Confident Eaters

How to Eat Fewer Treats Without Going On a Diet Part 2
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Georgie: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Confident Eaters Podcast, where you get proven methods to end overeating, emotional eating, and stressing about food. We are heading for harmony between your body, food and feelings, hosted by me, Georgie Fear, and my team at Confident Eaters.

Hey everybody. Welcome to the Confident Eaters podcast. I'm Georgie and with me today is Christina Holland. Say hi, Christina.

Christina: Hey, everybody.

Georgie: So today is treat day. We are talking about treats again here at Confident Eaters headquarters,

Christina: in the prior episode about treats, we talked about evaluating your treats for worthiness. We also pointed out that not all situations are ones where a treat can be fully enjoyed.

So consider if you are driving, working, watching a movie or television, or even just highly emotional, the chances are low that you can savor every bite [00:01:00] of a tasty treat. We also touched on how FOMO or the fear of missing out can really trick us into accepting and eating more treats then we would want to be consuming in order to make progress toward weight loss goals. So a lot of our clients reached out after listening to that first episode on treats and said they found the episode helpful and could always use more strategies for managing these low nutrition foods like chips, desserts, or donuts while trying to lose weight.

Georgie: One of my clients in particular said she didn't really resonate with the worth it ness decision because all treats to her seemed worth it. And that's similar to what you said, right, Christina?

Christina: Yes, she is a friend after my own treat loving heart, it sounds like.

Georgie: So, from working with this client and evaluating various areas of her diet and exercise, I know that treats are the most productive area for us to make changes, so she can see the scale go down. We had set a goal of having one treat per day. But she hasn't had that much success at this point in [00:02:00] meeting that goal. So one way or another, we need to find ways for her to end up consuming fewer low nutrition foods, But it's important that we do it in a way that feels sustainable. So it can't be torture, it can't rely on heavy applications of willpower, and it can't make her unhappy. I asked this client to elaborate further on what goes through her mind when there are treats available. She said, there are lots of baked goods out at my work. Basically every day. If I go into the lounge for water, there'll be two boxes of doughnuts like there was today. And if I manage to get out of the room without eating one, it lives in my head. I was fascinated by her description and asked, what does it feel like to have doughnuts living in her head?

Christina: I know what she means by that. I have definitely experienced this with some things, and I've heard clients describe when that happens to them as well. They might be focusing on distracting themselves temporarily, but it's almost as if the donut is calling your name. They have competing motivations going on.

One is this desire to [00:03:00] feel better and move on, and the other is thinking about eating that donut. And it's really hard to think about your long term goals when you've seen and smelled the donut. Our brains are really good at imagining things, so if it's already desirable, it's not difficult to think about how it would taste, too.

Like, we've smelled it, we've seen it, it's on the brain.

Georgie: Mhmm, yeah. I think a lot of people, even if they pull their attention away, it's like it goes back like a moth to the flame. It's Oh, donut call in my name. And that fantasizing about how delicious it would taste and, oh, that melty mouthfeel of powdered sugar. Is what we call cognitive elaboration. It's basically fantasizing about a food and the sensory experience you imagine having with it.

Christina: I remember reading about this in your book Give Yourself More, Georgie. People who have a lot of cravings tend to do a lot of cognitive elaboration, and it actually makes the craving more intense and causes it to persist longer.

Georgie: Bingo,

Christina: Something that has worked well for my [00:04:00] clients is to sort of shut down that fantasizing and get their mind off of food as quickly as they can and onto anything else.

It isn't exactly easy, but it does help. Finding out that their attention and fantasizing only makes the craving stronger is usually eye opening for the folks that we talk to.

Georgie: Agreed. A lot of times people seem to think that when they have a craving, there's nothing they can do about it other than resist it or give in. But actually the amount of attention that you're giving it is really influential on if it stays strong or grows in strength or just dwindles and dies. Especially if this food is in front of you, I know that it takes mental muscle to choose something else which you want to give your attention to and disengage from the baked goods. The best option, if you can, is to get them out of your sight, leave the room, put tinfoil over the baked goods at home, or sit facing away from the buffet or dessert table.

Christina: So how did it work out with your client? Was it easier for her to do better with the [00:05:00] one treat a day?

Georgie: Well, we did one more thing at the same time. So after we covered the eviction of the fantasy donut from her head, I asked about what other thoughts would go through her mind in the space of time between first seeing the donuts and then choosing to eat it. And she said, I'll just have one, was one of the thoughts.

Christina: Ah, yes, the classic, I'll just have one and get it out of my system.

Georgie: Right, that's one of the most common. One isn't so bad.

Christina: So typically the next step when it comes to sabotaging thoughts is to write the thought down and then discuss whether it's true or not, which is what we normally do with clients.

Georgie: Yep.

Christina: And it's almost never true.

Georgie: Yeah, practically zero percent of the time, I'll just have one, is not followed by actually having one. So, we came up with responses to that thought, which were more truthful. And they sound like Okay, if I have one, I will probably want another one. Historically, I have always wanted another one, so I should bear that [00:06:00] difficulty in mind. Or if I really want to have just one donut, I can wait until the end of the day and take one while walking out the door. The last thing I did with this client was ask her for the pros and cons of eating the donut and the pros and cons of choosing not to. This can be incredibly revealing of somebody's mindset about a topic. So we know the main pro doughnut reason already, the taste. She was really in touch with the pro sides of treats. She rattled that off very quickly. The doughnut tastes good, it makes me happy, it's a break from the day. Treats make her think of positive things overwhelmingly, and she brought up that it also appealed to her lifelong weakness for free food. This dates back to a time when money wasn't readily available for her, like it is for most of us in college, and free food is something to be taken advantage of. But even now, when decades have passed, and money is not an issue for her, she can plenty afford to feed herself and her family, there's still that value [00:07:00] creaking in her ear, like, don't pass up free food, don't pass up free food. So, we talked briefly about updating the value system. The cons, I asked, what are those? And she listed off cardiovascular disease, cancer, too much sugar, my insulin levels. I waited. She actually didn't have any more to say. And I said, how about your weight? She looked a bit surprised and said, oh yeah. Now, this client's number one goal is weight loss.

She has hired me to help her lose weight. This is the most important factor for her in her nutrition coaching. But that goal didn't even cross her mind when there was a donut in view. That's really telling about why she hardly ever turned down treats. Her goal wasn't making itself known in her ear like, hey, don't forget about me. Now, I don't want to have people focus on the negative aspects of food all the time. That can make eating, activity laden with fear, but I did want her to have some strong, solid reasoning behind potentially choosing not to have the [00:08:00] donut. So we went over her goals again and why they mattered to her. And I asked her to envision the choice between eating the donut or walking away from the donut as choosing between two different but desirable things. There's tasty food on the left. That's cool. And on the right, the other option, you take a step closer to your desired goals to be lighter and run faster up hills. You get to feel in control and confident that you and not the baked goods in your vicinity are choosing what goes into your body. So there's good stuff on the left or the right that can help with evening out the decision.

Christina: I also like the idea of revisiting those goals with clients because sometimes we lose sight of what we're doing and why we're doing it. And, I definitely have had clients who wanted to shortcut the decisions and make them simple. Like instead of weighing the pros and cons each time, it's maybe someone is out there thinking that sounds like a lot of work.

But one way to do that is to pre [00:09:00] commit or pre decide about treats. So if you're aiming for one treat per day and you already ate it, then there's really no debate over other potential desserts. You just tell yourself that it's just a no.

Some other clients have created personal policies that help them. Like I only buy one box of Girl Scout cookies, no stockpiling, or I only drink wine when I'm enjoying the company of friends, not just home alone and bored.

Georgie: An "I don't eat treats at work" personal policy has been really popular among my clients. I mean, most of them are somewhat stressed in their work environment anyway, so they aren't mindfully enjoying treats..

Christina: yeah, agree with that. I've definitely had clients who could benefit from that personal policy because especially doctors we work with, I've noticed there's always donuts or something happening in medical offices.

Georgie: Yeah, my client in the above example is a doctor. Hospitals are the worst.

Christina: Yeah, it's interesting, right? But if you are normally stressed or rushed, especially at work, you're not necessarily [00:10:00] in a state of mindfulness and joy, you know? So it's important to consider. I like that policy.

Georgie: it also can be problematic at work. And we've had a lot of clients who either initiated binges at work or just had them at work regularly. Because not only is there tasty food that's free, it also is more attractive than doing the spreadsheet or whatever, you know, grinding task you're at at 3 p.

m. So, telling yourself, like, I'm just not gonna eat treats at work can not only save people from, you know, Overeating. It can help them be a little bit more efficient with just staying on task.

Christina: and then if someone is thinking like, well, that sounds like a food rule, what would you say to them? How is this different?

Georgie: I am a stickler about words and the power behind them. So I think of these as personal policies. Now, if it's a personal policy, I could change it anytime I want.

Christina: Right, right.

Georgie: But it's something that I've recognized through experience, keeps me in a happier place. So, I'll often talk about them as guardrails. Like, guardrails, technically you can drive [00:11:00] your car through a guardrail,

Christina: Mm hmm.

Georgie: but it's generally going to keep you on the area of the road that you want to be driving on in the first place.

So usually they're doing you a favor. So, personal policies like, I don't eat chocolate when I'm crying. Because clearly I'm upset and I'm not paying attention. Those sort of things tend to just be helpful. So I do emphasize that they're personal. There's something that we have identified helps us sort of having a system. It's not a rule that's imposed by your coach, a book, or, you know, the latest guru on the Internet.

Christina: Yeah, I think that's a really helpful example and word picture. Another strategy that I want to share with listeners is to consider keeping some low nutrition foods truly for special occasions. And what I mean by this is don't have them every day. If you eat the same treat very often, it's just not that special anymore and you don't get the same spark of pleasure from eating it.

Decide on your feel good frequency. And maybe that is for [00:12:00] you, it's once per week, or once every two weeks, or even once a month. By all means, have some treats which you enjoy more often, but it can enhance the experience to keep some things that are just special. If you're like me and you want to celebrate all the things, go ahead and celebrate your pants off. But save the special foods for one of the celebrations that week. The other days you might celebrate with other things like balloons or flowers, dancing, hugs, small gifts, or home decor, like holiday lights.

We definitely are not encouraging creating a joyless experience punctuated by good things. We want good things all the time, and extra awesome things once in a while. Maybe you make air fryer fries at home, but if you really love McDonald's fries, perhaps once a week you stop at McDonald's. Maybe you like a couple squares of chocolate as your after dinner sweet and do that daily, but you and the kids all get ice cream cones when you visit the beach as a family tradition.

So the ice cream is a [00:13:00] bit more special, a bit more spaced out than the everyday treat.

Georgie: I've seen this tactic used successfully to help people with tasks that they tend to put off, you know, in particular cardio. So people who are just not super energized every day to get on the treadmill or hop on their Peloton bike, sometimes saving an audio book. Or a podcast that you don't let yourself listen to, unless you're doing that task can really help improve your motivation to hop on the bike.

I know if I have a book going that I really want to listen to, I would probably do a lot of things to be able to hear what happens in the next chapter.

Christina: Yeah. I've actually read about this from behavior change books and research and I think it's called temptation bundling and it's when you do something you want to do with a thing that you're not excited to do and they studied real people with like, what if we give you this audio book and then you have to go to the gym and get on the treadmill.

And the example they [00:14:00] use is Mary Poppins with a spoonful of sugar

helps the medicine go down. It's like. What can we do? We don't have to use real sugar since we're trying to reduce treats, but maybe you're adding something that's more pleasant to pair with. Like, I like to fold laundry in front of the TV while I watch Survivor or something, you know.

I don't love folding laundry, but it's just a way to make the task more pleasant.

Georgie: I have a playlist that I only listen to during exercise and I didn't create it with the intention of temptation bundling to get myself to exercise, but it's become so conditioned together that, you know, when I hear that music, I'm ready to go. And if I get in the car to go to a race, I usually put that playlist on.

So it very much gets me in the mood and in the right state of mind to feel energetic and go be active.

Christina: Fun. I like it.

Georgie: It definitely helps to remember not all treats are created equal in terms of impacting your weight. If you go from having a large piece of pie every night to [00:15:00] having a medium cookie, that's still technically one treat a day, but it is going to be a big difference in helping somebody lose weight. We're not fans of calorie counting, in that we never advise limiting your total food intake to hit a certain ceiling of calories. But, taking a look at the calories in the treats that you tend to eat can help you with making decisions regarding frequency. You might decide that the higher calorie items are going to be the ones you eat on special occasions or less frequently, and the ones which are satisfying in smaller portions are a better fit for every day.

Christina: All right, Georgie, so we got to know what happened with your client.

Georgie: Well, this was pretty recent, but in the week after we went through the sabotaging thought of, I'll only have one, we talked about stopping that cognitive elaboration and considering the pros and cons of that. Of eating each treat she offered, she had much more success the following week with having one treat a day. And her weight [00:16:00] went down several pounds from making that one change, giving her a renewed sense that she could in fact, lose weight. One of the things that she said was now that my weight actually went down, suddenly some treats seem worth it or not worth it. And I said, so two weeks ago, all treats seemed worth it, but now some don't.

And she said, yeah, now it seems like they aren't worth stopping my weight loss.

Christina: I guess what it took was a taste of that success to see that bypassing some treat opportunities really did have positive payoffs. So she just needed to give herself the chance to experiment with it a little bit.

Georgie: Exactly. You know, that first bit of tangible results from a behavior can be really powerful in making us want to continue it.

Christina: Yeah well, I think that's all we have for you today, dear listeners. Thanks for letting us join you on the journey to become a confident, sensible eater. What other questions do you have for us ? Maybe it's a question about treats or something else. Drop us a line. You can swing by confident eaters. [00:17:00] com for more resources and support, and we'll see you next time. ​