Breakthrough in (nutrition) counseling today
I've been trying several new things to try to lose weight lately. I already exercise most days of the week in some form or another. I already eat a healthy diet most of the time. Yet... I am not slender. The struggle is annoying and weird and I'm trying new methods to attack it. I'm doing mindfulness (yes, I'm one of the people making Andy Puddicombe a millionaire.) I'm listening to a podcast of coaching tips (Thinner Peace in Menopause). I've hired a trainer to make me do something strenuous in the gym at least once a week. And I've hired a nutritionist to work with me for a bit. I didn't actually want to, but the Y had a program and I signed up and...
Today was our second visit. We went over my food logs and discussed my food choices. She wanted to congratulate me on my wins, but, dude, I win nearly all the time. I want to figure out why I fail on a regular basis. Because when it comes to diet, failing for 200 calories once a day is the whole game. So I'm paying a LOT of attention to when I eat things that aren't on my plan for the day. Why? What was going on?
There are two major reasons why I eat. I'm not a binge eater, I'm not "addicted" to anything (except coffee, duh) and I don't have a sweet tooth. So here's why I eat: for energy is a big one. I'm simply tired. My brain wants glucose. It's really clear when I chart it out: after Big Thinking times I'm ready to eat something carby stat. I can't go from noon to 7 without a snack. When my kids were little I'd make a smoothie with them when they got home from school. Now I am in my most productive time of the day and just work through when I ought to grab something. Strategy there is to have an acceptable snack ready to grab. I can do that. That's not the breakthrough.
The breakthrough is not that I eat for procrastination, either. I know I have to go back to Hard Thinking as soon as the meal is over, so I keep eating to be able to stay and socialize. I've done this since college, when having a second helping meant I didn't have to go back to my room and tackle my physics problem sets. I'm allowed bio-breaks, right? But the nutritionist, Vanessa, thought there was something weird in this story. She asked why I needed to EAT to stay at the table? She said in her family they hang out at the table after dinner, not clearing the plates, not putting away the food, just chatting after the meal. Her husband pushes his chair back and the dog comes over to be petted. They sometimes get out a cribbage board. They just catch up with each other.
That is NOT what it's like in my family. Food is fuel. It's a pit stop to eat. We quite commonly (especially now that the kids are grown) eat in front of the TV. When my break is over I go on to chores or back to work. So I try to extend my break by having another helping or snack on some chips or have dessert. I'm not hungry. I'm not eating any emotions. I've simply given myself permission to relax during meals, and as soon as the food is done it's Back To Work time. But I don't want to go back to work, so I do the thing that lets me delay it: I keep eating. Whoah, it would be GAME-CHANGING to be able to relax and socialize when it wasn't still my meal break.
Do other people do this? Do you finish dinner and push back in your chair and keep talking? Or pull out a cribbage board? Or move to the smoking chamber to play cards? I'm feeling like everyone else knew this and I didn't.
I'm trying to remember fun conversation around the dinner table. The moments are few and far between. Everyone scatters to their activities/chores afterwards. It's not unheard of for a cribbage game to happen, but not in the context of being part of the dinner table. On the contrary, we quite typically would have books at a meal. On our honeymoon a waitress laughed at me and B for reading while we ate dinner. We thought we were great, equally into books. But now I look back and realize that we had no idea how to have a conversation even then. I was taught to check in on the kids for how their day went. It was more of a grill and report thing than a conversation. Honestly, it sounds a bit exhausting to try to try. But the point is, you can hang out and socialize and/or read and/or watch TV and/or just chill WITHOUT it being an actual pit stop. I need to be okay with letting myself not go back to work at night if I want to lose weight. Because that food I eat because I'm procrastinating, combined with that food I'm eating to fuel my brain so I can go back to my desk: that's the 200 calories a day that need to go.
Today was our second visit. We went over my food logs and discussed my food choices. She wanted to congratulate me on my wins, but, dude, I win nearly all the time. I want to figure out why I fail on a regular basis. Because when it comes to diet, failing for 200 calories once a day is the whole game. So I'm paying a LOT of attention to when I eat things that aren't on my plan for the day. Why? What was going on?
There are two major reasons why I eat. I'm not a binge eater, I'm not "addicted" to anything (except coffee, duh) and I don't have a sweet tooth. So here's why I eat: for energy is a big one. I'm simply tired. My brain wants glucose. It's really clear when I chart it out: after Big Thinking times I'm ready to eat something carby stat. I can't go from noon to 7 without a snack. When my kids were little I'd make a smoothie with them when they got home from school. Now I am in my most productive time of the day and just work through when I ought to grab something. Strategy there is to have an acceptable snack ready to grab. I can do that. That's not the breakthrough.
The breakthrough is not that I eat for procrastination, either. I know I have to go back to Hard Thinking as soon as the meal is over, so I keep eating to be able to stay and socialize. I've done this since college, when having a second helping meant I didn't have to go back to my room and tackle my physics problem sets. I'm allowed bio-breaks, right? But the nutritionist, Vanessa, thought there was something weird in this story. She asked why I needed to EAT to stay at the table? She said in her family they hang out at the table after dinner, not clearing the plates, not putting away the food, just chatting after the meal. Her husband pushes his chair back and the dog comes over to be petted. They sometimes get out a cribbage board. They just catch up with each other.
That is NOT what it's like in my family. Food is fuel. It's a pit stop to eat. We quite commonly (especially now that the kids are grown) eat in front of the TV. When my break is over I go on to chores or back to work. So I try to extend my break by having another helping or snack on some chips or have dessert. I'm not hungry. I'm not eating any emotions. I've simply given myself permission to relax during meals, and as soon as the food is done it's Back To Work time. But I don't want to go back to work, so I do the thing that lets me delay it: I keep eating. Whoah, it would be GAME-CHANGING to be able to relax and socialize when it wasn't still my meal break.
Do other people do this? Do you finish dinner and push back in your chair and keep talking? Or pull out a cribbage board? Or move to the smoking chamber to play cards? I'm feeling like everyone else knew this and I didn't.
I'm trying to remember fun conversation around the dinner table. The moments are few and far between. Everyone scatters to their activities/chores afterwards. It's not unheard of for a cribbage game to happen, but not in the context of being part of the dinner table. On the contrary, we quite typically would have books at a meal. On our honeymoon a waitress laughed at me and B for reading while we ate dinner. We thought we were great, equally into books. But now I look back and realize that we had no idea how to have a conversation even then. I was taught to check in on the kids for how their day went. It was more of a grill and report thing than a conversation. Honestly, it sounds a bit exhausting to try to try. But the point is, you can hang out and socialize and/or read and/or watch TV and/or just chill WITHOUT it being an actual pit stop. I need to be okay with letting myself not go back to work at night if I want to lose weight. Because that food I eat because I'm procrastinating, combined with that food I'm eating to fuel my brain so I can go back to my desk: that's the 200 calories a day that need to go.