Moderation vs the "all or nothing" approach...

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  • EmmaFitzwilliam
    EmmaFitzwilliam Posts: 482 Member
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    Knowledge is power. There are always consequences. And, I choose to be accountable to myself about my food choices from here forward, but I'm not going to choose misery. I allow myself indulgences, and enjoy them fully and absolutely. That way, when the portion is finished, I'm sated both physically and emotionally.
  • cuppykat
    cuppykat Posts: 16 Member
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    I try to practice moderation. I still screw up but I try to remind myself that I'll feel so much prouder if I don't overdo it. I try to remind myself of how bad I feel after a binge.
  • gothicfires
    gothicfires Posts: 240 Member
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    I've lost weight both ways, eating everything I love in moderation and completely changing my eating habits. For me it was much easier doing it the second way. Food is fuel not a party. Fun is being able to go on a hike or dancing with friends. Since I eat healthier I feel better and am much happier. I have a sense of accomplishment that I didn't have before. Now those 'can't do without foods' are a minor bump in my road when I see them or they make me sick to my stomach (depending on their fat content) and I'm good having a special meal once a month.
  • thatpixichick
    thatpixichick Posts: 77 Member
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    I used to be mega addicted to cheese, toast, and anything potatoey, literally couldn't go a day without them. I found totally cutting them out has meant that now, several months on, I'm very "meh" about all those things, I can take or leave them. In my experience, your tastebuds do reset themselves after a while, you will start craving other things.
  • Spocky
    Spocky Posts: 62 Member
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    The everything in moderatin idea not works for me. If I open a bag of crackers, I will eat a lot of that. I loved a certain type of hamburger but I stopped missing it.
  • adcrag1
    adcrag1 Posts: 10 Member
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    If we remember that these changes are for life, then if you eat something or skip the gym, you can get back on track the next day!!

    What has worked for me is before I go to bed I remind myself that I'll watch my eating & determine what exercise I plan to do tomorrow. I also take my lunch & snacks with me to help with over eating.

    Good luck everyone! !
  • deviiv
    deviiv Posts: 12 Member
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    For exercise- if it is built into your routine and your routine is realistic and not going to work you into the ground, just let it roll. You deserve to give yourself that time to work out, plus the other benefits from doing so like mentally.

    For food- I believe in out of sight, out of mind. However, it is not that easy with generous housemates. I plan as much of my food as I can with a small leeway. Also, when I've had a weak moment at the shops and bought something naughty. I'll apportion it out into smaller servings and stash them at the top shelf of a cupboard where I'll have to get a chair to reach them. You run the risk of the food spoiling, but during your regular clean they should come up again. If I have bothered getting all the way to get a serve, then it's already portioned out and I get my fix and move on.
  • WinoGelato
    WinoGelato Posts: 13,454 Member
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    ILiftHeavyAcrylics wrote: »
    I think that self-control is like a muscle. You have to exercise it in order to make it stronger, but at the same time you don't want to tax it too much right away or it will fail. If you want to do a 200 lb squat you don't start with a 200 lb squat. You start with the bar and you learn how to squat with no weight. Then you build up. If you put 200 lbs on the bar right away you would fail, probably hurt yourself, and then you might lament that you're one of those people who just isn't ever going to be able to squat 200 lbs.

    So let's say your problem food is ice cream. What I would do is remove ice cream from the house temporarily. When you want ice cream you go out to an ice cream shop, get a single scoop, and leave the store with the ice cream before starting to eat it. Once you've done that successfully a few times, then start buying one or two of those little single serving ice cream containers. Practice having them in the freezer without eating them. Then practice just having one and leaving the other one. Then move up to having a pint of ice cream in there. Practice weighing out one serving and putting the rest back. One thing that helped me on the ice cream front was to buy the good stuff. For one thing sometimes the price tag would stop me when the calorie count wouldn't.

    You may have setbacks and that's okay. It's hard work to change habits and it isn't always going to be perfect. Personally when I came to MFP I didn't just want to lose weight. I wanted to fix the things that were broken about the way I view and respond to food and to my environment. It's a personal growth thing. So that makes it worth it to me.

    I can't actually say it any more perfectly than this so I'm just going to quote this for emphasis....

    What I will add is that I'm not a fan of the "cheat meal" or "cheat day" where you go all in and then back to heavily restricted eating. For me, I prefer to work the indulgences in every day, or every few days, in smaller amounts. I have a glass (or two) of wine almost every day. I have something sweet, whether it be one square of Ghiradelli Salted Caramel Dark Chocolate, or a half serving of gelato, every day. I know some people have issues with trigger foods and at first stopping at one piece of chocolate may not be realistic, which is where I think Acrylics advice that I quoted is so important.

    Good luck!
  • MamaBirdBoss
    MamaBirdBoss Posts: 1,516 Member
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    Only do a "meal plan" for 80% of your calories. The other 20% let be whatever you feel in the mood for.

    And WHY THE HECK did you cut out coffee? If it's a daily thing for you, just plan for it!
  • DuckReconMajor
    DuckReconMajor Posts: 434 Member
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    Yeah no need to cut out coffee, either plan for it or just learn to drink it black! It's an acquired taste. Just make sure to drink good coffee, maybe start with a lighter roast. And it's great since you don't have to log it (unless you want to log the 5 or so calories in a really big cup, in which case more power to you).
  • Timorous_Beastie
    Timorous_Beastie Posts: 595 Member
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    I think moderation works best for certain personality types. Even as a little kid eating Lucky Charms, I always saved some of the marshmallows until the end, so I wouldn't be stuck eating just the boring oat pieces. There's a part of my brain that wants to save things for later. And if I eat the entire bag of candy now, I won't have any for later.

    That said, I also only cook enough for my husband and I to eat. Can't overeat at meals if there's no leftovers. I'd rather buy ice cream as ice cream sandwiches than as a tub of ice cream, because I'm more satisfied with one bar at ~150 calories than one tiny scoop in a bowl for the same calories.

    And there's some foods I usually only eat on weekends, when I don't log my calories. It's something that works for me. It keeps me from feeling too obsessed. I know from the past when I did log every single morsel that it's damn near impossible for me to undo the work I've done all week in one weekend, even if it's a major blowout party weekend. So I don't sweat it. I still try to be mindful of what I eat (a couple handfuls of some snack, not the whole package) but I don't associate any guilt with it.
  • DuckReconMajor
    DuckReconMajor Posts: 434 Member
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    Timorous_Beastie wrote: »
    Even as a little kid eating Lucky Charms, I always saved some of the marshmallows until the end, so I wouldn't be stuck eating just the boring oat pieces.
    I always did this type of thing as well, but I feel it has worked against me. If all that's left is my favorite part I'm much more likely to finish the whole plate instead of saving the rest/throwing it away.
  • jenniferplatter
    jenniferplatter Posts: 21 Member
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    I have a problem with moderation when it comes to sweets, carbs, junk food...can't eat one cookie or one piece of chocolate or one single serve bag of chips. My solution is simple...I DON'T buy them and have them in my house. I don't believe "Oh, you can have cookies in the house, just only allow yourself one" if moderation is an issue.
  • Timorous_Beastie
    Timorous_Beastie Posts: 595 Member
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    DuckReconMajor wrote: »
    Timorous_Beastie wrote: »
    Even as a little kid eating Lucky Charms, I always saved some of the marshmallows until the end, so I wouldn't be stuck eating just the boring oat pieces.
    I always did this type of thing as well, but I feel it has worked against me. If all that's left is my favorite part I'm much more likely to finish the whole plate instead of saving the rest/throwing it away.

    But why wouldn't you finish the whole plate? Why take/buy/cook more than you want to eat?
  • jgnatca
    jgnatca Posts: 14,464 Member
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    It is worth it to address those parts of you that are "all or nothing". We talked about this in my weight loss therapy class quite a bit. Does the following pattern sound familiar? The dieter maintains a strict regimen for a week, then "slips up" and goes off-plan. She "gives up" and doesn't monitor her food intake for the rest of the week, vowing to start fresh on Monday.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_distortion

    One way to break through this sort of thinking is to set 80% goals. That is, I am going to walk at least twenty minutes five out of seven days this week. If I do more, yay. If not, I've still hit my target.
  • DuckReconMajor
    DuckReconMajor Posts: 434 Member
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    Timorous_Beastie wrote: »
    DuckReconMajor wrote: »
    Timorous_Beastie wrote: »
    Even as a little kid eating Lucky Charms, I always saved some of the marshmallows until the end, so I wouldn't be stuck eating just the boring oat pieces.
    I always did this type of thing as well, but I feel it has worked against me. If all that's left is my favorite part I'm much more likely to finish the whole plate instead of saving the rest/throwing it away.

    But why wouldn't you finish the whole plate? Why take/buy/cook more than you want to eat?

    Because I'm not perfect and sometimes get more food than i should. Obviously it's different with a meal portioned out and logged in MFP but when in general just eating out somewhere you're going to get a portion that's way too big.
  • ninerbuff
    ninerbuff Posts: 48,585 Member
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    My experience with clients and people who do the "all or nothing" approach is that the percentage of people who do the "nothing" approach is much much much higher than those who do the "all" approach.
    Our society in the US totally reflects this. With 65% of the US being overweight or obese. I am assuming that of the 35% who aren't overweight or obese, 15% don't do any extra exercise at all and don't eat "clean". Of the 20% left, I'm betting that 15% of them eat moderately and not on some restricted program (this would include many elite athletes). So that last 5% would usually be the extreme people who won't do anything else but eat non processed and whole natural foods only.
    I'm glad to be part of the 15% that do it moderately rather than the 65% of "nothing" approach or 5% of "all" approach.

    A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
    IDEA Fitness member
    Kickboxing Certified Instructor
    Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
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  • ninerbuff
    ninerbuff Posts: 48,585 Member
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    Also everything we learn is by habitual behavior. One can learn moderation if they create the correct habitual behavior to do it. That may mean learning how to absolutely STOP once you reach your limit and be disciplined not to break it.

    A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
    IDEA Fitness member
    Kickboxing Certified Instructor
    Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
    9285851.png
  • whitebalance
    whitebalance Posts: 1,655 Member
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    I'm not great at moderation, so I try to make enough room for the whole thing - whatever that thing is. One "trick" I used successfully when I was losing, though... I would buy the thing and immediately throw away whatever portion of it I wasn't planning to consume. Order the fries, dump half of them in the trash before sitting down with the food, and that's the end of that. Buy the pack of cookies, open it, give or throw away all but the serving I'm eating, and indulge thoroughly in that serving. Order the cheesecake after lunch with my son, draw a "his/hers" line across it, and don't cross the line because the rest is his.

    Bonus... My dismay over wasting part of my money on food I threw away was sometimes a useful disincentive: Do I really want to spend three bucks for those 3-4 measly onion rings?
  • Owlfan88
    Owlfan88 Posts: 187 Member
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    One thing I did years ago with respect to fried chicken DH and I really enjoyed, but was not the best choice, was we said we could get it for the community outdoor concerts where we took a picnic. They only had these concerts about 3x a year(Memorial Day, 4th of July, Labor Day) and we were often out of town for at least one of these. This way we knew when we would get our treat, and didn't feel like we were cutting it out entirely.

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