Confident Eaters

Georgie: [00:00:00] I will not have any of the desserts, Hope told herself. She had taken her daughter to a birthday party at a local park. And in addition to games, balloons, and a piñata, there was a huge spread of desserts, taking up two picnic tables. There were cookies of about eight different kinds, cupcakes in both chocolate and vanilla, and Rice Krispie Treats, labeled gluten free, which had been her nemesis since elementary school bake sales.

Nope. Not gonna do it. I will not eat any of those desserts. Those are bad foods. Naughty, evil, soul corrupting sugary desserts. Must. Not. Touch. Hope made conversation with some of the other parents, standing in the grass, watching the kids play a game. One of the other parents commented she was tired of standing and went to sit at the picnic table.

Yep, she moved squarely into ground zero of the dessert zone. Three hours later, Hope was in her car, texting me with tears running down her face. Why did I [00:01:00] do it? I have eaten so many desserts. It crossed my mind. I have a lot in common with that pinata. I'm stuffed with sugar. I bet even the other parents noticed.

I feel like a pig with no self control. What happened in this situation? And how can hope and you prevent going through it again? Find out in today's episode.

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. I asked Hope to give me some more of the frame by frame, starting from sitting down at the picnic table. She told me when the first person carved out a Rice Krispie square from the glass baking dish, there was a sort of chunk hanging [00:02:00] over the side. Without even thinking, she reached out and popped it in her mouth.

Once I had done that, she said, I felt like such a screw up, like I hadn't even been there 15 minutes and I already failed. So I had another. And another. And I would walk away, but then come back. I don't even know how many I ate altogether. What became clear as she described her experience is that black and white thinking had played a starring role in the devolution of what she expected to be a pleasant afternoon.

So what exactly is black and white thinking? You may have also heard it called all or nothing thinking, or in research circles, dichotomous thinking. What we're talking about is a pattern of thinking, a way that our brains try to make sense of the world by simplifying very complex reality into two categories, good and bad.

Dichotomous thinking leads to seeing people as either all good or all bad. [00:03:00] But really, all people are a mix of traits, some of which are desirable and attractive, and some which can be weaknesses or make them difficult to deal with. And some of which aren't really a positive or negative at all. They're just things that make people unique, like being introverted or liking the color yellow.

Getting to know a person is a much more nuanced endeavor than mentally stamping them with either team good or team bad. Yet, dividing the world into good and bad categories is exactly what many of us learn to do with food. You probably first heard about dieting or eating a certain way to change your weight when you were a very young child.

And what was that early impression? Certain foods are fattening, other foods aren't. Or mom says some foods are allowed in our house and others are not allowed. This two compartment idea is an oversimplification, but it's something a young [00:04:00] child can grasp. And while it doesn't provide any understanding, it also requires very little explanation.

For tired parents who have answered 732 questions already today, or diet, quote, experts, who would like to sell you their system. Without having to actually teach you anything, the lack of explanation makes a black and white system very convenient. Fast forward to adulthood, though, and many of us are still using this black or white view of food, as well as other things.

And it gets in the way of us having a relaxed, mentally healthy relationship with food. It also gets in the way of having a healthy body for many people. When Hope arrived at the child's birthday party, she saw a bunch of foods, and her brain labeled them bad. That was where black or white thinking first struck.

After she had tasted the Rice Krispie treats, black and white thinking struck a second time. This time, it [00:05:00] labeled her whole eating experience at the party a failure. With one small action, one bite of Rice Krispie Treat, she went from success to failure. Because there's no middle ground in the world of black or white thinking. You are winning or losing.

You're perfect or you are pathetic. Your eating is 100 percent healthy or it's unhealthy. You get an A or an F. The giveaway thought here is, I blew it. Have you ever eaten something that wasn't planned or didn't meet your highest nutritional standards and then told yourself you blew it and then proceeded to eat more and more?

This thinking pattern is to blame. Not you, just this habit of your mind. Luckily, one which we can unwind and upgrade. Black and white thinking can also impact your experience of exercise. All or nothing thinking chirps up and says, if you aren't going to do an hour, you might as well not bother. Or if you [00:06:00] miss one workout on the training program, or the 30 day sit up challenge, you blew it.

There's that thought again. What's the harm in thinking that cupcakes are bad? I mean, some people out there will argue that sugar is evil, processed foods are addictive, and the only way you can ever be healthy and fit is to swear them out of your life forever. Luckily, these idealists and purists can't stand common sense, so they won't be listening to my show.

I think of them as emotional or psychological deniers, just like some people are science deniers. Actually, science is very clear that dichotomous thinking is a feature of binge eating, other eating disorders, as well as mental health conditions like anxiety and depression. It's a self defeating thinking pattern that retains some appeal because gosh, wouldn't it be nice to have an unequivocal way of seeing the world?

Wouldn't it be great to have unvarying rules and order and [00:07:00] greatly simplified decision making? I agree. When you aren't tired of thinking, thinking, thinking. Anything that reduces cognitive demand is going to feel really welcome, but you've probably been bitten by the I blew its before and experienced that it doesn't work to promote leanness or happiness.

And research would back you up. Black or white thinking characterizes unsuccessful weight loss efforts. So you have an idea of what black or white thinking is, what it sounds like in your head, and we are ready to upgrade this pattern with a new way of thinking. I'm stoked for you. Let's get into the steps.

What we need are thoughts that occupy the middle ground. We need to learn these new thoughts, like phrases in a foreign language, so that we can wedge them into that space between black and white. These are shades of gray. These thoughts are wise. They have considered all the relevant [00:08:00] factors, in contrast to the myopic, jump to labeling, narrow view of black or white thinking.

Think of these thoughts as coming from your expansive, wise, carefully considered mind. Here are some thoughts that you can practice. First, take the two separate lists in your mind of good food and bad food, crumple up the lists, and toss them in the trash. Instead, I want you to picture all the different foods in the world as if they are in the same room.

So floor to ceiling shelves. Every food you can think of is in there. You see kale, oranges, your mom's lasagna, bacon, protein bars, raspberries, yogurt, alfalfa sprouts, ice cream, fig newton's, tofu, curried, lentils, matza, ball, soup, carrots, goldfish. You get the idea. They're all in one group. It's called food.

All of these foods are available for you to eat. Now, when we [00:09:00] pick up one food from a shelf, say, the carrots, like a person, this food has a lot of characteristics. It's high in beta carotene, it's a bright orange color, it's very crunchy eaten raw, but soft after you cook it, it's low in calorie density, it does not have much protein, and It's gluten free and vegetarian.

It's a little sweet, but not like M& M's sweet. Carrots tend to be pretty low cost, compared to a lot of other fruits and veggies. They also have a long shelf life, so you could keep a bag of carrots in your fridge for weeks. And your personal feeling about the taste of carrots is just one more piece of information.

So, not good. Not bad, just carrots. Let's take another one. This time, we pick up an order of french fries. Like the carrots, we'll see this food is not good, not bad, just having certain characteristics. They're hot, which might make them really appealing on a cold day. They're higher in calorie [00:10:00] density and fat compared to the carrots.

Like carrots, they're also pretty low in protein. They're also pretty affordable. They're gluten free and vegetarian, just like carrots. They're finger foods, which is nice if you have no cutlery or want to share with your kid. But not so nice if you're wearing white gloves. And your personal feeling about the taste of french fries is one more piece of information.

Not good, not bad, just french fries. We could go through the characteristics of any food, and it will be high in some things, lower in some things. It will have a price, a texture, a temperature, and a taste. Some foods may not be comfortable to eat after you've had dental surgery. Some would be excellent or not ideal choices for a backpacking trip.

Some foods may be more appealing on a hot day or a cold day. You may like or digest some foods better than others, but it's all food, and you are allowed to eat any of it. [00:11:00] None of it is evil, and none of it makes you evil for liking, enjoying, or choosing to eat it. Now, where does this leave us if we have nutritional goals?

So remember that big room with all the foods in the world stacked on shelves? Now, I want you to imagine a large, long table, the type you would see in a medieval castle. And this represents all of the foods you eat this month. So picture what you had for breakfast this morning on one corner of the table.

And right next to it, we'll put next to it what you had for lunch today. If you had a snack in the afternoon, we'll put that on the table too. So the food accumulates as you eat, and even after a week, you can imagine there is a lot of food on this table. By the end of a month, whoa, that's why the table has to be so long.

There's no arbitrary reset or clearing of the table at midnight. It just all becomes part of the [00:12:00] picture. So you can think of your eating life as making the overall picture of food on this table support your goals. But that doesn't mean every individual food needs to. Let's say your goal is to eat a high fiber diet.

Well, we want to see on your table lots of food that's high in fiber, like beans, fruit, veggies, nuts, oatmeal. You'd be doing pretty well. But what if there's a chicken breast on the table? Oh no, that doesn't have any fiber. And what if you put a cupcake on the table? Do they still have a high fiber diet?

Yeah. If you put five cupcakes on the table of their entire month's food, it's still a high fiber diet. If you keep increasing the quantity of cupcakes, it will start to displace the beans and fruit and oatmeal. The overall picture becomes less in line with the goal of a high fiber diet. But it's not like one cupcake ruined it.

But if you tell yourself, one cupcake ruined my [00:13:00] entire month, your mind shifts your food intake from the good to the bad category, you might as well pile on more and more desserts. You end up not meeting your goals all because you believed that first lie, the lie that I blew it. And when it comes to your health, what we're talking about is much bigger than even a one month table.

It's months and months and years and years. This can help with keeping the big picture in mind. One bite or one serving of any food doesn't ruin an overall healthy eating pattern. And foods like desserts might not be high in vitamins or protein, but they do supply a crucial nutrient, enjoyment. Try these short phrases out.

Scribble them on note cards if you need some handy reminders. Foods aren't good or bad. They're just high and low in different things. Being healthy is about my overall eating picture, not one [00:14:00] meal or one day. Pretty good most of the time gets better results than intermittent perfection. I ate some extra food or not what I had planned, so now I'll go back to making decisions that support my goal.

As long as most of my decisions support my goal, I'll get there. For more help ironing out the thinking patterns and nutrition habits that you need to hit your goals, work with a coach who can personalize your practice to get you there faster. Sign up at confident eaters. com for month to month coaching with zero contract and 100 percent support.

I'm Georgie fear. I've gone from miserable overeater to confident eater, and I can tell you it's possible for you and it's so worth it. Thanks for listening. [00:15:00]