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~ When life doesn't turn out as you had hope it would – It may not be 100% factual truth-but, it is 100% me.

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Tag Archives: Treat Mentality

264.4 Victories in the Mind

09 Monday May 2016

Posted by Heather Irwin in All Posts, Seeking Health Now

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Accomplishments, Attitude, Diet, Exercise, Goals, Health, Healthy Eating, Menstrual Cycle, Menstruation, Period, perseverance, Progress, The Monster Inside, Tim Horton's, Transformed, Treat Mentality, Water Retention, weight, Weight Loss

Well, I’ve managed to weigh-in under my April goal weight. I’ve only done this once, however, as when I weighed myself this morning, I was 266.6. I’m pretty sure it will go down again and I am setting my sites on 260.

I know that I am continuously building muscle through my workouts and that will affect the #’s. What I know for sure is that I am feeling great, my clothes are getting looser and I can see the difference already when I look in the mirror.

I’m feeling really positive about it all.

I constantly find that my mindset around food as a comfort or reward is shifting.

I had some serious victories over my mindset on Sunday. We had traveled a fair distance to see my husband play flugelhorn in his concert band, but my son started to fall asleep just as we arrived, so I wandered around a mall for 45 minutes pushing his stroller. I passed a lot of ice cream shops, McD’s, New York Fries, A&W and, despite the fact it was 2:30pm and I still hadn’t eaten lunch, I didn’t give-in to any of these places.

More importantly, I didn’t actually find myself craving them at all.

I went to a shop and contemplated buying a bag of popcorn and maybe a chocolate bar as a treat, but didn’t really want them either, so left with only a diet Dr Pepper (which I had later that night and then finished this morning) and a drink to bring to my husband for his intermission.

When it came time to leave, a couple of hours later, I grabbed a grilled chicken sub (packed with veggies), mustard and on whole grain from subway. I did splurge on a toasted coconut donut from Tim Horton’s…it was Mother’s Day after all. And enjoyed those with a steeped tea and a diet soda.

Last year, I would have been enjoying a chubby chicken sandwich and fries from A&W, or a Quarter LBS combo from McD’s and ice cream, and probably even a chocolate bar and chips while watching my husband’s concert band play.

But, I just didn’t want any of it. What I did have was an “I deserve to eat something truly good and enjoyable”.

And, although I enjoyed the donut, I still found that I, actually, enjoy eating an apple or some carrot sticks even more. I love the crunch and the juiciness of these more than what the donut offered. So, maybe, the next time I consider getting a donut I’ll remind myself how it wasn’t, really, that enjoyable and I’ll opt-out.

My weekend included a lot of walking, fun playing soccer with the boys, a lot of belly laughter (it is a great ab workout, by the way) and some good rest.

I’m hoping to be around 263 by the end of this week, but as the monster inside is due to appear and the hormones will be raging, so the weight and water retention will fluctuate quite a bit. But, when I come-through the other side of the upcoming storm, that’s the number I’m hoping to see.

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269.7 Give me Sugar and No one gets hurt

20 Wednesday Apr 2016

Posted by Heather Irwin in All Posts, Seeking Health Now

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Attitude, Balance, Cravings, Diet, Diet Foods, Dieting, Dopamine, Food, Health, Healthy Eating, Joy, Motherhood, nutrition, Rewards, Snacks, Treat Mentality, Treats, Weight Loss

I was thinking this morning about weekends. Weekends are tough. For years I have been conditioned to think that weekends are the time to have the things I won’t “allow” myself to have during the week. Weekends are for treats and enjoyment. They always feel like the time to ‘let my hair down’ and “enjoy life”.

There exists in this a false idea that I’m not “enjoying life” the other 5 days/week.

And, as I thought about how to “fix” my weekends so that they didn’t become a huge splurge-fest, I realized that the best place to start is to address this mentality. Because, I love what I eat during the week as well.

I’m not “starving myself” during the week, or forcing myself to eat foods I don’t enjoy to lose weight. First of all, I don’t have enough discipline and secondly, I like pleasure too much. Quality of life is important to me. I don’t want to suffer endlessly just to be thin. That is no way to live life.

But, I enjoy my homemade green smoothies, my salads and veggies, my eggs and toast, and water and coffee. I’m not missing out on anything. I’m eating things I enjoy.

So, why do I still have this mentality tucked-away in the recesses of my brain that tells me that I deserve to splash-out on weekends because I’ve “done so well” or “sacrificed so much” during the week?

I guess it’s that old dieters mentality. When you’ve tried to lose weight for almost your entire life, you develop a certain way of thinking. Things become classified as “good” and “bad”, there are “diet foods” and “treats” or “reward foods”.

When foods are classified in our brains as “good” there is always a sub-heading. It actually reads like this: Good – But, really bad (as in disgusting, not enjoyable, lesser-than). And, the vice versa is also true: Bad – But, really good (as in tastes so incredible, the stuff you really would rather be eating).

These headings get cemented in our brains with memories as well. For example: At birthday parties we don’t bring-out a huge veggie or fruit platter and celebrate. We do it with cake and ice cream.

As a child, whenever I went to the Dentist or Doctor, of if I had a particularly bad, or good, day at school, I was given McDonald’s or a DQ Blizzard as a special treat.

Chips, chocolate, cookies, cakes, pop, candy…these were the things you were given on special occasions. They were given to celebrate, to console, to comfort and to reward. Using these treats as a reward trains our brains to classify them as ‘better’ and the foods ‘to be desired’ and all the regular food as ‘not as good’ or ‘less special’.

There are also chemical reactions certain foods have in our brains and the release of dopamine is comparable to that of drinking alcohol or consuming other. For a bit more information you can check out these sites:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200301/real-sugar-high

http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/your-brain-on-sugar?page=1

https://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2013/06/17/everything-you-need-to-know-about-sugar/

But, I have found, lately, as I have been trying to be more mindful when I am eating, that these “treats” are not really as enjoyable as they promise to be. There may be a a brief dopamine hit, but it fades and I realize that the actual food is not that enjoyable any more. However, because they are so wrapped-up in memories of rewards, a history of emotions, and the happy dopamine buzz, I want to keep eating them because I know, from memory, that they brought happiness and I’m expecting them to do it again.

I treated myself to a Boston Cream donut on the weekend and, it was ok. But really, my thoughts of it were ‘meh’-I didn’t really need that. BUT, when I had a few bites of my son’s grilled chicken wrap…YUM. That was something I truly enjoyed and I had wished I had skipped the donut and treated myself to one of those instead.

I have learned a lot watching my son, actually. We never fed him sweets or offered sugar cookies, drinks, etc. to him until recently. And, we found that he doesn’t like them. I suspect that this is because he has, since he was 4 months old, enjoyed natural foods and when we offer him the confectionery it just doesn’t taste as good. I’d like to raise him without the treat mentality. I want him to continue to be overjoyed when he sees we purchased a watermelon or cantaloupe and have zero feelings when he sees a packet of brownies. But, I have to get it right in myself first.

Therefore, on top of working on mindful eating, I am also going to be working on retraining my brain. I want to break this “treat mentality” and learn to have a healthier attitude to all foods.

 

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