The annual closet swap of summer clothes with winter ones happened this week. It is always fun to pull out the fleece and sweaters, mittens and mufflers. It was less fun to bring out the jeans and slacks this year. For the first time in a decade, summer left me bulging around the middle with less room to breathe in fitted waistlines. I dread going into the winter holidays this way.
A couple of weeks ago, we talked about the ideal of intuitive eating and the hope that somewhere inside lies an instinctive blueprint for moderation. But no, it seems that our body-minds were designed to deal with scarcity, not abundance. We don't naturally stop when our biological needs have been met.
Last time, we mentioned the value of "tracking," a practice that keeps our daily food choices in view. Another approach I find helpful is the development of small habits and frameworks that offset the urge to eat more than I need. Some habits have worked well for years. Others need frequent tweaking. Yet others sounded good at first but never really clicked.
I have tried the following frameworks with some degree of success:
- Some protein and a fruit or veggie with every starchy snack
- Only one serving of any particular food or beverage each day
- Toast and butter only when eating out
- Beer only when socializing
- Standard bowl at home, 14 oz instead of 20
- Standard cup, 6 oz instead of 12
- Share an appetizer-sized pizza instead of a larger one
- Ice cream only once a month
- Coffee instead of lunch with a friend
This approach to moderating daily intake is most useful when I keep it current. It is easier to fall out of helpful habits than to bring them back. It takes effort to monitor effectiveness and develop new frameworks when old ones no longer work. Overall, however, a pattern of small, repetitive wise choices like these work better for me than making each daily food decision "from scratch."
Two sobering tidbits from behavioral research cast light on my experience with eating. First, the rational brain has limited capacity for real-time decision-making; much of that capacity is invested in other priorities while our eating runs on autopilot. Second, we face an average of 200 food choices per day, many made on an unconscious level. It helps to have pre-planned some of those choices so that they come more easily when we aren't paying attention.
I think of these tools not as rules but as habits, frameworks, or guidelines. They are flexible, not rigid. They are friends guiding me on a path I want to follow, not enemies depriving me of legitimate pleasure. They arise from within my deepest values and are not imposed by a harsh authority figure.
If eating and drinking in moderation challenge you, what tools do you find most useful? Can you distinguish practices that trigger inner rebellion from those that gently guide you forward?
