How do you handle what I call, "EATING EVENTS"

I would go to the chili cook off and try one bite of 50 kinds of chili. I would enjoy my cold beverage with it (beer or otherwise). I'm not sure now that I have been eating smaller portions for two months that I could eat more than one bite of each without feeling sick.

I stay away from the food vendors at the fair. Bad for the body and the budget.

I would either be the DD for the gala, as someone suggested above, or I would save up calories and enjoy it. That's your call

The first of many "eating events" is coming up at work. My boss is very into Halloween and we are having a "treat day and costume contest" on the 31st. My plan is to make a GF fruit pizza for breakfast (vanilla Greek yogurt in place of cream cheese), eat chips salsa and queso for lunch and go on with my life. If someone brings a veggie tray, I'll eat from that. (Admittedly, it's easier for me because celiac disease eliminates a lot of the things others will bring from my diet. ) oh, and I will eat two pieces of my friend Missi's Peanut Butter fudge. I will use a break to walk up and down the six flights of stairs to pay for that. :-)

I don't worry about it too much, I just make sure to log all of it.

ALL of it.

Then for the next event, I know what I did last time, and what it "cost", so I can make a fully informed choice on how much to "control" myself.

Things like the 80/20 rule are problematic - if you're perfect on the 80%, and the 20% is only twice as bad as it should have been, you've just wiped out pretty much all the effort from the 80%.

Just curious how all of you wonderful people handle what I call "Eating Events"? You know the kind of thing that basically the food brings you out to. There are several of them coming up that I usually attend and I'm wondering what I should do.

a)just not go
b) go and TRY to control myself
c) other- cause there's always an other

Examples of these kinds of events that are coming up in the next two months are a chili cook off, the county fair, and a charity gala. The Gala is more of a drinking issue for me than overindulging in food. But the fair, OMG, fried oreos, caramel apples, funnel cakes.....

Guess I'm not really looking for advice. I know what I NEED to do. I just wonder how other people deal with these sort of things.

Learning how to handle these kinds of outings properly is necessary, because you'll be dealing with them for the rest of your life. Just because you hit goal at some point and transition into maintenance does not mean all of a sudden you'll be able to not have a plan for these kinds of events. Avoiding them is not practical nor is it any fun

What works for me-
Be picky! Because my husband does volunteer work with teens we were invited to over ten graduation open houses this spring and of course every single one of them had food and The Cake. Some Sundays we had 4 of them right in a row. The 'old' me would have eaten at each one, as well as had a piece of cake at each. This summer (having lost the weight and now in maintenance), I only ate the food that I actually really wanted. I did NOT eat out of obligation or to be 'polite'. I turned down the pushy relatives trying to shove plates of meatballs and sloppy jo sandwiches at me. I also only ate the cake that looked really good-which meant I skipped eating anything at all at several of them That paid off though because a few of them had fantastic food (can we say lasagna wee!), and I ate that guilt free, because I hadn't been wasting calories on sub-par food. I also had some cake, but I cut those massive pre-cut pieces in half or even fourths.

Portion Control-like the above cake example, have some food but cut back on the portions. Now my whole family splits a funnel cake instead of me eating my own (and then taking some of my kids as well :blushing: ). Have one fried oreo instead of three. Just cutting back on the amount of each thing you eat will be a huge calorie saver!

Be 'Rude'. I touch on this one above, but don't be afraid to say no, if you don't really want what's being offered or aren't really hungry. I've actually gone to pot-locks, brought a dish to pass, and then sat there and sipped water and had some veggies and fruit while everyone else mowed down on three heaping plates worth of calories. I go into these events knowing what's going to be offered (the brunch potluck I go to every year always has one fruit platter and then about 10 quiches and gobs of pastries/bagels/donuts/muffins ugh). Sometimes I'll eat before going to one of these events, so I'm not really hungry and have an easier time declining food/choosing the lesser calorie options. There's nothing wrong with politely declining food or taking a small amount, but still participating in the fellowship going on

But the fair, OMG, fried oreos, caramel apples, funnel cakes.....

Honestly some things you should never eat ever. If a friend buys a funnel cake you can have one bite. I always bring food with me to festivals so I don't need to buy anything.

I would say go, eat , have fun .. but pace yourself so that your level of fullness catches up with what you eat .. you will find that if you have been restricting your calories it will not take much to make you feel full!

Good question!--especially with the holidays coming up...



Reaan:happy:

Part of my lifestyle change has been to become aware of what I am eating, when/why/where and make conscious and deliberate choices based on my long term goals, not immediate gratification.

If the ONLY thing I like about the event is the eating, I would rather not go. This may seem overly harsh to some, but there are way too many food related events to make a "special occasion just one day" exception for all of them. I would be able to enjoy going to the fair even with moderate consumption, so that would be fine. There will always be another eating event, so I don't have to feel like I am missing something if I don't eat every single thing they have that I might like, and I can fit a moderate treat into just about any day if I know in advance.

In some ways, it has become like drinking events for me. I stopped drinking (mostly) long before I was trying to lose weight, and events where the only draw was the alcohol became at best dull, so they just naturally lost their appeal.

So what I do for these "eating events" is I make sure it is on my cheat day and that on that cheat day I go HARD at the gym. You can usually crank out an extra 800 calories to help you manage those days.

800 extra exercise calories is, for most dieters, an extremely difficult task. That's equivalent to a 200-pound dieter adding a six mile run to their daily activity.

But the fair, OMG, fried oreos, caramel apples, funnel cakes.....

Honestly some things you should never eat ever. If a friend buys a funnel cake you can have one bite. I always bring food with me to festivals so I don't need to buy anything.

That may work for you but other people enjoy those kinds of things. Don't push your restrictions on other people.

Plan for it. Put in a couple of extra workouts. Relax and enjoy. Unless you're at an Eating Event every week, or several times a week, an occasional splurge should be ok.

Follow what I think this plan is about. Nothing is really off limits, it's the amount. There are 25 different chillies at the cook off, taste them all, but eat your favorite pick or 2. It isn't about what you eat, but how much. It's a new mind set. You went, ate everything, and had a good time. The change is going and eating everything no longer means eating an entire bowl of everything.

I go and keep my portion size under control. If I feel like I ate too much, I will eat less than usual the next day.

I save up my calories for it and make sure I do extra exercise...

The festival is easy honestly. I eat before I go, bring a protein bar or something... but most of the time for me the food is not worth the calories anyway (or the price, for that matter!).

For the rest, either save calories for it, or just have a little bit of everything. As long as it's not a weekly occurrence or something, it's not going to kill you.