A forever-habit that will always have our back.
Hello Thrivers!
Mid-October is the perfect time to say to friends and family, “please no food gifts in December.”
And to avoid a Halloween free-for-all, don’t buy candy that you love or even like a little.
Take me, I would never – ever — hand out Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups (because I literally wouldn’t hand them out, I’d hide in the dark and eat them). ♥
Pearl One
Remember how we learned in middle school English to never — lol — use the words “always” or “never” when we write? Well, sorry Mrs. Garland, because here I go.
Do you want to know the one habit I never stray from? I always “Eat Before I Eat.” I never arrive at the dinner table, party, or a restaurant hungry. Of course, I don’t show up full either, but you won’t hear me say, “I’m famished!!”
Here’s how to Eat Before You Eat: about thirty-minutes before a meal, have something easy like a handful of cherries, an open-face peanut butter with a touch of honey sandwich, carrots in hummus, a half-cup cottage cheese with grapes (one of my favorites), one banana and so forth. And if I’m driving to an event, I eat healthy snacks out of my adorable cold-tote.
Our mission: never begin a meal “starving”!
Taking the edge off our hunger by using the Eat Before You Eat tool is a massive game-changer because it puts us in the control-seat. No longer is the gorgeous plate of lasagna and crunchy garlic bread in charge.
Sorry beautiful food! Your spell over me is — poof! — gone.
Eat Before You Eat and your brilliant brain is back at the helm. ♥
Pearl Two
When I was a teenager, my first boyfriend – a dedicated weight lifter and runner – would watch me plow through a stack of Oreos in the afternoons (likely while watching Donahue), and finally one time said, “Now you’re just boredom-eating!”
“Um, I’m just what?” Back then, I’m fairly certain that I thought boredom-eating was just what one did.
I mean aside from meals, didn’t everyone snack on junk-food throughout the day and night? I mean, my friends all did (note: friends can make our ultimate success truly difficult).
Needless to say, I didn’t have a clue how to lose weight except to haul out my standard go-to: the yo-yo (which we now know doesn’t work anyway). If I’d only known the main pillars of smart eating, my life would have been so very different (for one, I’d still have my gall bladder. I miss that little guy).
Fast-forward to my early forties when I shifted from losing the fifty-five pounds to preserving the loss, and bringing my boyfriend’s simple comment from decades ago along for the ride.
As I held Peter’s words close, it also became clear that our culture encourages all kinds of eating-scenarios that aren’t in our best interest. Take a look.
- Entertainment-eating (the movies, eating in front of the TV, overeating at parties).
- Friend-eating (you overeat with specific pals).
- Impulse eating (someone brings home butter cookies in a pink box from a bakery).
- Distraction-eating (if I’m attacking the kitchen I can avoid thinking about whatever’s upsetting me).
- Evening-eating (when we inhale dessert after dessert at night).
- Exhaustion-eating (especially returning from vacation or a long day at work).
- The 3Es: every-emotion-eating (pretty obvious, but especially eating through grief).
- Weekend-eating (you let-loose for the weekend because you were “so good all week.”)
- Friday-evening-eating (same, love to inhale food after a stressful week work.)
A Better Plan for Our Smart Eating-Lives:
- Intentional eating (I plan and then make a plan to plan. Planning is like magic).
- Precision eating (I eat a small healthy snack every hour to get myself back on track after a free-for-all).
- Fuel-eating (I know that ninety-five percent of the time I’m eating for the energy I need for my daily life).
Journal-Gems
To get a better grip on why you reach for the highest calories around, start with your journal and give voice to your unconscious through your pen or keyboard. An excellent place to start:
- When did I first begin friends-eating?
- How did my friends-eating progress from there?
- How do I keep friends-eating habit alive today?
- What is a good habit(s) I can instill that will take the place of friends-eating? (Name at least three.)
- What would I most prefer that I do versus friends-eating?
While it’s not the last word on overeating, knowing yourself better will always play a pivotal role in how you engage with food. ♥
Pearl Three
The Pearl Three slot is now being dubbed “the habit pearl” where we’ll look closely at great books on habit.
In Atomic Habits, James Clear writes:
“The greatest threat to success is not failure but boredom. We get bored with habits because they stop delighting us. The outcome becomes accepted. And as the habits become ordinary, we start derailing our progress to seek novelty. Perhaps this is why we get caught in a never-ending cycle, jumping from one workout to the next. As soon as we experience the slightest dip in motivation, we begin seeking a new strategy – even if the old one was still working.”
These words are gold. We know what’s it like first-hand to be in a never-ending cycle jumping from one eating plan to another. In the late 90s I picked a plan that I loved – WW old points – and I did not switch to the WW new points. I hear they’re doing colors now. We shouldn’t be changing our eating plan every two or three years. Choose one that you love and keep it forever.
Boredom is a huge obstacle to success to maintaining a Smart Eating Lifestyle. I even wrote the following post about exciting-eating: “Why Having a Food-Party in Your Mouth is Everything When We’re Losing After 50.” Read here.
Taking boredom seriously and addressing it in our lives is one of the pillars of self-care. When we ignore our boredom, we often default into food. I also wrote more specifically on boredom here. ♥
Pearl Four
- Did the book grab me from the first few pages? Five-Stars!
- Will the book keep me up late assuring that I’ll be a zombie in the morning? Yes, so set a timer.
- Did I learn something new from the book? Yes!
- Is the book good enough to capture my attention over a six-hour flight? Yes, yes, and yes!
I’ve read three of this author’s books and am stunned at how versatile he is. In one book, the back drop to his story is the history of Ireland from the 50’s to current day (The Heart’s Invisible Furies: Novel). So it’s easy to assume that he writes “historical fiction.” An excellent book, I highly recommend.
Another Boyne story focuses on a man attempting to reach the highest levels in the literary world (A Ladder to the Sky) and could be called “Boyne’s pointed thoughts about the ethics of book publishing” genre (Boyne skewers the publishing world). Also, an excellent book. Thoroughly recommend.
But right now, I’m smack in the middle of The Echo Chamber by our man, Mr. Boyne. Here the author takes on an entirely different genre. The Echo Chamber is written as a farce and very well done. In fact, the funniest line I’ve ever read in a book came from The Echo Chamber.
The main premise of the story might remind you of Schitt’s Creek: the parents are wealthy and their adult kids still live in mom and dad’s fancy diggs. The dad is a BBC famous talk show host awaiting a title from the queen, and the mom is a novelist who doesn’t write her own books, but hires someone to do the leg work.
In The Echo Chamber, Boyne mocks social media, political correctness, and the Woke culture as a whole. But even as he shines a light on our current cancel-culture, he stands solidly behind having a deep compassion for all. (He likely wrote this book in answer to his critics who took umbrage with a title of one of his books. He was 100-percent on their side and yet they went after him anyway.)
Trigger Warning (irony intended): I’m only half-way through this very fun read, so I don’t know anything about the ending, but I have heard that the turtle doesn’t make it. So proceed with caution.
If you need something light and entertaining you will love this book. ♥
Pearl Five
The secret to permanently breaking any bad habit is to love something greater than the habit.” ♥
Bryant McGill
It’s going to be an interesting weekend. For our new readers, my dad died in August and so I’m meeting my sister in California to go through my parent’s things (my mom has Alzheimer’s and is in memory care near my sister), and choose what we’d like to have. Then my sister is putting the house up for sale. Okay, this is just getting plain weird. A new family will live in our childhood home?! But, but then where will mom and dad live?! Oh, yeah. Okay, give me a minute, I’m starting to get it. Surreal stuff this getting older thing.
Traveling to CA and then back to Atlanta is a lot of time in airports and on planes. Wish me luck.
And I’d love a follow on Instagram or Facebook!
Have a wonderful weekend, All!!
♥, Wendy
P.S. Are you new to the Inspired Eater? Welcome!! This blog won’t make much sense until you first read the Aunt Bea post (and you’ll find Aunt Bea on this page to the right under my short bio). On your cell you’ll see it immediately following the first post. After you enter your email address, the Aunt Bea article will be sent to your email’s inbox. If it’s not there, you might check the spam folder. And always feel free to email me at Wendy@TheInspiredEater.com and I’ll get Aunt Bea right to you!
You know the scoop: I’m an Amazon affiliate. If you buy from a link in my post, I’ll receive money, but the arrangement won’t cost you a dime.
I am not an expert, a doctor, a surgeon, a nurse or a nutritionist: the information within TheInspiredEater.com is based solely on my personal experience and is not intended to be used as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. ♥
