl of plain oatmeal or overcooked frozen veggies. Taste doesn't always equal calories, but even if it does, I figure a 500 calorie meal is better than a 300 calorie meal followed by 400 calories of chocolate.

Above all, don't be too hard on yourself. Please don't beat yourself up. Even by trying to make healthier choices you are already succeeding. One meal at a time, one day at a time, just do your best - and whether or not it pans out, move on to the next. Good luck.

AnnPT77

avtlove wrote: »

SnifterPug wrote: »

With sugar (and alcohol I have discovered, following dry January) I have to have a period of abstaining. After that I can use moderation - but not every day. So I can be satisfied with a small sweet treat a couple of times a week (and in fact rarely want one as often as that) but if I go on holiday and end up having desserts more frequently then I will start craving sweet stuff again. That means a period of total abstinence to re-set myself.

I was thinking this is true for me and I was going to stop sweets cold turkey for about a month, knowing that I could bring them back at some point in moderation, but even stopping for a few days was torture. I know I get way too much of my happiness from food. Which is really crazy because I have a really great family and a very enjoyable and low stress job. I don't know why I get so much joy from food. I've been trying to figure that out...

I'm not going to opine on what is "too much", but want to say this: IMO, it's natural, normal and appropriate to enjoy food. It's part of the mechanics that natural selection installed so we don't starve to death before reaching breeding age.

The trick is in personalizing strategies to *balance* calorie appropriateness, decent nutrition, satiation and enjoyment (among other factors). Food is not a sin to be scourged out or expiated, it's a necessary part of life. There is no reason we should not enjoy it, let alone any reason feel guilt when we do.

The "balance" thing, IMO, is a puzzle to be worked out, a personal science fair experiment. In that context, guilt, shame, etc., are unnecessary drama that burns no extra calories and feels yucky besides. Why waste the time and energy?

On the sweets-craving front: Have you tried increasing your fruit consumption? This is not universally helpful, but it helped me, and I've seen others here say the same. For a while, I made it a point to eat 3 servings daily of fruit (based on advice from a TV registered dietitian, oddly enough). The effect wasn't instant, but after a short few weeks, my cravings for more calorie-dense, nutrient-poor sweet foods were reduced. After a while, I could reduce the fruit servings, and keep the effect.

Hamiltonfamily2018 wrote: »

I am really surprised with myself. I use to be a binger; then I decided “I want to be one of those people that can eat anything.” Now I am.

I use to be afraid of logging a breakfast over 300 calories because “Gosh forbid use too many calories early in the day!”

Now my breakfast can be upwards of 600 calories and I don’t worry about it. I fuel my body early and it sets the tone of the rest of my day. I go out for donuts (a donut) every week, I go out for ice cream at least once a week, I enjoy a little candy everyday after my workout and then sometimes opt for a sweet treat at the end of the day or it could just be Greek yogurt and fruit. I just budget for it.

Learning to eat EVERYTHING has been the best tool; learning skill I could’ve done for myself.

I do think that for some people, self-definition is a part of the problem.

So many times here, I see people making very broad statements about themselves that seem to have become part of their self-identity, perhaps even a self-fulfilling prophecy. "I hate exercise." "I can't stand veggies." "I a binger." IMO, it can help to even make a small chink in that strict self-definition. "I haven't yet found an enjoyable way to move more" pretty much covers the same factual basis as "I hate exercise", but leaves some psychological and tactical room to experiment and find a path.

The explicit or implied "be" verbs - "I am X" - leave no room to move. "This has been my specific past behavior, now how do I change that?" is more productive . . . harder in some ways, easier in others.

kshama2001

avtlove wrote: »

wunderkindking wrote: »

avtlove wrote: »

That's very interesting and helpful.Thank you for your response. I've always had food insecurity, but not the way you have. It was not financial with me it was more because of always trying to diet. I felt like I shouldn't/couldn't eat that candy bar and so every single time I did, it was "I'm never going to have this again so I'd better eat it all now." mentality. I think I still do that but the strange thing is, even KNOWING that, I still do it.

It's definitely strange, but same. No amount of 'THERE WILL ALWAYS BE REESE'S CUPS!' logic worked/has worked for me. I'm not going to claim to have it all worked out now. What worked for me would be the worst idea ever for someone else.

But what has worked and is still working is having the food in the house, and saying "I can have that if I want it, whenever I want it" Because then there is no... window of opportunity. I can have all of it, some of it, none of it. I can have it today, tomorrow, today and tomorrow. I can have it next week. Because it is ALWAYS there, it's lost a lot of power over me. It isn't a treat, it isn't an opportunity, it isn't a potentially last hurrah. It's just another food in my cabinet (and kind of a security blanket).

I'm going to log it no matter what, and there are DEFINITELY days I've eaten way more if it than I ideally should've, especially early on. Once my brain adjusted to 'it's here, you can have it if you want' and the bulk of my diet changed around the 'treat/special' stuff, though? An astonishingly high number of days I go 'eh'. Like I just got up and ate a boiled egg instead of a brownie (never, ever, thought I'd see the day)

Brownies are there and have been (in the freezer). Boiled egg? We're having ice storms and can't go out. My husband and kids are home. THOSE might vanish and we're out of eggs now to make more. The brownie will still be there if I want it later -- and so I feel less need to eat it.

TL:DR: BRAINS ARE WEIRD.

I listen to a podcast called Weight Loss Made Real with Cookie Rosenblum. She talks a lot about exactly what you are saying. It's just food. Nothing special. You can have it anytime as long as you log it. I know that all logically, and I've even felt incredibly powerful and elated when I think about that at the moment and it takes the power of the food away. I totally see what you're saying. BUT... then Valentine's Day came. And my husband bought me A LOT of candy. I started off just counting out a few jelly beans (they're a particular weakness for me) and tracking them. All good. Then I just kept going in the kitchen for more. I ate way too many. The next day I was going to do better. I promised myself. Then I did it again. The next day I was going to do better. Then I did it for a THIRD day. To the point where i was just so sick and upset with myself. Then I threw the rest of the candy away and told myself I was going to stop sugar cold turkey because I OBVIOUSLY can't handle it and moderate it. So today is day two of that plan and I am hating life like this. I'm miserable. Not physically. Just emotionally and mentally. I pray some day I can get to the point of eating an egg when there are brownies around. I'm impressed to say the least.

I had my OH hide the Valentine's candy and only give me a piece at a time, after dinner. We get it from a candy store where you can pick out what you want. For Christmas I got my usual wide assortment and did not hide it. That didn't go very well, lol. This time I only got one type of candy. I asked for 4 pieces and he got me 8, but because it was hidden and I was just having one or two per day this worked out ok.

kshama2001

I don't normally eat a lot of fruit in the winter, but this year I am working on increasing fiber, so I am including "wild" blueberries with breakfast and raspberries with post-dinner snack/dessert. Since they are not in season, I buy them frozen. For those of you in New England near a Market Basket, their store brand has great prices for frozen berries.

I normally make a lot of baked goods this time of year. These do nothing at all to fill me up - very empty calories for me. But with the addition of fruit, and also my desire to reduce saturated fat, I haven't made baked goods since Christmas.