How to Break Three Eating Habits that Trip Us All Up

Is drawing more elegance into your life even on your radar? You’re likely low in Vitamin Elegance and here’s why we need to prioritize this beautiful intention.

Hello Thrivers!

I’m sorry I’m so late today. I’m not even sure why I’m so late! Thank you for hanging in there with me!

My book — thanks to the extreme help of “C” and everyone who contributed titles — will be out in early August. And the price will be set at fifty percent off for you guys.

I’m excited for you to put the ideas into action and continue to create your forever-loss. ♥

Pearl One

I was listening to a podcast the other day, and the show’s host told a story about a large friend who’d explained that he was heavy because “he just loved food so much.”

That it was just that simple

The podcast host snickered and said something like “that’s pretty much what I’ve always figured is true for everyone.” (Chuckle, chuckle.)

I mean, we’re supposed to believe that the podcaster’s friend “liked to eat” so much that he hobby-ate himself into being severely obese?

Doubtful.

We might tell ourselves that we “merely love to eat” but when most of us overeat, binge-eat, eat and vomit, or stop eating altogether, generally something much deeper is triggering the food-behavior.

Survival-Eating

It’s my thought that when kids are growing up in a tough situation, they survival-eat. Life was terrifying and out of our control so we self-soothed by overeating.

I understand that you beat yourself up about your weight and your “inability to lose” but try to look at it from little-you’s perspective: she was merely trying to survive a bad scene. And keep in mind that little-you had no job, no car keys, no way of extricating herself from the horrible situation.

She was stuck.

Viktor Frankl’s quote says it perfectly, “An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior.”

That said, cut yourself some slack. Empathize with kid-you. Entrenched eating problems don’t just arrive out of the blue for no reason.

Boredom-Eating

So, if we’ve established the habit of leaning on food as kids, we end up – naturally — turning to food as adults.

We end up overeating for several different emotional reasons: We’re sad: we eat. We’re celebrating: we eat. We’re bored. . . we eat?

I think boredom gets short-shrift as being a trigger for overeating.

Let’s return to little-you. If you had a childhood where your interests weren’t encouraged it’s not likely that you champion your passion-topics today.

Say you always wanted to be in the Girl Scouts like the kids in your class, but your mom didn’t make it a priority to do everything involved like pay the fees, buy the uniform, take you to the many meetings, help you get the gear for camping and so forth.

Or even, say your mom was a single parent and held two jobs while raising you and your brother. There simply wasn’t money or time for your interests to be nurtured.

If your interests were largely ignored when you were young it’s likely that you ignore your interests today as an adult.

So, journal-write and journal-write about what makes you sparkle in life. My sparkle moments come from a LOVE of animals, travel, writing, and hanging out with my kids on the rare moments they want to see me.

It’s not that having a more exciting life will make us slender, of course not. But infusing life with your personal brand of fun, makes staying on the Smart Eating Path a whole lot easier.

No-Dignity Eating

And now we come to “no-dignity eating”. Let’s go back again to kid-you. If you were allowed very little dignity and respect in your young life, – like you were screamed at for forgetting a, b, or c – you weren’t given the dignity that every child needs to flourish.

We’re not eating with dignity today when we binge-eat. Or maybe we ate dinner with the family, but then also ate the leftovers clandestinely in the kitchen.

And we’re sure not eating with dignity when we crunch through a box of Cheeze-It’s while zoning out on a show.

Journal-write about dignity, what it means to you, and how you can slowly began to bring more and more respect for your ownself into your life. ♥

Pearl Two

As I’ve mentioned, I’m not a doctor, nutritionist, or dietician. I just love sharing foods I like with you guys.

I can’t believe it’s taken me this long, but I’ve finally switched to eating only whole-wheat pasta. I’ve eaten whole-wheat bread and whole-wheat rice forever, but I never got around to dealing with the white pasta. (I just avoided it for the most part.)

Here’s how I make it: I boil the brown spaghetti. After it goes into the colander, I take about one cup’s worth and spray “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter” on the noodles and then sprinkle in some Parmesan.

Yum-city. ♥

Pearl Three

Topic for July: how to keep steering yourself back onto the Smart Eating Path.

Ooo, this is such a good topic. Here’s what I do on a regular basis: every day I note whether I’m having an I-want-to-chow-every-thing-in-sight kind of day or a I-can-stick-to-the-plan-no-problem day.

If I’m sensing the former, I literally eat something every hour or hour-and-a-half.

I call this the “drip, drip, drip” eating method and it’s a heavy-lifter. This method is my go-to every time I need to get myself back on track.

The idea is to keep your hunger on simmer, so that it never gets to a rolling boil.

What do I eat? I might have a large kale salad at noon (topped with fake chicken or polenta rounds both found at Trader Joe’s), and half of an apple at 1:30. Then I’ll have the other half of the apple at 2:00. At 3:00 I’ll eat my blueberry-oatmeal bowl and so on. Then I stop eating completely by 6 p.m. and go to bed early with a great book. (Like the one in Pearl Four.)

See? I just have light bites throughout the day, but I do a total of zero “intuitive eating” and work closely with the clock.

And of course, I track what I eat.

For the latter situation: just keep on trucking, but remind yourself to never, ever get smug about how you eat, what you weigh, the size of your jeans etc.

Keeping the weight off for seventeen years now is directly related to staying humble and ready to learn. ♥  

Pearl Four

Books love us and want us to be happy.

You know what’s tough about having a “book pearl”? Finding a new book every single week that I really want to recommend is harder than it sounds.

I read what I think of as a lot of junk before I find an “Aretha Franklin singing R-E-S-P-E-C-T” type of book to recommend.

In that vein, I have a GREAT one for you today: The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese.

Covenant is the kind of book I wish I could read every week. I don’t know why, but I haven’t paid much attention to Oprah’s Book Club, but that changes today.

One of my favorite authors ever has had two books on her list and that’s all I need to know.

Covenant is one of the books. I’m only a few chapters in but I can tell: an excellent, white-tie of a read. Cutting for Stone is Verghese’s other  masterpiece that was on Oprah’s list back in ’08.

The book’s genre is historical-fiction which I can’t get enough of. I mean, reading really good historical fiction is like learning history at the hands of a master author.

To sit and be enveloped in a gripping story while simultaneously learning how South and North Korea came to be (Pachinko); how Winston Churchill fought the Nazi military machine on his own long before the U.S. showed up (the Splendid and the Vile); and how the largest storm to ever hit America crashed into the history books (Isaac’s Storm) is one of the greatest luxuries of modern life. We all would have had a scored an A+ in our history classes if we’d had these books to devour.

Enjoy The Covenant of Water and let me know what you think. ♥

Pearl Five

“Never give up on something that you can’t go a day without thinking about.” – Winston Churchill ♥

Guess what I did last week? I had the master bedroom carpet professionally cleaned.

Omg. It’s been like an extended spa day.

I don’t need a diamond; I need my house detailed. Professional cleaners: I love you!

Have a wonderful weekend, all! And I’d love a follow on my new Facebook page and on my Instagram. (This is new for me to be social media -y)

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

♥, Wendy

My Cold-Tote that I LOVE
Best Books Ever