I have a Cheez-It problem. You're not listening, I really have
a Cheez-It problem! I have never met a Cheez-It I didn't like.*
Some people can't resist chocolate or ice cream, some people it's
pizza or some other food or sweet. While I enjoy all of those
foods on occasion, Cheez-It's are the food equivalent of crack
cocaine for me.
It takes all my willpower to pass up the isle where the Cheez-
It's reside on the shelves at my local grocery store. My ever-
loving girl friend Kimberly rolls her eyes at me in shear disgust
when she sees how weak I am to the power of these little
crackers, which draw me in like a cheese flavored black hole.
'But you have given advice on nutrition to millions of people
Will, how could you of all people be so weak willed about some
little cheese flavored cracker?!? she says. I hang my head in
shame and avoid eye contact with her for the rest of the day'.
The point of this introduction is to point out we all have our
weaknesses and we are all human'even me. I find Cheez-It's to be
cheese flavored morphine!
This small problem got me to thinking. If there is one thing I
have learned after all these years of doing nutritional research,
writing countless articles on the topic of nutrition, and working
directly with people on their diets, it's this: it's rarely one
single thing a person does that is sabotaging their efforts to
lose fat and or gain muscle, but a bunch of little things that
have an accumulated effect.
There are some amazingly simple behaviors and strategies we can
all add to our nutritional goals and workout plans that will have
a positive effect. Using my own addiction to Cheez-It's as the
primary example, I am going to cover a few of these surprisingly
simple yet effective strategies. A few issues to keep in mind:
(1) Taken alone, these simple tactics will have very little
effect. Used alone without any other dietary changes and an
exercise plan, these strategies wont amount to much. However, as
I mentioned, it's often many minor mistakes adding up to a lack
of results for people, and taken in that context, these are some
simple mistakes that can be avoided, hopefully resulting in an
accumulated effect in a positive direction.
(2) I didn't invent any of these tips. They are some of the
oldest and simplest tips you will ever read. I don't even know
who first came up with them, and I bet most people have seen
these strategies in other places, such as various diet books,
articles, or web sites. I do however think that they may be so
old and so simple that most people with the best of intentions
about their nutrition and exercise plan, don't follow these
simple concepts.
These tips are more about behavior changes and psychology then
nutritional science, study results, or research. I have written
many articles based on the later topics, but this is not one of
those. If you are looking for more in-depth science oriented
information about nutrition, supplements, and fat loss or gaining
muscle, I suggest reading my ebooks on the topic and the many
free article on my web site.
Tip #1: Never Ever Go Food Shopping Hungry
This is one of the most effective strategies I know of to avoid
unwanted junk and various snacks from finding their way into your
shopping cart, which ends up in your home, which ends up on your
butt!
Make sure to eat something before you go food shopping and you
will be able to resist the junk that often finds its way into
your cart. If I go food shopping without a good meal in my
stomach, I often come home with a family sized box of Cheez-It's
and feel like sh*& for days after eating the entire box!
Human hunger and appetite are regulated by a phenomenally
complicated set of overlapping feedback networks, involving a
long list of hormones, psychological factors, and others way
beyond the scope of this article. Suffice to say, we often make
snap decisions and impulse purchases with certain foods due to
one or more of these feedback loops being activated due to an
empty stomach while we shop.
Translated, your 'willpower' to resist junk foods will be much
greater if you eat something healthy at least 20-30 minutes
before you go food shopping. You can either plan your meal
schedule so that one meal is eaten before you go shopping, or
have a snack (at least 20-30 minutes before shopping) which will
have the desired effects.
A yogurt with some flax oil mixed in is a good choice, as is a
half cup of cottage cheese and a handful of walnuts or some other
nut. A protein shake or MRP will suffice, but solid food tends to
be more satiating.
Tip # 2: Never Keep Snack Foods In The House
This tip is a logical extension of tip number one. If it does not
make it into your cart at the food store, it's not in your house.
However, many people use excuses like 'I have snack foods for the
kids' or 'my spouse keeps a box of Oreo cookies in the kitchen
cupboard' as reasons they can't avoid the snacks that sneak into
their diets and sabotage their efforts.
Many of the foods we eat that we know we should not be eating are
based on an impulse. Impulse control goes a long way here but no
one will deny it's far harder to resist that impulse if your
favorite junk food is under your nose. That's human nature. When
I have an impulse for some Cheez-it's, I wont resist it well if
it's only a few steps to the kitchen vs. having to get in the car
to go get a box.
The former I can't resist, the latter I can. Remember an impulse
is defined as 'a sudden desire, urge, inclination.' That means
it's short lived and will go away given sufficient time, so it's
a matter of not having foods in your house that allow you to act
on the impulse while it lasts.
As for the excuse of the spouse, kids, etc. That is more an issue
between your kids and or your spouse. Should the kids be eating
that stuff anyway' No! I had a client tell me one day 'I keep
eating hot dogs 'cause I keep them in the house fort the kids.' I
said 'so you're Ok with feeding your kids foods you know to be
unhealthy for you and them?' She stopped feeding her family hot
dogs shortly after'.
...Bottom line here is, those foods should be occasional treats
for both kids and adults, not staple foods that can be found in
your kitchen. It's more an issue of teaching the kids good
dietary habits young so they don't end up overweight unhealthy
adults.
As for the spouse, I like to have some chips in the house, which
I can resist without a problem. That is, unlike the Cheez-it's, I
can walk past the chips without having to eat them all. I can
regulate myself with them. However, Kimberly can't. Chips are to
her what Cheez-it's are to me, so I make it a rule not to keep
chips in the house.
Point being, your spouse needs to support your efforts by making
some small sacrifices. If you were an alcoholic trying to avoid
alcohol, you would (or at least should!) expect your significant
other to not keep booze in the house. If they wont support your
efforts here, then relationship counseling is in order or a long
talk, and I can't help you there; sorry!
Tip # 3: Eat Off Of Smaller Plates
The first two tips are common sense, this one is less so.
However, I find it helps, albeit not to a great extent. Again,
how much we eat is based on many variables. One of them is the
visual cues we get looking at the food we are about to eat. We
are extremely visually oriented creatures and part of deciding
how large an object is must be compared to other objects, in this
case, the food we put on the plate in comparison to the size of
the plate we put the food on. Some of you may remember this
little visual test from grade school.
Looking at these two horizontal lines below, which one is longer?
[image]
http://thephantomwriters.com/client-img/Brink-OpticalTest.png
Answer: both lines are identical in length. As you can see, the
bottom "plate" looks longer then top "plate", yet they are the
same length. It's a visual illusion that shows how our brains are
set up to interpret certain visual cues. It is my experience that
people will put less food on their plate if they eat from smaller
plates as a smaller plate full of food looks like much more to
eat then a large plate with the same amount of food on it.
I know for myself I tend to put 2 slices of pizza on a small
plate and three on a large plate! Now this is only one minor cue
we have to self regulating how much food we eat, and other
feedback loops (i.e., hormonal, psychological, etc.) can kick in
and easily offset this strategy.
For example, you could simply come back for a second helping
using the smaller plates. However, it's my hunch (and it's only a
hunch as research is lacking here) that over the course of say a
month, a person may end up taking in fewer total calories using
this strategy as has been my (admittedly anecdotal) experience
with both myself and the many people I have given advice to over
the years.
Again, as already mentioned, taken alone, this strategy will
probably have no effects on your efforts to lose fat if there is
not a specific diet and exercise plan involved in the overall
equation. It is however one simple small change that may improve
compliancy to your efforts. It would be interesting to see a
study on this, but whatever effects it may have, would be subtle
and fairly small I suspect. Even so, over the course of a year
say, it may help.
Tip #4: Know Thy Self
Lesson here is, we are all human and we all have our weaknesses.
Trick is to know your weakness and develop strategies for coping
with them. How well do you know yourself' That is, do you know
what cues/triggers tend to set you off' Have you examined that
issue for yourself' It's essential to recognized the cues that
sabotage your efforts. We all have them. Find yours and take
steps to avoid them where possible.
For example, try making a list outlining the things you know tend
to set you off and how you react to the, then add a column for
how you could deal with it. For example you might write 'talking
to my crazy mother makes me anxious and I eat things I shouldn't
immediately after the phone conversation' which would be followed
by a suggestion of steps to change it, such as 'always eat a meal
right before talking to mom' and 'only take calls from mom when I
am ready and able to deal with her' and 'go for a walk
immediately after talking to mom to distress and give me time to
get over impulse to eat junk' and so on.
Develop coping strategies to your known triggers. I know for
example going food shopping on an empty stomach means I will most
probably end up with a large box of Cheez-it's in my house. I
have also found if I go shopping irritated over something I will
buy more foods I don't need as food is one of many ways we self
medicate looking for some comfort. Hence the term 'comfort foods'
which is commonly chocolate, ice cream, and so on.
Bottom line:
* Learn what your hot buttons are that lead to a negative
behavior
* Learn to identify when it's happening
* Develop strategies for coping with it.
How do you go about doing that' As entire books have been written
on that topic, my advice will fall short here. That journey is
also highly individual. For some it's working with a therapist or
behavioral specialist, for some it's reading a few good self-help
type books, and for some it's activities such as meditation,
joining support groups, and others. It's also a life long
journey.
Conclusion
The purpose of this article is not as much to supply tips for
success in your fat loss endeavors but to actually remind people
of what is stated in the intro to this article: most people fail
in their fat loss/diet goals not due to a single mistake they are
making (with exceptions) but many small events that have an
accumulated effect that sabotages their efforts. If the tips in
this article help, all the better.
Some people are amazed how many extra calories slip into their
diet from snack foods that they are not accounting for, or the
fact they tend to take the elevator when they could take the
stairs, and so on. 99 out of 100 times the person that says 'I
have tried everything and nothing works' actually translates into
'I have not stayed on any one plan long enough for it to have an
effect and sabotaged it with small unaccounted for negative
habits and behaviors.' Now, if I can just get the funding for
that adult Cheez-it rehab center I want to have built'.
* Cheez-It's are a cheese flavored cracker made by Sunshine
foods and can be found on the shelves of any major food
store in the US.
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