Habits: Accept and Manage, or Attempt to Change?

TheLaser
TheLaser Posts: 338 Member
edited November 18 in Motivation and Support
I'd love to hear your thoughts on what I think is a foundational question guiding our, or at least my, weight loss attempts: do you accept and manage deeply entrenched food habits, or do you change them?

I realize the situation is not so much either/or and success probably lies in a combination of both, but I'd like to hear some approaches and what has worked for some of you.

This is my second round on MFP and my life has changed dramatically (two small kids, different job situations) since my first successful time, so I can't use the same strategies that I had before. (And life will probably keep on changing!) I really want this to be a permanent lifestyle shift.

The dilemmas:

1. I'm trying to embrace some hunger, but I can't let myself get too hungry, or I overcompensate. So my question is, do I accept this and work with it, e.g. have low cal healthy snacks always on hand (that seems challenging), or do I try to change it (also challengeing)?

2. When food is present and I'm not doing much/in a social setting, I tend to eat. Again, do I accept this and switch out the food for, say, water, or do I try to fundamentally change it?

3. Keeping within my calories has really motivated me to get moving, even under challenging circumstances. But working out for an hour every day just to get within my calories is not what I am aiming for. I'm aiming for decreasing my appetite more appropriately so that I'm able to naturally intake fewer calories. I'm fairly highly motivated to exercise so that is not ever going to be a problem, but my lifestyle is such that time for exercise is often elusive. My goal with this is to reduce my desire to eat so much and make healthy choices. Again, is my appetite something I need to accept and manage, or is it something I can change?

Replies

  • Quanagettingfit34
    Quanagettingfit34 Posts: 3 Member
    I don't know the true answer but I use apple cider vinegar and it really helps supress my appetite. Drinking water frequently does as well. That's a difficult question because the answer totally depends on you. I'd suggest six small meals a day instead of three...that way you can stay on top of your hunger.
  • susanp57
    susanp57 Posts: 409 Member
    As to No. 1: Do you have snacks scheduled in? I have an afternoon snack, get home from work snack and an evening snack. These are all within calories. I think most of us need those things. Sometimes I still get the hungries but I look at it as a good thing. It means I am behaving myself.

    No. 2. I don't think so. In most cultures food is a significant part of being social. I think the better choice is learning to control it.

    No 3. I think after eating this way for a while, your appetite changes on its own to an extent. I agree that food and exercise are two separate paths to the same ultimate goal. I try not to eat exercise calories at all unless I have a huge deficit as a result. I feel like this is training my willpower, habit, etc. I want to go back to the time I was getting exercise for its own sake and results, not simply as a path to lower my weight.

    HTH,
  • susanp57
    susanp57 Posts: 409 Member
    edited May 2017
    BTW, lo-cal snacks for me include HB eggs, yogurt, and hummus which I always have around. Thus not a challenge.
  • MsArriabella
    MsArriabella Posts: 469 Member
    1. Make a new habit. Multiple small meals, scheduled snacks, intermittent fasting, whatever works for you. Try different things until you land on what works for you. Personally once I start eating I have a hard time stopping until I feel satisfied (trying not to get to 'full' anymore) so 2 meals a day works for me.
    2. That one's tough because you can't always control what food is there, be mindful of what you eat and plan smaller meals before/after social events with food. Food will always be a part of people gathering.
    3. You really will get used to eating less after a while, but it takes time. Exercise burns calories but it can also make you hungrier so it still comes back to diet.
  • amusedmonkey
    amusedmonkey Posts: 10,330 Member
    For me it has been a mix of both. How I handle certain habits depends on what path is the road of least resistance or I have more to gain from changing it than managing it.

    Example 1: I used to eat nuts every time I watched something, read a book, did certain activities... etc. Too many things triggered that behavior. Trying to control only some of these triggers was much harder and fail prone than just kicking the behavior all together and only having nuts as a part of a meal, bought in single servings, never in the house except in specific circumstances.

    Example 2: I used to eat anything that was visible to me. If it's in the counter it's in my mouth, even if I didn't even like the food. I decided I would have more to gain from completely changing this habit because eating foods I don't like is a waste of calories when I can eat foods I like.

    Example 3: I love food. I especially love it in a social setting. This isn't going to ever change. Not enjoying food in social settings makes me feel sad and the social gathering is not as enjoyable. The path of least resistance and best thing for my mental health would be to find a way to accommodate this and I did. It involves either skipping meals or having very low calorie meals and eating at maintenance that day, even having planned gains during holidays. Going through the trouble of skipping a meal or delaying my weight loss feels worth it for what I get in exchange.

    Example 4: I started my weight loss because I was diagnosed with high blood sugar. Naturally, I wanted to do my best to manage my blood sugar so attempted a low carb diet. I was unhappy, hungry, and got very undesirable side effects. I decided that I did not need to change my carb level yet and that I should try just simple weight loss and non-intrusive ways to manage blood sugar like exercise, spreading carbs, eating them with protein..etc. This was the right decision because choosing not to change that made my diet sustainable and after enough weight loss I went into remission.

    My advice based on my personal experience is to try different strategies, anything you can come up with, for every issue that leads you to overeat then discard what feels like too much effort for the gain and keep what feels reasonably acceptable, then handle every situation individually with what you feel would be the easiest choice to make at the time that would lead to desirable results.

    One more thing you could consider is if it's worth losing slower in exchange for more calories in general or stopping at a slightly higher weight in exchange for higher maintenance. For me, I decided it was a "yes" for both because it feels like it's worth it.
  • DietPrada
    DietPrada Posts: 1,171 Member
    Habit in my household involves my OH getting up from the couch at 7:10pm every night and making a cuppa for both of us and grabbing a bag of chips, or nuts or some other such snack. We've always been evening snackers. Netflix, something to munch on, what else do you need?

    In the early days (I'm talking 4 years ago) I used to forgo the snack, and sit there all resentful and secretly hating him because he was munching his way through 800 calories and I wanted some damn it.

    Now I structure my eating around this habit. I have 2 coffees in the morning (8am and 10:30am) a <300 calorie lunch, a 400 - 500 calorie dinner and I normally have about 400 calories left over for in front of the TV snacking. Sometimes a tin of oysters and some cheese, sometimes a sugar free chocolate bar or a protein bar, a tub of cottage cheese, a chia seed pudding, whatever. It works, it hasn't hindered my weightloss, and it allows me to embrace my eating as a change for life, not a diet where I have to be bitter and resentful because I'm missing out.
  • Niki_Fitz
    Niki_Fitz Posts: 951 Member
    @TheLaser Great question. Because it's those beliefs about our habits and about change that sets up EVERYTHING!

    I do both: I work to create new habits to replace old icky ones, and I also manage other habits with clever workarounds. I use short-term challenges to keep me on track with a new habit until it starts replacing an old one. Like managing hunger: I used to go all day waaay too hungry and overcompensate. But I am now getting into the habit of making hard-boiled eggs whenever I have some extra kitchen time, probably three times a week. I've been remembering to take a few in a baggie along with me to work, or some leftover grilled chicken. Just an ounce or two of bland protein really keeps cravings at bay, fuels my day, and overcompensating. But this new habit is in the formation process!

    The more social the habit is I feel like it needs more management than change. Ordering a big salad with oil and vinegar dressing at a meal out, chugging water at social events, or just avoiding a food table at a party can help a lot.

    I think (and hope) appetite changes over time. I know when I'm on a roll with less sugar, fat, and processed foods I stop craving them and think a LOT less about food throughout a day or a week. Good stuff. Feel free to add me as a friend - losing weight post-baby as well!
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